‘A wealthy social class of a particular type of neurodivergence dominates the culture. Many people formally or informally identify on the autism spectrum. Openness to new experiences is high, and mind-altering drugs are common and popular. Akin to royal courts of the past, exclusive events are where deals are made and new companies are founded. It creates an environment that can be extremely fun and stimulating, but also dangerous and unaccountable. With drugs, parties, overflowing testosterone, a lack of communication skills, and blindness to social cues, consent violations happen easily and frequently.’
As a man with an Asperger’s Diagnosis from childhood, who is quite visibly autistic*, and not in tech, I feel kind of in two minds about whether I object to this passage.
On the one hand, sadly, I do suspect that it is in fact true that men with autism are more likely to commit sexual assault**. And I generally lean on the side of people saying stuff that is true and relevant, even if it is a bit non-PC, so it’d be kind of hypocritical for me to condemn the authors outright.
On the other hand, this is, effectively, an attack on a minority that already (in most contexts) faces a lot of bullying ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603116.2014.981602) and hostility. (I suspect some of the hostility may in some sense be a reasonable response to how we behave but I doubt all of it is.) I also suspect we face higher rates of workplace discrimination, though from quick googling I wasn’t able to find a high-quality looking study measuring this directly, as opposed to a lot of poor-quality looking papers asserting this was a known fact and then measuring a different but related thing. (Again, I admit that the line between “discrimination” and “people reasonably reacting to autistic behaving badly” can get blurry, but I doubt this accounts for all discrimination.) And it’s an attack being presented in passing without any supporting statistical evidence being cited whatsoever. Imagine if you experienced things like articles coming out in scientific journals about how everyone instantly dislikes you and there’s nothing you can do about it (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/), or read things that made you realize you (probably) weren’t just being paranoid when you thought people automatically narrowed circles you were standing in to exclude you at social and professional events https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/10/on-being-a-philosopher-with-autism.html. And then suddenly you had people planting the idea you were more likely to be rapists on the public forum of the social movement you are involved in. It is quite distressing.
I don’t know if I think the authors should have left it out. But I’d at least like people to discuss this sensitively, and remember that for me, the quoted passage is not just a bit of sociological scene-setting before we move on to the important stuff. It’s more like a reminder of the reasons why in grad school I told one of the people writing a reference for me “no, don’t say that my stimming doesn’t get in the way of my teaching, because I’m scared that if people hear I’m on the spectrum, they’ll assume I’m a high sexual harassment risk”.
*I.e. I stim (https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/stimming) visibly enough that drunks in bars have assumed I’m learning disabled and in need of a minder, I’ve been verbally mocked in the street for my body language, and also in one case a bunch of German lads on a night out in a bar in Kreuzberg came over to mock me for rocking back and forth and got really quite menacing.
**I’m less confident this extends to the kind of deliberate, planned predation this post discusses elsewhere, as opposed to simply ignoring boundaries in the moment.
Speaking of autism, this article mentions some characteristics of autistic women that seem potentially relevant:
Sensory sensitivity. People with autism experience the world in a different way than neurotypical people, and many women with autism experience intense sensory sensitivity. They may have a heightened sense of awareness when it comes to smells, light, sounds, and touch.
For someone with autism, it’s not just a matter of “not liking” certain things; it’s a sense of being unable to tolerate them.
...
Emotional regulation issues and meltdowns. Women with autism often have problems with emotional regulation. Research has shown that there is a poor connection between the frontal cortex and the amygdala in people with autism.4 Put simply, the amygdala can be thought of as an “emotion centre” in our brain, as it’s part of our limbic system and our mammalian brain. The frontal cortex can be thought of as our “thinking brain,” the more rational part of our brain which makes judgments.
Because of the poor connection between the two areas, women with autism may find it hard to rationalise situations and stay in control. Many describe having meltdowns: extreme emotional reactions to situations that might result in losing their temper, crying, or going into shutdown mode.
...
Anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression are not universal symptoms of autism. But because life is difficult for many women with autism, it is common for them to experience mental health issues like anxiety, depression, or problems with addiction. There is also a far higher than average rate of suicidality in women with autism, which appears to be related to the degree of camouflaging they engage in.5 Though their autism goes undiagnosed, it is more likely that they will receive a formal diagnosis for anxiety, depression or another mental health issue.
I think autistic men and women have a lot to contribute to the EA movement.
It seems to me that we should be especially protective towards autistic women, as they’re a potentially vulnerable population. In particular, I hypothesize that autistic women might experience e.g. sensory overload from unpleasant social interactions that neurotypical women would evade or brush off.
OP mentions that 90% of autistic women report being sexually assaulted. A quick Google suggests the number for neurotypical women is substantially lower. There is a lot of uncertainty in my mind regarding the cause of this disparity. It could be that autistic women are targeted by predators; it could be that autistic women experience a “sexual assault” level of trauma from a broader set of interactions; it could be some combination.
In any case, I like almost all the autistic women I’ve met, and it upsets me that they’re disproportionately suffering. I think it would be good if EAs took a protective attitude towards a vulnerable population which, IMO, has a lot to contribute.
This is very insightful. I can think of a few reasons why autistic women may be more vulnerable to sexual abuse:
Autistic women may be more isolated from protective informal networks with other women that could warn them or help them make sense of their relational experiences.
In general, they may be less communicative about “touchy-feely” things like intimate interactions, making it more difficult to analyze them.
They may gravitate towards fields and environments that are male-dominated and contain strong power gradients (in finance, engineering, AI, etc).
They may be less alert to people’s hidden motives.
Due to their neurological wiring, the intensity of the experience may cause them to “leave their bodies”, making it impossible to react quickly or fight back. This can mistakenly cause the man to allege consent, especially if he’s used to passive intimate partners.
The overload of the experience may make it more difficult to process it afterward, too. Women have reported prolonged periods of confusion, dissociation from their bodies, and a sense of horror without being able to clearly articulate the crime.
Many people on the autism spectrum have experienced punishments and shaming for violating social norms from early childhood, leading to insecurity about expressing themselves. This makes it harder to confidently express their preferences in intimidating or manipulative situations.
The same threat about violating social norms keeps them quiet afterwards, too. One woman reported that after she disclosed her spectrum identity, she was told by a rationalist “community council” member that she would violate a social norm if she named her abuser.
Thank you for your comment. I understand promoting narratives that autistic men may be more likely to be sexual predators is deeply unfair and encourages neurotype discrimination (and tracks alongside some racism narratives).
That said, I don’t think this post is saying that, nor is that the point of the post. I think it’s pointing that this has historically correlated with risk factors for all genders. I have also seen (usually wealthy, high status) men use autism as an excuse for boundary violating behavior (they may not even be autistic in the first place, lol).
I would love to find a way to talk about this that does not unfairly condemn non-predatory autistic men.
Thanks for being kind. I regret commenting at all to be honest.
EDIT: That is, I regret commenting because I actually agree that it is more important people attend to the issues raised by the post than that they worry about the one paragraph that was bothering me.
I want to make clear that I’m not saying that people on the autism spectrum are more prone to being sexual assailants (I don’t know of any statistics on this), but they experience sexual victimhood more often (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.852203/full). From the comments I understand that it comes across that way, and I will think about how to rephrase it—open to suggestions.
I am glad you raised this point. I am not a neuropsychologist so please treat this comment with a low level of confidence. Anecdotally, I have heard multiple times of psychologists wrongly diagnosing people as being on the Autism spectrum when really those patients were narcissists. For instance, someone with Asperger may violate social conventions because they don’t understand them. Someone with narcissism may violate social conventions because although they understand them, they don’t care or they actually enjoy the transgression. Someone with Asperger will have affective empathy but lower cognitive empathy so it may look like they don’t care about others suffering. A narcissist may truly not care about someone else’s suffering. I think it tends to especially the case for covert narcissism (also called vulnerable narcissism) because some of the behaviors are very similar. I may be wrong but I doubt that Asperger people are more prone to being sexual assailants. However, I believe narcissists certainly are more prone to it, and they would be the type to pretend to be neuro-atypical in order to justify their behaviors. I think this is terrible because it probably has the adverse effect of creating fear of people with Aspergers, who in my opinion don’t deserve this reputation.
Thank you for this clarification. I’m not saying that people on the autism spectrum are more prone to being sexual assailants (I don’t know of any statistics on this), but they experience sexual victimhood more often (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.852203/full). From the comments I understand that it comes across that way, and I will think about how to rephrase it—open to suggestions.
I suspect some of the hostility may in some sense be a reasonable response to how we behave but I doubt all of it is.
You say “we”, but from my personal acquaintance with you I would definitely not put you in one group with the attackers this post is about, and I’ll emphasise that you don’t deserve any hostility.
I have not been to the Bay Area as an adult, so I can only guess about what’s going on there. But trying to extrapolate my experiences in, say, Sci-Fi conventions, I think the (relevant aspect of the) problem is people who use autism—many times without an actual diagnosis—as an excuse to dismiss their actions’ effects on others.
This is correct, thank you for bringing it up. One woman reported that even a person in CEA leadership made excuses for sexual transgressors on the basis of their neurodivergence.
I am not referring to the attackers mentioned in the post when I say “we” there, but to people with autism as a whole, when speculating about why we might receive a higher rate of bullying and hostility across society as a whole.
We have found it relevant to describe the population characteristics. Reportedly nine out of ten autistic women have been victims of sexual violence. If you haven’t been raped, haven’t raped anyone, don’t know anyone who was raped, and don’t have empathy for victims (autistic or not), then this post probably isn’t for you and it isn’t about you.
‘A wealthy social class of a particular type of neurodivergence dominates the culture. Many people formally or informally identify on the autism spectrum. Openness to new experiences is high, and mind-altering drugs are common and popular. Akin to royal courts of the past, exclusive events are where deals are made and new companies are founded. It creates an environment that can be extremely fun and stimulating, but also dangerous and unaccountable. With drugs, parties, overflowing testosterone, a lack of communication skills, and blindness to social cues, consent violations happen easily and frequently.’
As a man with an Asperger’s Diagnosis from childhood, who is quite visibly autistic*, and not in tech, I feel kind of in two minds about whether I object to this passage.
On the one hand, sadly, I do suspect that it is in fact true that men with autism are more likely to commit sexual assault**. And I generally lean on the side of people saying stuff that is true and relevant, even if it is a bit non-PC, so it’d be kind of hypocritical for me to condemn the authors outright.
On the other hand, this is, effectively, an attack on a minority that already (in most contexts) faces a lot of bullying ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603116.2014.981602) and hostility. (I suspect some of the hostility may in some sense be a reasonable response to how we behave but I doubt all of it is.) I also suspect we face higher rates of workplace discrimination, though from quick googling I wasn’t able to find a high-quality looking study measuring this directly, as opposed to a lot of poor-quality looking papers asserting this was a known fact and then measuring a different but related thing. (Again, I admit that the line between “discrimination” and “people reasonably reacting to autistic behaving badly” can get blurry, but I doubt this accounts for all discrimination.) And it’s an attack being presented in passing without any supporting statistical evidence being cited whatsoever. Imagine if you experienced things like articles coming out in scientific journals about how everyone instantly dislikes you and there’s nothing you can do about it (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/), or read things that made you realize you (probably) weren’t just being paranoid when you thought people automatically narrowed circles you were standing in to exclude you at social and professional events https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/10/on-being-a-philosopher-with-autism.html. And then suddenly you had people planting the idea you were more likely to be rapists on the public forum of the social movement you are involved in. It is quite distressing.
I don’t know if I think the authors should have left it out. But I’d at least like people to discuss this sensitively, and remember that for me, the quoted passage is not just a bit of sociological scene-setting before we move on to the important stuff. It’s more like a reminder of the reasons why in grad school I told one of the people writing a reference for me “no, don’t say that my stimming doesn’t get in the way of my teaching, because I’m scared that if people hear I’m on the spectrum, they’ll assume I’m a high sexual harassment risk”.
*I.e. I stim (https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/stimming) visibly enough that drunks in bars have assumed I’m learning disabled and in need of a minder, I’ve been verbally mocked in the street for my body language, and also in one case a bunch of German lads on a night out in a bar in Kreuzberg came over to mock me for rocking back and forth and got really quite menacing.
**I’m less confident this extends to the kind of deliberate, planned predation this post discusses elsewhere, as opposed to simply ignoring boundaries in the moment.
Speaking of autism, this article mentions some characteristics of autistic women that seem potentially relevant:
I think autistic men and women have a lot to contribute to the EA movement.
It seems to me that we should be especially protective towards autistic women, as they’re a potentially vulnerable population. In particular, I hypothesize that autistic women might experience e.g. sensory overload from unpleasant social interactions that neurotypical women would evade or brush off.
OP mentions that 90% of autistic women report being sexually assaulted. A quick Google suggests the number for neurotypical women is substantially lower. There is a lot of uncertainty in my mind regarding the cause of this disparity. It could be that autistic women are targeted by predators; it could be that autistic women experience a “sexual assault” level of trauma from a broader set of interactions; it could be some combination.
In any case, I like almost all the autistic women I’ve met, and it upsets me that they’re disproportionately suffering. I think it would be good if EAs took a protective attitude towards a vulnerable population which, IMO, has a lot to contribute.
This is very insightful. I can think of a few reasons why autistic women may be more vulnerable to sexual abuse:
Autistic women may be more isolated from protective informal networks with other women that could warn them or help them make sense of their relational experiences.
In general, they may be less communicative about “touchy-feely” things like intimate interactions, making it more difficult to analyze them.
They may gravitate towards fields and environments that are male-dominated and contain strong power gradients (in finance, engineering, AI, etc).
They may be less alert to people’s hidden motives.
Due to their neurological wiring, the intensity of the experience may cause them to “leave their bodies”, making it impossible to react quickly or fight back. This can mistakenly cause the man to allege consent, especially if he’s used to passive intimate partners.
The overload of the experience may make it more difficult to process it afterward, too. Women have reported prolonged periods of confusion, dissociation from their bodies, and a sense of horror without being able to clearly articulate the crime.
Many people on the autism spectrum have experienced punishments and shaming for violating social norms from early childhood, leading to insecurity about expressing themselves. This makes it harder to confidently express their preferences in intimidating or manipulative situations.
The same threat about violating social norms keeps them quiet afterwards, too. One woman reported that after she disclosed her spectrum identity, she was told by a rationalist “community council” member that she would violate a social norm if she named her abuser.
Thank you for your comment. I understand promoting narratives that autistic men may be more likely to be sexual predators is deeply unfair and encourages neurotype discrimination (and tracks alongside some racism narratives).
That said, I don’t think this post is saying that, nor is that the point of the post. I think it’s pointing that this has historically correlated with risk factors for all genders. I have also seen (usually wealthy, high status) men use autism as an excuse for boundary violating behavior (they may not even be autistic in the first place, lol).
I would love to find a way to talk about this that does not unfairly condemn non-predatory autistic men.
Thanks for being kind. I regret commenting at all to be honest.
EDIT: That is, I regret commenting because I actually agree that it is more important people attend to the issues raised by the post than that they worry about the one paragraph that was bothering me.
I want to make clear that I’m not saying that people on the autism spectrum are more prone to being sexual assailants (I don’t know of any statistics on this), but they experience sexual victimhood more often (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.852203/full). From the comments I understand that it comes across that way, and I will think about how to rephrase it—open to suggestions.
Thanks for clarifying.
I am glad you raised this point. I am not a neuropsychologist so please treat this comment with a low level of confidence. Anecdotally, I have heard multiple times of psychologists wrongly diagnosing people as being on the Autism spectrum when really those patients were narcissists. For instance, someone with Asperger may violate social conventions because they don’t understand them. Someone with narcissism may violate social conventions because although they understand them, they don’t care or they actually enjoy the transgression. Someone with Asperger will have affective empathy but lower cognitive empathy so it may look like they don’t care about others suffering. A narcissist may truly not care about someone else’s suffering. I think it tends to especially the case for covert narcissism (also called vulnerable narcissism) because some of the behaviors are very similar. I may be wrong but I doubt that Asperger people are more prone to being sexual assailants. However, I believe narcissists certainly are more prone to it, and they would be the type to pretend to be neuro-atypical in order to justify their behaviors. I think this is terrible because it probably has the adverse effect of creating fear of people with Aspergers, who in my opinion don’t deserve this reputation.
Thank you for this clarification. I’m not saying that people on the autism spectrum are more prone to being sexual assailants (I don’t know of any statistics on this), but they experience sexual victimhood more often (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.852203/full). From the comments I understand that it comes across that way, and I will think about how to rephrase it—open to suggestions.
Also, I should add that some people can have both!
You say “we”, but from my personal acquaintance with you I would definitely not put you in one group with the attackers this post is about, and I’ll emphasise that you don’t deserve any hostility.
I have not been to the Bay Area as an adult, so I can only guess about what’s going on there. But trying to extrapolate my experiences in, say, Sci-Fi conventions, I think the (relevant aspect of the) problem is people who use autism—many times without an actual diagnosis—as an excuse to dismiss their actions’ effects on others.
This is correct, thank you for bringing it up. One woman reported that even a person in CEA leadership made excuses for sexual transgressors on the basis of their neurodivergence.
I am not referring to the attackers mentioned in the post when I say “we” there, but to people with autism as a whole, when speculating about why we might receive a higher rate of bullying and hostility across society as a whole.
We have found it relevant to describe the population characteristics. Reportedly nine out of ten autistic women have been victims of sexual violence. If you haven’t been raped, haven’t raped anyone, don’t know anyone who was raped, and don’t have empathy for victims (autistic or not), then this post probably isn’t for you and it isn’t about you.
Frontiers | Evidence That Nine Autistic Women Out of Ten Have Been Victims of Sexual Violence (frontiersin.org)