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longformautie · 5 years ago

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Addressing sexism of autistic men

CW: gender-based violence, including murder and rape

I. Introduction

This post has been coming for a long time. And I mean a LONG time. My thoughts on this topic have been evolving constantly. They will probably evolve even after I post this. I am still learning and welcome feedback.

I was prompted to write this post during the pre-coronavirus Before Times, when I saw that the popular Facebook page Humans Of New York had profiled an autistic man who had become a pickup artist. For context, pickup artists are a group of straight men who will cynically do whatever it takes to get them laid, which of course means blatantly ignoring the needs of the women they interact with, and who share strategies with one another. The autistic man in the photo post talked about how before he was a pickup artist he was hopeless with women, and now he was getting girls - getting laid, even. He said he knew it was manipulative, but that it was only fair - after all, it’s not like anyone had ever sympathized with him for his social difficulties. I was curious about what people had to say in the comments section; turns out, I wasn’t satisfied by any of the takes I found.

The takes I didn’t like can be broken down into two categories. Category number one were formulations like “poor him, he just wants to be accepted.” I’m not even a little bit sympathetic to this take and will only be spending a moment on it. Suffice it to say, it’s hard to take these people at their word that they care about the autism struggle when they don’t show up in droves to the banners of the neurodiversity movement with this level of enthusiasm. Rather, we are part of a culture that likes to sympathize with toxic men. If the man wasn’t autistic, they’d find some other excuse, but since he is, in defending him they can also activate the ableist notion that autistic people are incapable of respecting boundaries. I choose the word “incapable” because if your position is that autistic people sometimes don’t know better than to violate a boundary, the logical conclusion is simply that someone should teach them. To sincerely and enthusiastically take up this kind of “poor autistic guy doesn’t know any better” rhetoric, you have to presume complete incompetence of autistic people and that we’ll never learn, so that when a straight autistic man does a violating thing to a woman, they can shrug their shoulders and say, “well, I guess nothing can be done about this.” This attitude is sexism and ableism couched in a delusion of sympathy.

Category number two of takes, I like lots better but still am not quite satisfied with, and can be roughly summarized: “This isn’t caused by autism, it’s caused by being an asshole.” While I agree that being an asshole is the main ingredient in this cocktail, I don’t think the autism should be dismissed as an irrelevant detail. I think there is a sexism problem specific to autistic men that needs to be separately talked about and addressed. I intend to do so in this post, without assigning blame either to the autism or to the women being abused.

I want to note in advance that this post will be cishet-centric, not because I think straight experiences are universal, partly because the behavior of cishet men is what’s at task here, but mostly because I have no idea how these issues affect LGBTQIA communities. If anyone is able and willing offer insight or resources on that topic, I’d love to hear from you.

I. Autistic men

Having experienced it firsthand, I can say for sure that autistic loneliness is a vicious cycle. By loneliness, I mean a lack of any social connection, not just a lack of romantic or sexual partners. Autism makes social interaction more difficult, which makes it harder to find friends, but, crucially, not having friends also makes social interaction more difficult. More people to interact with means more practice with social interaction; it also means more assistance from comparatively clued-in people who care about us. This vicious cycle can also manifest with respect to a subset of people. For example, an autistic child who only socially interacts with adults may have trouble forming connections with peers. For the purpose of this discussion, I want to focus on the problems this presents for autistic boys who want to interact with girls in their age group.

The scarcity of cross-gender social interaction during childhood need not be framed as a uniquely autistic experience. Societal forces sort us by gender from an incredibly early age, so the vast majority of our social connections in childhood are with people of the same gender. Furthermore, especially during and after adolescence, boys and men are discouraged from being emotionally close with one another. Thus, the norms of masculinity isolate us almost totally from peers of all genders. Our social connections with men must be superficial; our social connections with women must be non-platonic. For those of us who crave the emotional intimacy that our same-gender friendships lack, a romantic relationship is the only socially acceptable opportunity to forming a deep, loving bond with someone close to our own age.

Enter autism (again). Dating, when we hit adolescence, is wholly new to us, and we have been given no opportunity to adjust ourselves to its social norms. Autism makes this a particular challenge, as do gender roles in dating. Since men are supposed to initiate and women are supposed to merely give subtle hints (if not be straight-out “hard to get”), straight autistic men face both the pressure of leaping into an arena that intimidates us, and the bewilderment of not knowing whether it’s working. If I had a crush on you in high school, I probably kept it a secret; if you had a crush on me, I probably didn’t notice.

Worth noting here that none of the things I’ve listed are evidence against autistic men’s actual attractiveness or appeal to women. We are facing access barriers that accumulate over the course of our lives until we finally figure out how to start ripping them down, and when we do, we quite often do get to have romantic and sexual relationships. But the prevailing narrative about autism and other disabilities is that they’re unsexy, and a lot of autistic men buy into that. I myself thought I was one of those autistic men who’d never date or have sex until experience taught me otherwise.

Knowing all this, we can see why a lot of autistic men might feel both that they need a relationship to be happy, and that they cannot possibly have one. This makes us prime targets for recruitment, because the sense of personal injury at being deprived of sexual experiences for reasons beyond one’s control is as indispensable an ingredient in the various movements of the “manosphere” as the sexism itself. It’s not that autistic men are any more or any less sexist than regular men, but that the sexists among us already feel exactly the way these communities require them to feel: deeply aggrieved, and deeply desperate. Pickup artistry both validates this sense of personal injury, and sells itself as the solution: a set of simple, logical rules that, when followed, will grant success. But it misses the uncomfortable truth that while everyone deserves to receive love, no particular person is obliged to give it. This is a deeply frustrating contradiction with no easy solution, but the solution certainly is not to cynically manipulate women into doing the thing you want.

III. Allistic women

I never was a pickup artist, but that doesn’t mean I never harbored a grievance against women for my loneliness. After all, I thought, wouldn’t my perpetual singleness end if women were more direct and assertive? As such, I worry that other people who read this may end up pinning the responsibility for autistic loneliness onto individual women too. The previous section hints at why that’s wrong, but I also want to take the time to explain why it’s deeply unfair.

My autism and masculinity were first brought into conjunction (or was it conflict?) in my mind in my freshman year of college. One of my new Facebook friends shared a Tumblr blog called “Straight White Boys Texting” which was a collection of screenshots of unwanted straight white boy texts, running the gamut from simple inability to take a hint to bona fide “what color is your thong” garbage. I felt pretty attacked, partly because I wasn’t yet used to seeing myself as part of a “straight white boys” collective that people didn’t like, and partly because what I saw was a bunch of guys missing social cues and taking things literally, just as a younger me would have done. I felt like I needed to say something - and boy, was that a bad decision. I said something about how the women in the screenshots needed to be more direct, and got instant (and deserved) backlash both for focusing on the least important problem in the interactions and for placing responsibility for a male behavior problem squarely back onto women.

At the time, I didn’t have a coherent framework for understanding sexism. Since then, I’ve learned that giving a direct no can occasionally get women killed, and most often at least gets them yelled at and insulted. Giving a yes also comes with its own risks - the risk of rape, in (unfortunately-not-actually-so-)extreme cases where that inch of “yes” results in guys taking a mile, but also the more pervasive risk of being socially stigmatized as slutty or promiscuous. It’s often the most women can get away with to be subtle (rather than completely silent) about all of their wants and needs, so that a discerning man who actually cares will know what those wants and needs are and respect them.

This puts those of us who have trouble with reading subtle signals in a difficult position if we inadvertently cross a boundary, but that’s not a problem women can reasonably be expected to solve. If a man crosses a woman’s boundaries because he simply doesn’t respect them, he wants to make it look like it’s an accident so that he will be forgiven. “But Aaron,” you might say, “didn’t you just say that the right thing to do in those situations is to teach people the right behavior, not ignore it?” Yes, that’s true. But that assumes the continuation of a conversation that a woman might feel safer just skipping; if a man is making her feel uncomfortable, she’s probably not inclined to continue to converse with him in order to establish whether his intentions were good or bad. When we impose the burden of freeing males from loneliness onto women, we are asking them to continue to interact with frightening men at their own peril.

Ironically enough, some of these frightening men are the autistic pickup artists from part 1. This means that pickup artists, far from “solving” the problems with dating they feel aggrieved by, are actually making it more difficult for everyone except themselves by giving women one more reason to be scared and cynical, and men who slip up one more type of monster to be mistaken for.

IV. Autistic women

At first glance, it seems like there’s a choice to be made here, between supporting autistic men who want to be valued as potential romantic and sexual partners and supporting allistic women who just want to be safe. But what I’m realizing more and more is that when there seems to be a conflict between the needs of two marginalized groups, the right choice is generally to avoid picking a side and instead find ways to support both groups. This works well, not only because both groups get what they want, but because if a side must be chosen, the people at the intersection of the two groups will lose both ways.

Autistic women bear the brunt of every part of this mess, as described in detail by Kassiane Asasumasu on her blog, Radical Neurodivergence Speaking (see the links later in this paragraph). Because autistic men fear ableism from neurotypical women, we tend to believe that autistic women are the only partners who will accept us for who we are. As a result, autistic women report being swarmed at autism meetup groups by men looking for a girlfriend, and those men who struggle with independent living are more than willing to escape that by leaning on the patriarchal expectation that the woman does all the chores, even when she is an autistic woman who struggles with the exact same tasks. This means autistic women actually interact with sexist autistic men the most, and not only are they subject to the same toxic shit that allistic women have to deal with, but they’re also expected to “understand” these men and thus endlessly tolerate their (supposedly inevitable) shitty behavior.

V. Solutions

Fortunately, the choice between female safety and autistic desirability is not a choice we have to make, but the solutions are not as simple as members of one or the other group simply choosing to behave differently. Rather, they require the collective participation of all kinds of people.

Addressing autistic male sexism necessarily means addressing sexism. It means respecting when women say no, rather than making it an unpleasant experience they might fear to repeat. It means teaching consent in special education classrooms, so that no one can claim in good faith that an autistic boy who crosses a boundary simply doesn’t know better. It means teaching girls, as they grow into women, that they are under no obligation to tolerate sexist behavior out of sympathy for the sexist man.

But addressing sexism also means supporting boys and men as they escape the confines of conventional masculinity. It means enabling and encouraging them to have close friends of all genders. It means reminding them that they don’t need a woman, any more than a woman needs a man.

In addition to addressing sexism, we need to address the ableism that prevents autistic people from accessing not just dating but emotional closeness of all kinds. We need to stimulate autistic people’s peer relationships at all stages of life. We cannot do this if special ed teachers continue to view us as broken allistic people rather than whole autistic people, nor can we do it if they view us as incomplete adults rather than entire children. If an autistic boy is unable to learn about condoms because it offends the sensibilities of the teacher, or if he is unable to learn how to talk like a teenager because his parents would like him to learn to speak like an adult, then that autistic boy is being deprived both of autonomy and of the opportunity to learn.

Furthermore, we need to teach allistic children how to interact with their autistic peers. Autistic people need no additional incentive to learn how to interact with the societal majority who control their access to jobs, housing, healthcare, education, political representation, and much more. Allistic people can, however, choose not to bother learning how to support and include us and face almost no social consequences beyond not getting to see my cool maps. Rather than alleviating this unequal distribution of incentives, adults generally exacerbate it by focusing only on the social development of autistic children with respect to interactions with allistic people, but not on the social development of allistic children towards being able to interact with autistic people. This is because the prevailing view regarding autism is still that our modes of moving through the world are incorrect and defective, whereas allistic modes of social interaction are viewed as normal and valid even when they exclude others.

The problem of autistic male sexism is hairy and complicated, but if we take the above steps, we can solve it without further stigmatizing autism, and without victim-blaming women. We don’t have to leave anyone behind in this conversation. Rather, by fighting both for autism acceptance and consent culture, we can produce a more just world where everyone gets the love and respect that they deserve.

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longformautie · 8 years ago

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Why I dressed as an autism parent for Halloween

This Halloween, I was very excited to actually have a costume planned. However, it wasn’t a costume that a lot of people immediately understood. I want to use this post as a way of answering lingering questions about my costume.

What did you dress as?

I dressed as an autism parent.

Why?

Because they’re scary.

Allistic parents of autistic children often refer to themselves as autism moms/dads and believe that the ordeal of putting up with their child is among the hardest experiences of mankind. I wore a cape as part of my costume because autism parents think that they are superheroes for “dealing with” their child. They wish, desperately, that their child were not autistic. The plight of the autism parent is a well-established trope in the autism community; the foundational essay of the autism rights movement, “Don’t Mourn For Us,” was written as a direct appeal to parents to embrace the child they had rather than wishing for a different one. (If you haven’t read that essay before, I’d recommend you click the link and read it; it provides better background for what I’m about to say than anything I could write myself.)

Okay, that’s insulting, maybe, but... scary? Really?

Consider that for every single parent like this, there is a child whose life and physical and emotional well-being is in their hands. What does it mean for a child to be wholly dependent on someone who thinks of them primarily as a burden? It means that the parents' attitude will be reflected in their treatment of the child.

If a parent views their autistic child primarily as a burden, then the child will internalize that view of themselves. If an autism dad wishes he had a “normal” daughter, he will subject his daughter to abusive therapies like ABA that produce allistic-looking behavior at the expense of her autonomy and self-esteem. Most disturbingly, if an autism mom does not view her son as a person, she might outright kill him and still see herself as the victim.

So yes, they’re scary.

Well, why not just tell them that what they’re doing is wrong?

First of all, let’s examine how responsibility is being distributed here. I’ll answer your question with a question: Why don’t these parents check to make sure that what they’re doing isn’t abusive or harmful? Why haven’t they put more time and energy into learning what it’s like to be the child they’re raising?

Second, we do tell autism parents these things. They don’t listen.

They get indignant because “how dare you, a complete stranger, tell me how to raise my own child?” They dismiss our viewpoints because we’re too “high-functioning” (read: “not exactly like their child in every way”) to really understand. Worst of all, they are being constantly reassured, by each other and by society at large, that their ableism is natural and justified. Because of their status as parents, people give them authority; they abuse that authority to broadcast their ableist message into the world, to speak for over us.

It’s not just that they believe their child is a burden; it’s also that the rest of the world believes them when they say so. It’s not just that they want to give their child ABA; it’s that medical professionals who also view autism as a disease in need of a cure will readily supply it. It’s not just that they murder their children; it’s that they are pitied by the media when they do so. It’s not just that autism parents are ableist; it’s that they and the rest of the society are constantly reassuring each other that ableism is okay.

But Aaron, not all autism parents are like this and it’s unfair of you to characterize the whole group based on the actions of a mere--

No.

I know not every autism parent is like this. My parents aren’t like this. This doesn’t mean that what I’m describing isn’t a real problem; it just means that I’m lucky.

Other aspects of my costume: light blue shirt/jeans, puzzle pieces

are symbols of autism awareness. This could be the subject of an entire other post, but here’s my succinct answer: Simply making people aware that autism exists does nothing to challenge whatever ableist misconceptions they may have. It does, however, provide a means for these “autism parents” to attract attention and support that should be going to actual autistic people.

The puzzle piece is a symbol chosen by the autism awareness movement to represent the “puzzling” nature of autism. The blindingly bright Crayola colors of the puzzle pieces on my costume are similar to those employed in awareness campaigns, presumably raising awareness of autistic children despite the existence and abundance of autistic adults. Autism Speaks (which, if you don’t know, is an abominable organization) chose the light blue puzzle piece as its logo because of the erroneous belief that autism only or primarily effects men.

If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask me!

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longformautie · 8 years ago

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On Laci Green

For those of you who don’t know, Laci Green recently made a video in which she announced she would be doing debates with prominent antifeminists. I have decided after watching this video, watching criticism of the video, and watching Laci’s reaction to that criticism, that I am no longer interested in supporting her content. There’s already been plenty written and vlogged on the subject of why Laci Green’s new stance is problematic, so I won’t delve into that here. However, this means so much more to me than just a feminist’s viewpoint falling out of alignment with mine, so I felt compelled to write something about what this change means to me.

I first found Laci Green in 2014, when a video she had made describing why she was feminist went viral on Facebook. I was immediately hooked. I went to her YouTube channel and started binge watching all of her videos. Every single one of them taught me something important. Most significantly, she completely revolutionized the way that I thought about sex. Before discovering her videos, I was afraid of casual sex and didn’t think highly of people who had it; after watching them, I was excited for sex for the first time ever. Her easy, reassuring delivery made me feel like I was in good hands.

Speaking of good hands, I had the utmost faith in her credibility. She cited her sources. She was trans-inclusive in using “people with penises” and “people with vaginas” when that was what she meant. I first heard the news of Mike Brown’s death from her tweets. She acknowledged the ways that gender stereotypes hurt men, but labeled them as side effects of misogyny and acknowledged the existence of male privilege. Most importantly, she was comfortable evolving in her positions overtime and respecting that other people were also on that journey. An early video of hers talked about the pros and cons of circumcision; she later made a video arguing vehemently against it.

She also demonstrated for me the immense power of YouTube. She took a difficult, under-discussed, important topic (sex positivity) and brought it to an audience of millions. Laci Green was the first YouTuber I had watched in years; suddenly, I wanted to watch 30 more channels. I began wondering why a similar resource didn’t seem to exist about autism. I haven’t been successful in launching a YouTube career (turns out vlogging is hard), but I have amped up my advocacy in other ways.

I say all this because I want you to understand how difficult it’s been for me to walk away. Laci’s main criticism of the social justice community is that we suppress dissenting beliefs and write off opposing viewpoints without taking the time to consider them. She seems to apply that logic to the people who are criticizing her currently, in that she believes supporters like me have turned on her in an instant for expressing the slightest dissent. I cannot emphasize enough how untrue that is. Turning my back on someone to whom I owe so much of my understanding of the liberal causes is not easy for me, nor would I do it over something insignificant. I am not some sort of political purist who expects everyone to be perfect and casts them away when they deviate; nor are Laci’s most prominent critics. I have given this issue the utmost thought and decided I cannot support Laci any longer.

I’ve always admired Laci’s intellectual honesty. But watching her respond to criticism by making generalizations, applying tropes, and calling names has undermined her credibility for me. Seeing someone who used to approach issues with such nuance cast nuance aside and blatantly misrepresent her opponents is shocking, disgusting, and heartbreaking. It makes me question whether the Laci I’m unsubscribing from now is even the same person as the Laci I subscribed to three years ago. But as much as it might unsettle me, I have to acknowledge the truth: that the bright, compassionate feminist role model I have looked up to for years was indeed capable of choosing to take this reprehensible stance.

To summarize: this whole affair has given me a lot of mixed emotions, but I’ve come to accept that it’s time to say goodbye.

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