Q&A: BDSM and Autism

Is there any research on this?

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Q: I have been exploring BDSM, swinging, kink, and polyamoury for the last couple of years. So here's the thing: ASD is a significant feature of my life and many of my friends and partners. I'm really interested to know if you think there is a link between BDSM / kink and ASD / neurodiversity?

A: There is! ... But, though I wish I could offer a comprehensive review of science to explain why, I can only offer some dribblings of research and the personal experiences of folks on the spectrum who are in the BDSM community.

Super-quick, ridiculously over-simplified description of BDSM for people who think 50 Shades of Grey is BDSM (it is not!!!!):

It’s sensual or erotic play that involves different types of sensation play and power play. Sensation play is anything from feathers and tickling to piercing and fisting. Power play is the “top” and “bottom” role we generally imagine, though of course it’s more complicated than that. And of course with some play, it can be all-but-impossible to disentangle power from sensation—if someone enjoys being peed on, is that because of the control and power involved, or is it the warm, wet sensation on their body? Both? Who knows, people vary!

(And if the idea of someone enjoying being peed on made your body go “Yuck!” don’t worry, this is a great opportunity to practice neutrally noticing when something isn’t for you and reminding yourself that a stranger’s sexual enjoyment has nothing to do with yours and there’s no need to judge either you or the other person. People. Just. Vary.)

It’s important to note, for folks who aren’t familiar with the reality (as opposed to the stereotypes) of ASD, that cognitive impairment is not a diagnostic criterion. Most folks on the spectrum have “normal intelligence” (whatever the heck that means), meaning there is no cognitive disability to complicate questions of capacity to give and receive consent. That’s a whole other topic.

It’s also important to note that most folks on the spectrum are verbal. It’s an important question, if a person on the spectrum is basically nonverbal, how do they communicate their needs, desires, boundaries, and consent with their partners? There are all kinds of answers and growing technology to assist in communication without words. But that, too, is a whole other topic, and it’s roughly a quarter of diagnosed folks—nonverbal folks are more likely to be diagnosed, for obvious reasons.

This post is about that large majority of folks with “normal” (ugh—let’s call it “regular”) intelligence who communicate verbally.

The three differences that characterize a diagnosis with ASD all potentially overlap with a person’s experience of sexuality:

1.) Social differences. The explicit negotiation of boundaries and consent may be more intuitive and navigable for ASD folks. Folks outside the BDSM community take a lot of assumptions for granted, communicate with subtle social cues that folks on the spectrum may not recognize as communication. Above all, BDSM provides rules to follow, a clear structure that helps clarify ambiguity.

2.) Sensory processing differences. When people who don’t know anything about autism think about “AUTISM,” they think about (UGH) Rain Man. They think about savantism and they think about meltdowns. Or they may think about Temple Grandin, who famously adapted a cattle squeeze chute into a “hug machine,” because she realized that the intense, whole-body pressure soothed her nervous system when she was over-stimulated. Both the meltdowns and the hug machine are about sensory differences.

The science here is complicated, but the simple, short version is: people on the spectrum process all kinds of sensory information differently—not just the usual 5 senses of sight, vision, smell, touch, and taste, but also the internal senses of proprioception (position of the body in space), interoception (sensations of the internal organs), neuroception (the brain’s reactions to the world as safe or dangerous), plus balance and probably more. Someone on the spectrum may be extra-sensitive, reacting to the slightest stimulation with irritation or overwhelm, to any of these, and extra-not sensitive, not registering even major stimulation.

A “meltdown” is what happens when a person on the spectrum gets completely overwhelmed by sensory stimulation and they just can’t cope anymore. This can also show up as “shutdown,” where instead of crying, shaking, rocking, and other overt behaviors, the person will become barely responsive. It makes sense that the intense sensations of sensation play might help to regulate ASD folks’ nervous systems, the way the hug machine helped Temple Grandin.

Some people use the word “stimming” to refer to whatever a person might do to soothe their central nervous system. Me, I sit on a kneeling-rocking chair at my desk. Some autistic folks flap their hands or spin. Some people play with fidget toys or play with their hair. One potential interplay between BDSM and ASD is the satisfaction of repetitive motor behaviors—kind of, BDSM as stimming. It makes sense that a person with differences in sensory processing might have different interests in sexual sensations, right? Not everyone would enjoy being flogged, whipped, spanked, clipped with clothespins, pierced, or paddled, or doing the flogging, whipping, spanking, clipping, piercing, or paddling.

3.) Special interests. Many folks on the spectrum have “special interests,” subjects on which they are intensely interested, often deeply knowledgeable, and highly focused in how they invest their time and attention. BDSM provides a variety of opportunities to dive deep, learn, explore, and develop specific interests and expertise.

But these are just the beginning of the connection between ASD and kink. So some things I wish I could tell you but can’t:

• What proportion of the BDSM community identifies as on the spectrum, compared to what proportion of the general adult population?

• Since folks on the spectrum vary so much from each other, are there particular patterns of which folks on the spectrum are interested in BDSM and/or participate in the community?

• Are kinky ASD folks just as likely as neurotypical folks to participate in the community? How welcomed do they feel in the community? Are there intersections of race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, etc, that intersect with their neurodiversity to influence how safe they feel and how welcomed they are among other kinksters?

• ASD folks are also more likely than neurotypical folks to experience gender diversity, sexual attraction, outside the mainstream standards of cis-het-allosexuality. Do those other dimensions of sexuality vary with BDSM?

• Are there differences in consent violations between neurotypical kinky people and ASD kinky people? How does the community accommodate communication differences?

I am interested in all these questions! There is almost no research! CAN WE PLEASE HAVE MORE RESEARCH

You’ll notice I’ve linked to very little of the research that does exist. That’s because I avoid linking to anything I wouldn’t want someone supposedly “represented” in the research to read, and hoo boy. Hoo. Boy.

Like, can the research be more representative of ASD folks and how they want to be represented? Can we maybe avoid dumb qualifiers like “high functioning,” which dismisses both the ways people who seem to function well in the neurotypical world are actually struggling and the ways people who seem not to function well are actually thriving outside the terms of the neurotypical world?

Oh, and can be build more space for women and femmes on the spectrum, whose autism doesn’t show up the same as the standard set of symptoms catalogued based on boys and men with autism? Women don’t show “less ASD symptomatology,” they show different symptomology.

And, I mean, is it too much to ask that we not call the neurotypical people to which autistic folks are being compared… “healthy controls”? Folks are the spectrum are not diseased, y’all.

So no. Not linking to the research that shows some small differences in fantasies and behaviors between Autistic people and neurotypical people.

Progress is happening… very, very slowly. If you’re on the spectrum and kinky, please maybe consider becoming a sex researcher!

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