#being gay doesn't make it less aphobic lmao

[spookiat]

Had allos smugly assume a close silly friendship was romantic: 10,000 dead 900,000 injured, I am exploding them with my mind

[rgbfall]

I was gonna just infodump in the tags, but fuck it this topic is super interesting and im literally writing an essay on it, so I'm gonna yell about this topic for a bit

So, fun little fact, autistic people are actualy 8(.1) times more likely to identify as ace than NTs are! which is a lot! it's the most common sexuality for autistic people. The closest category after this is "other", which is anything other than ace, bi, straight or gay lumped together into one group, and that's about 7.6 times more likely, and only not even twice as likely to be bi (on average) (1)

Then the other way round, as over half of asexual people are neurodivergent (2), and around 37% of aro people are neurodivergent (3)

So yeah, autistic people are wayy more likely to be aspec and vice versa. And sure, not every autistic person is aspec or every aspec person autistic, but it's pretty likely if someone is one they are also the other!

gonna add a lil more under a cut about why i think the reasoning this is, but for now sources:

&lt;(1) orientation in autistic people> <(2) 2019 ace community survey> <(3) 2020 aro survey>

So why do I think this is? Well first ima give a lil more info about the essay I'm writing, which discusses explanations for why there's such a massive intersection between neurodivergent people and LGBTQ+ people. Before starting my essay, I did a lil survey (only 11 ppl really it was more to get some ideas for why queer neurodivergent people thought there is a link between the two things.

As part of that survey, I asked if people, regardless or orientation, felt as though neurodivergence affected how they experience any attraction, including stuff like platonic. 5 people said yes, 2 were unsure and 4 said no. Reasons given for this included:

"maybe difference in social skills means I often use more romantic language and actions ("I love you,", calling people pet names like babe, being outwardly affectionate) with close friends effects the way my platonic love is shown, but I don't know if it effects the emotions"

"I find relationships harder to build and find intimate relationships, platonic and romantic, more rewarding."

"Yes ... because I never text my friends back and I can’t be bothered to date anyone because it sounds like so much work and idk how other people just causally get a s.o. Like bro aren’t you stressed out and also bored?? I’d rather just avoid it forever""

*these are all a mix of neurodivergent people, so isn't exclusively an autistic experience

Generally it's stuff to do with struggling to form and maintain relationships, which makes sense bc autistic (and other neurodivegent) ppl tend to have a harder time with communication!

And since some forms of being aspec are actually genuinely bc people are just not interested in relationships, it could be to do with that! autistic ppl have a hard time forming relationships and attachments, and so might not bother or instead decide to label this difficulty!

Also, I know you said general aphobic and ableist arguments tend to say autistic/aspec ppl are emotionless, but that is genuinely my (autistic and aroace) experience with attraction. I am literally loveless, so like. lmao yeah sure being autistic literally DOES make me emotionless, so what? Doesn't make me less aspec, and the fact that I'm aspec and autistic and therefore don't love doesn't make me inherently worse than other people? It doesn't make me a bad person?

I do get that headcanoning autistic characters as aro/ace and aro/ace characters as autistic can create a false perception that they’re inherent to each other, but literally everyone I’ve heard making this argument is either being really aphobic or really ableist about it.

They say that saying an autist is aspec means it proves the idea that autists are incapable of emotion, or that saying an aspec is autistic proves aspecs are just weird and mentally ill.

It’s really funny how aspecs and autists share a lot of the same problems. We don’t feel quite the same way as others, we express our love differently, people think we’re gross and unhuman. We’re not. We should be teaming up to face bigots together, not doing their job for them by turning on each other.

Also most aspecs i’ve met are autistic and most autists i’ve met identify as aro or ace so it’s not like the link doesn’t exist lol.