If you are on the autistic spectrum, are you or have you been in a romantic relationship?

[Kavigant]

This is where we must struggle to resist societal and religious insistence that everyone is expected- indeed demanded to somehow magically find someone to mate with for the purposes of procreation

What's difficult is that this demand is hard-wired into almost all of us as an evolutionary imperative. Mating is absolutely necessary on a massive scale for the survival of the species. Good luck trying to get of that drive by merely talking about it.
And, in the few places where we are actually starting to shed that demand (e.g. - most of Europe and Japan), the populations are dying out - failing to reproduce at or above replacement levels.

Decades of "overpopulation" propaganda helped to justify the modern world's hedonism, resulting in some success in ignoring that biological imperative - and the results are almost unimaginably destructive.

We're in the beginning stages of the dystopia which results from human beings, in their great hubris, thinking that there's no price to pay for attempting to reshape human culture and biology according to what we prefer. Prepare to lose most of what you take for granted in civilization.
But don't worry: The Powers That Be will ensure that we all still have access to cannabis, beer, flat screen TVs, cell phones, video games, and porn. Bread and circuses.

 

[Jonn]

I'm not excusing bad behavior on anyone's part, but let's have a little compassion for all the guys out there who have no clue how they are supposed to act while being unrelentingly demonized throughout the media

Some ppl ignore the realities of life.
Some ppl don't appreciate evolutionary psychology and biology that makes ppl the way they are.
And on top of that, we have the changing social climate that confuses...

Spoiler

EVERYTHING!

 

[Jonn]

Valid points.

And there we have it.
We are both on the same page again.

 

[Rachie]

I had a boyfriend for a few days as a joke at like 13 and 19 but it didn't last more than a few days. We deperated company after disagreeing how to get home from the cinema. For a while in my 20s I wanted to get married and have children and have a simple stable job. I have other issues that probably affected that as I documented in my journals in my 20s that it took away potential boyfriends. I have never been romantically with anyone now and am celibate. At this point in my life at 51 I grieve sometimes quite seriously for not having children or being married and facing the future. Single people can get judged as lot as well. I find on this board a lot of people seem to be married with children, which is good for them. I do wonder sometimes though with my autism if I ever really woud have been able to do things like that as my symptoms are quite severe and I struggle with even water on my skin to even wash myself and have issues around eating. I have some family members though who have children and likely on the spectrum so it can a bit challenging teasing out what caused what.

 

[Seladon]

It strikes me that "incel" and "slut" are related.
Women are shamed for having "too many" sexual partners and men are shamed for not having "enough" sexual partners. Both insults are rooted in the good social functioning of ancient societies.
But it is not currently acceptable to call a woman a slut, while incel is acceptable as a catch-all label for men struggling (for whatever reason) with rejection.

I'm old enough to remember, long before the internet, that women, when gathered together, would gripe about men's behavior. And men, when gathered together, would gripe about women's behavior.
The main difference was that the anger and bitterness that i see today wasn't there. Sure, there were always men who were TOO angry at women, and there were women who genuinely hated men. But overall, it was just a way for both of the genders to blow off steam about each other.
Men often have unrealistic expectations of women. And now, as men are falling behind in education, employment, self-esteem, and overall sense of purpose, it's not at all clear what women should expect of men anymore.
Men today are getting very confusing messages; don't be preoccupied with a woman's appearance, but don't be under 5'9"; be sensitive, but be strong; don't be afraid to date a woman who makes more money than you, but women won't date you unless you make a lot of money; don't "slut shame" women, but don't be involuntarily celibate.

I'm not excusing bad behavior on anyone's part, but let's have a little compassion for all the guys out there who have no clue how they are supposed to act while being unrelentingly demonized throughout the media

Edited to add: one thing men are "excelling" at today is suicide.

Sure, I will have compassion and sympathy for men, when:

Women aren’t the group who take on almost 70% of the world’s labour while owning only -1% of the property; when corn traff!cking is globally abolished; when child brides are no more; when women & their children in warzones are not routinely taken as hostages to be used by soldiers until they are pushed to end their lives; when a rate higher than a measly 3% of rap!sts are actually tried and convicted, and s3x offenders are no longer permitted in female prisons; when homeless women who are seeking shelter are not rap3d at a rate of 90% for their pains.

 

[Judge]

What's difficult is that this demand is hard-wired into almost all of us as an evolutionary imperative. Mating is absolutely necessary on a massive scale for the survival of the species. Good luck trying to get of that drive by merely talking about it.

True. It may come down to a matter of self-discipline. That some have it, and some don't.

 

[Kavigant]

Sure, I will have compassion and sympathy for men, when:

Women aren’t the group who take on almost 70% of the world’s labour and owning -1% of the property; when corn traff!cking is globally abolished; when child brides are no more; when women & their children in warzones are not routinely taken as hostages to be used by soldiers until they are pushed to end their lives; when a rate higher than a measly 3% of rap!sts are actually tried and convicted, and s3x offenders are no longer permitted in female prisons; when homeless women who are seeking shelter are not rap3d at a rate of 90% for their pains.

By your standards, none of us should have compassion for anyone else. Good luck with that.

The jobs with highest fatality rates are overwhelming filled by men. The people sent to their deaths in war are overwhelmingly male. Most child abuse is committed by women. Most physically demanding jobs, which destroy human bodies, are filled by men.
We can go round and round on this, but it wouldn't make us get along better or be more compassionate.

 

[Seladon]

What's difficult is that this demand is hard-wired into almost all of us as an evolutionary imperative. Mating is absolutely necessary on a massive scale for the survival of the species. Good luck trying to get of that drive by merely talking about it.
And, in the few places where we are actually starting to shed that demand (e.g. - most of Europe and Japan), the populations are dying out - failing to reproduce at or above replacement levels.

Decades of "overpopulation" propaganda helped to justify the modern world's hedonism, resulting in some success in ignoring that biological imperative - and the results are almost unimaginably destructive.

We're in the beginning stages of the dystopia which results from human beings, in their great hubris, thinking that there's no price to pay for attempting to reshape human culture and biology according to what we prefer. Prepare to lose most of what you take for granted in civilization.
But don't worry: The Powers That Be will ensure that we all still have access to cannabis, beer, flat screen TVs, cell phones, video games, and porn. Bread and circuses.

The ‘evolutionary urge’ argument is very insidious, and usually a pipeline to the enculturation of forced marriage & breeding, government mandated wives, rap3 as legal practise, etc. The entitlement to female autonomy and literal bodies as a resource ‘for the greater good/to save the population’, basically.

Makes me want to cry and scream and go feral. We women are living individual PEOPLE, stop trying to enslave us, own us and mine us.

 

[Jonn]

Single people can get judged as lot as well. I find on this board a lot of people seem to be married with children, which is good for them.

Marriage & family are simply a man person made construct and tend to ignore a person's individuality.
Not everyone is made for, nor wants to fulfill these generic social/parental expectations.

As my grand pappy used to say:

Spoiler

"Your life...
Your choice..."

 

[Magna]

What's difficult is that this demand is hard-wired into almost all of us as an evolutionary imperative. Mating is absolutely necessary on a massive scale for the survival of the species. Good luck trying to get of that drive by merely talking about it.
And, in the few places where we are actually starting to shed that demand (e.g. - most of Europe and Japan), the populations are dying out - failing to reproduce at or above replacement levels.

Decades of "overpopulation" propaganda helped to justify the modern world's hedonism, resulting in some success in ignoring that biological imperative - and the results are almost unimaginably destructive.

We're in the beginning stages of the dystopia which results from human beings, in their great hubris, thinking that there's no price to pay for attempting to reshape human culture and biology according to what we prefer. Prepare to lose most of what you take for granted in civilization.
But don't worry: the powers that be will ensure that we all still cannabis, beer, flat screen TVs, cell phones, and porn. Bread and circuses.

^ Yes. Exapanding on what you've said here it's important to know that it's not normal, natural or beneficial for the perpetuation of our species for male and female to view the other as enemies.

Venting about the frustrations about the differences between sexes? That's probably an activity as old as we are as a species. But outright vitriolic disdain and completely unrealistic ideals for a mate are abnormal and dangerously prevalent in society today.

It's also multi-faceted, this whirlpool of confusion. For example, telling women that the best time to start a family is in her 30s-40s is bad advice for most women for a number of reasons. It's similar to telling an aspiring professional athlete that the best time for them to start training to become a professional athlete is in their 30s-40s. For most sports...terrible advice and just plain incorrect. Deliberately sowing seeds of animosity between the sexes (and it is deliberate) is very effective for those who want to decrease the overall human population.

 

[Seladon]

By your standards, none of us should have compassion for anyone else. Good luck with that.

Not at all. This is a wilful bad faith misinterpretation. Have a lovely day.

 

[Jonn]

By your standards, none of us should have compassion for anyone else. Good luck with that.

I think the problem stems from not appreciating the agency that ppl have or need to cultivate.
Life is to be explored rather than allowing it to dominate.

Rule#1:

Spoiler

"There are no rulz."

 

[Seladon]

It strikes me that "incel" and "slut" are related.
Women are shamed for having "too many" sexual partners and men are shamed for not having "enough" sexual partners. Both insults are rooted in the good social functioning of ancient societies.

Incorrect.

‘Incel’ is not a term used to denigrate a man with few sexual partners or little EXP; that would be something like ‘virgin’ (which can and is used on either sex).

By contrast, ‘incel’ used as a warning marker—often fair—of a man who has clockable hatred of women and entitlement to them, and builds his entire life around a crusade to either malign, smear or hurt them.

‘Slut’ is actually a popular word in the incel vocabulary, usually levelled at any woman who isn’t a loyal married lapdog to a man already, or is a nun. Shaming women about their sexual behaviour is a fairly basic negging or bullying ploy used gleefully by all men (even some gay men, believe it or not), but incels tend to use it as a weapon of genuinely concerning zealous hatemongering. ‘Becky/Stacy’—the generic catch-all incel term for a popular, pretty/‘hot’, liberal young woman—may often be the target of this bitter shaming tactic.

 

[Magna]

By contrast, ‘incel’ used as a warning marker—often fair—of a man who has clockable hatred of women and entitlement to them, and builds his entire life around a crusade to either malign, smear or hurt them.

^ What is the term for the female equivalent of that since the reverse of that situation absolutely exists in the world as well?

 

[Kavigant]

I think the problem stems from not appreciating the agency that ppl have or need to cultivate.
Life is to be explored rather than allowing it to dominate.

Rule#1:

Spoiler

"There are no rulz."

Also, deficient and ideologically-driven methods of teaching history leave the majority entirely without historical perspective - leaving the young believing that each generation is free to design humanity as though it were a blank slate. A couple of human civilizations in relatively recent history have killed literally millions of human beings by going that route. Willful ignorance, shocking arrogance, and unrestrained utopianism.

 

[Jonn]

That's the truth of it all. This is where we must struggle to resist societal and religious insistence that everyone is expected- indeed demanded to somehow magically find someone to mate with for the purposes of procreation.

In a world where some of us simply never make that special connection with a special person or are unable to sustain it for any meaningful length of time. And it's not a crime if it happens.

Sometimes we must deal with the cards life dealt us and somehow come to terms with it. For me that came some nineteen years ago. I live with it, but I refuse to whine about. It is what it is.

And that, my fiend friend, is an example of why I value your contributions so much.

 

[Jonn]

^ What is the term for the female equivalent of that since the reverse of that situation absolutely exists in the world as well?

I will Google.
I'll get back to you.

 

[Kavigant]

Incorrect.

‘Incel’ is not a term used to denigrate a man with few sexual partners or little EXP; that would be something like ‘virgin’ (which can and is used on either sex).

By contrast, ‘incel’ used as a warning marker—often fair—of a man who has clockable hatred of women and entitlement to them, and builds his entire life around a crusade to either malign, smear or hurt them.

‘Slut’ is actually a popular word in the incel vocabulary, usually levelled at any woman who isn’t a loyal married lapdog to a man already, or is a nun. Shaming women about their sexual behaviour is a fairly basic negging or bullying ploy used gleefully by all men (even some gay men, believe it or not), but incels tend to use it as a weapon of genuinely concerning zealous hatemongering. ‘Becky/Stacy’—the generic catch-all incel term for a popular, pretty/‘hot’, liberal young woman—may often be the target of this bitter shaming tactic.

You sound a lot like the "incels" yourself; you just focus on their opposite.

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... ”
—Friedrich Nietzsche.

 

[Seladon]

The jobs with highest fatality rates are overwhelming filled by men. The people sent to their deaths in war are overwhelmingly male. Most child abuse is committed by women. Most physically demanding jobs, which destroy human bodies, are filled by men.
We can go round and round on this, but it wouldn't make us get along better or be more compassionate.

More women & children have died in the most recent decades due to traff!cking and domestic abuse, than men on all sides did during the 2000s terr0r wars in !raq & Afghan!stan. And arguably, we wouldn’t have had those wars were it not for the m!l!tary-industrial machine fed and perpetuated by greedy men sending their sons to ‘fight’ and die for nothing (or rap3 ethnic women, whichever they got around to first).

Also, the most fatal dangerous way to make a living in the world is and always has been pr0stitution, and percentage-wise SWers are notoriously female (and often minors or underage, but that’s another thread/argument).

It’s commonly understood in law & psychiatry that women who abuse young children are 9 times out of 10 themselves victims of abusive parents & relatives, usually male. There’s the occasional female teacher who oversteps with a male teen student, if that’s what you’re driving at, but those cases are rare and sensationalised, nothing on a level with the normalisation of corn, etc.

Try again. Or don’t. Either way, I would advise against ‘no but’-ing women when it comes to these matters. Your forefathers made ALL our foremothers legal and financial and domestic slaves, a secondary class. So yes, we have a right to be angry and demand more for ourselves.

 

[Jonn]

True. It may come down to a matter of self-discipline. That some have it, and some don't.

However, some don't have that mating instinct at all.
I certainly don't and never did.

The "trick" is to unravel parental/social indoctrination and discover who you really are.
For most, this occurs during adolescence, something that I suspect happens at a later date for many on the spectrum, myself included.