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Dimensions of Sexuality Among Young Women, With and Without Autism, With Predominantly Sexual Minority Identities

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Abstract

Self-reported sexuality research among people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is small but growing. The current study contributes to this field by focusing on the experiences of 18–30 year-old women, with ASD (n = 248) and without (n = 179), predominantly with sexual minority (i.e., non-heterosexual) identities. Multiple aspects of healthy human sexuality, including sexual desire, sexual behavior, sexual satisfaction, and sexual awareness, were explored. In this study, participants with ASD reported less sexual desire, fewer sexual behaviors, and less sexual awareness than those without ASD; however, the two groups reported comparable rates of sexual satisfaction. Next, relations across sexuality-related variables within each group were explored using partial correlational analyses. In both samples, sexual desire, sexual behavior, and sexual awareness were positively correlated, but sexual satisfaction functioned somewhat differently, correlating negatively and weakly with sexual desire and monitoring in both samples. These findings, alongside future research directions and clinical implications, are discussed in relation to the limited previous research on sexuality among women and young adults with ASD.

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Acknowledgements

The original research presented in this article was conducted at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB). The author would like to acknowledge the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and the UMB Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant Program for their support of this work. The author would like to thank Abbey Eisenhower for her assistance in preparing this manuscript, as well as Heidi Levitt, Laurel Wainwright, and Brian Willoughby for their overview and guidance of this study.

Funding

The current study was funded by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Grants-in-Aid Program and the Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Learning and Emotional Assessment Program (LEAP), Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, 151 Merrimac Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA, 02125, USA

    Hillary H. Bush

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  1. Hillary H. Bush
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Correspondence to Hillary H. Bush.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Bush, H.H. Dimensions of Sexuality Among Young Women, With and Without Autism, With Predominantly Sexual Minority Identities. Sex Disabil 37, 275–292 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11195-018-9532-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11195-018-9532-1

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