Supporting autistic adults’ intimate lives (SAAIL study)
Monique Huysamen In progress
Monique Huysamen In progress
Intimate and sexual relationships play a significant role in most adults’ lives, and the presence, absence, and quality of these relationships can impact our physical, mental, and sexual health and our overall sense of well-being. Healthy intimate relationships can play an important role in providing social support and mitigating the risks of loneliness. Most people face challenges with intimate relationships at some point in their lives. Research shows that it can be particularly challenging and anxiety provoking for autistic people to initiate and maintain sexual and romantic relationships.
The diagnostic criteria for autism contain a constellation of characteristic differences in communication and social imagination. These differences can make establishing relationships more challenging for autistic people, particularly as society is set up according to neurotypical dating and relational scripts. A lack of awareness amongst non-autistic people around experiences of neurodiversity and how associated relational differences may play out in dating and intimate situations can cause barriers for autistic people.
However, in social care policy and services in England, there is a near-complete absence of attention to autistic adults’ desire to have safe and pleasurable sexual relationships. Research on autistic people’s experiences of intimacy and relationships (outside of that which focuses on “problematic” or “deviant” sexual behaviour) is very limited. This is particularly true for autistic adults without co-occurring learning disabilities.
This study aims to build an evidence base for developing social care support and resources for autistic adults without learning disabilities to enjoy intimate and sexual relationships.
It will do this through:
This study is divided into three work packages (WP):