Re: OT: Parental Site Blocking

Autism tends to leave a person prone to single-subject fascinations, and socially inept. If there is a notion floating out there that autism is a form of extreme virility (I haven't heard it!) it's more likely that it's engendered by a few autistic folk who are extra-virile and can't hide it, or who have sex as their single subject fascination.

Tim Wescott:

There's a famous line of a famous italian opera (just for filling in the cliché) that says "la donna è mobile" ("women are fickle").

How does this contradict what I was asking confirmation for?

How old are you? ;-)

Jim Thompson:

Hummm...

We're historically been sexually active at an early age.

After my mother died, my father used to crack me up (and infuriate my sister) by talking about his sexual exploits ( at ages 75-90 :-) ...Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson:

The parents of my above mentioned friend are > 90, sign of a perfect immunitary system (*and nothing else*), his brother is almost deaf (other sign of a strong immunitary system, but it eats cochlea's cilia) and, by consequence, his I.S. eats his neurons (or something around them).

Too much of a good thing...

Naaaah!

My great aunt "Matt" (Matilda Bland) died at 108. Her short term memory had gone... constantly re-asking my father, "Now! Which one of Lester's sons are you?"

But she could vividly remember Lincoln coming thru on the campaign train.

(I was in my late teens at the time.) ...Jim Thompson

I have a theory that it's a case of extreme self-absorption. I dated a woman once who was so self-absorbed, she might have been borderline autistic.

Of course, I'm opening myself to extremem slings and arrows, "blaming the victim," and so on.

Thanks, Rich

Jim Thompson:

Moreover. When we will get rid of your "avoid out of context" quoting? ;-)

Rich Grise:

Or hysteric. No, wait, this term is now politically incorrect. Was she fixed in anything else than making your life miserable?

Nothing, compared to being victim of some grrrls.

It doesn't contradict: it expresses skepticism. People on the autism continuum get many labels because they exhibit behaviors that in a 'normal' person would be consistent with the label, but in an autistic person is consistent with just being socially oblivious.

I'm 39. I have been for quite a few years now. I expect to die -- decades from now -- at the ripe old age of 39.

Autism is not 'self absorption'. It is, to varying degrees depending on the individual, a combination of sensory, perceptive, cognitive and emotional disorders. For example, an autistic may be sensitive to light, sound, or touch but oblivious to pain and it isn't a matter of being 'picky'. Loud sound (or light or touch) might 'hurt' but what would cause pain in others might not.

Borderline functional autistics often have regimented routines but that is not a matter of doing things 'my way'. It is doing things "THE way" (a subtle but significant difference). Alternatives and "more than one way to skin a cat" do not exist. No, THIS is how you skin a cat and that you may also get the cat skinned does not matter because that is NOT how to skin a cat, THIS is. They know it for a certitude because it works, and that is that, ipso facto. If the situation changes then that is the problem, and a big problem, not the known fact of how to skin a cat. I.E. Do not change the world, because this is how the world is and should be, or else you cause panic akin to how you might feel to discover the laws of physics no longer apply. How would you feel if you turned on the TV and Jason jumped out of it and cut your foot off? Then you pull the plug but instead of the TV going off the roof caves in. (And don't think it might be 'fun' to sort out the new laws because you'll be dismembered and crushed to death before formulating your first conjecture.)

There is nothing 'faulty' with your understanding of physics (how to skin a cat) but someone changed the world (a big problem) and you'd want the laws of physics back (the way the world is and should be) damn straight away.

They also often have difficulty reading the emotions of others and assessing their effect on them, maybe because they have few common frames of emotional reference with which to associate. It isn't that they don't 'care' as you first have to be aware to then not care.

Withdrawal is not 'self absorption' either. It's protective avoidance of the incomprehensible and, remember, things you think perfectly normal may 'hurt' or be perceived completely differently.

A good friend of mine has two autistics and it can be quite a challenge at times because, for one, they don't always agree on what "the way" is.

I don't know about that specifically. But I do subscribe to the theory that quite a few disorders with genetic basis arise due to inbreeding or (a more polite description) reproduction within a limited gene pool giving rise to recessive genetic characteristics. Extreme virility, or extreme anything as the result of such breeding (purebread dogs and other species as examples) suffer maladies as a byproduct of breeding to emphasize certain desireable characteristics. So even though virility and autism may not be related, the attempt to maximize the former may give rise to the latter.

The most healthy overall genetic stock tends to be the most diverse. Look at Halle Berry or Tiger Woods as examples.