Talking about Sex and Autism
Following on from these two posts
Guest Post: The Birds and The Bees in ASD
Ketutar made a great comment on the second post, I’m going to quote it rather than try to paraphrase…
do your daughter a favor and get a shelf of “adult books”. She will probably be more comfortable finding out the information for herself, from books and avoid “the talk” all together. Have fact books about sex and sexuality, where sex is described as something positive, normal and healthy happening between consenting adults.
Really you should read the whole comment here if you have a moment, then come back.
I’ve been thinking about this idea, letting it simmer in the back of my mind – because it is a great idea, Annie has always learned the most from books and Heidi loves to pick up books and flip through the pages and absorbs so much from the pictures – details I never even notice.
Then we saw Annie’s psych recently and she was very (very) firm about sex education and how we need to set firm guidelines and boundaries and teach our girls what is and isn’t appropriate.
The girls are only 8yo and 6yo but I’m thinking that sooner rather than later would be good to start putting out a couple of *age appropriate* books about what growing up is about, how the body works, also leaving books about strong female role models wouldn’t hurt. Being that I’m almost OCD about liking to be prepared I want to start a small collection of books for when they get older as well.
Thing is, my knowledge about such books is almost zip… “Where did I come from?” and a few books for children about mummy and daddy having a baby is about all we’ve got, along with a cool pop up book about the human body that I had as a child.
Thus I’m asking for help – suggestions of what you would add to such a collection? What would you *not* add?
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I think this is good advice for everyone, autistic kids or not. My parents mostly skipped any formal sex talk with me and instead bought me books (of my choosing). I learned pretty well that way, developed pretty normal sexually. If I had kids that’s what I’d do as well.
Changing Bodies, Changing Lives by Ruth Bell is good and respectful and informative…
…except for one big thing: the “if you don’t want to have sex you can make out with your boyfriend or girlfriend instead” part. As if everyone has a boyfriend or girlfriend in the first place.
IRL that’s not true! Get it from the library, read it yourself, and if you like the rest of the book then buy it and make sure to write, in the margins near that part, about how some people don’t have boyfriends or girlfriends in the first place and just because nobody else is willing to date you doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person (you don’t need their permission to be a good person!) or that someone should be forced to date you (no means no; you do need someone’s permission to date him or her!).
Actually, It just looked it over again and it is pretty graphic. It’s done in good taste however. 🙂
There’s a good youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYkmbaYG0iE Just cartoons and nothing especially graphic, but the message gets across.