Talking about Sex and Autism

Following on from these two posts Guest Post: The Birds and The Bees in ASD Things I know – Sex & Autism 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? Read original post