Sex is one of the most widely discussed topics on the wives’ forums. For some their husbands are obsessed with sex and will never leave them alone, for others their husbands are never affectionate with them at all and sex doesn’t even figure on their radar. As with anything in the world of autism and ADHD, everything is a spectrum and how people experience this issue can vary widely.

As ever, I suspect that one of the issues is communication. Especially here in the UK, many people can be reluctant to have open conversations about sex anyway, and the communication issues that come with autism can make that so much harder. On top of this, much of sex involves non-verbal clues, which autistic people are notoriously bad at picking up on. These issues can leave both sides of the couple unaware of what the other wants and needs and reluctant to speak about it explicitly.

But what other aspects of autism could be affecting sex? Sex is obviously affected by sensory issues. For some who are exceptionally sensitive to touch, sex can be far too overstimulating at times whilst for others they feel little to none of the sensations they might be expecting to feel. Both of these things can make it difficult to engage in sex. For autistic people (or anyone) to whom cleanliness is very important, the sensation of being sticky and dirty can be very unpleasant but if your partner immediately jumps up after sex and goes to have a shower that can be very hurtful.

There are also the repetitive behaviours and habits of autism to contend with. Sex can become one of these repetitive behaviours (leading to over-sexualisation) or not be on the list (leading to lack of sex). Sometimes having sex as part of a routine or scheduling in advance can help, but that can come to feel robotic and leave doubts as to whether sex is just part of the list of daily chores.

We must also remember that autism is not at the root of all sexual problems in neurodiverse relationships. People in relationships of all kinds can struggle with sex due to issues including stress, lack of time together, exhaustion, the challenges of parenting young children or the lack of privacy when the house is filled with older children. All of these things can change the nature of a couple’s sexual relationship and this is perfectly natural.

The important thing, as with all problems in neurodiverse (or neurotypical) relationships is that we find a way to talk about the problems we are having in a calm, non-judgmental way, to really understand what the other person is experiencing. It might be difficult but if we want a better sex life we need to learn to talk about sex.