Haven for the Human Amoeba

My cousin has Asperger's. Noise and flourescent lights bother her. Plant life is soothing. For a restaurant I would say maybe skylights for lighting, gardens for a view, plants and fountains for decor, high backed booths in a semicircle for seating. Awenydd

tlshell@... wrote:

On 8 Mar 2004, 16:59 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

Lots of people (not just asexual ones) like to meet in restaurants. I, however, am autistic, and restaurants are *not* autistic-friendly places. (I don't doubt there are some autistic people who enjoy going to restaurants. But most autistic people have sensory sensitivities that make it challenging.) Considering that asexuality--or at least being "out* about asexuality--seems to be somewhat more common among autistics than among neurotypicals, could it be possible to create an asexual community that would be easy for asexual autistics to participate in?

I find restaurants challenging because of the noise, but if I am signing then I don't have as much of a problem. I was just thinking restaurant due to the lighting; I hate bars because I am stumbling around in the dark and can't see well enough to converse. Any public place that was well-lit would be fine with me, preferably not too crowded. For example, there's a Chinese "all you can eat" restaurant near where I live and they don't get many customers during the daytime, so it's ideal for me then, but I probably wouldn't like it during dinnertime. The restaurant is rather drab but they serve good chow mein vegetables.

I don't know that much about autism to know what exactly is ideal, but I find trees and green plants are very soothing to the eye, so maybe a place with lots of potted trees and an indoor fountain, potted plants around in strategic locations, would be a good start? Perhaps also a background of muted colors on the walls, such as pastels in natural shades? For this design, windows should look out on small walled gardens rather than city streets. Actually, now that I think about it, sounds rather like a moorish home...shelter from the outside world. One question, are small to medium sized rooms OK, or would large rooms be more appropriate?

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On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

On 8 Mar 2004, 17:00 +00:00, David Jay said:

Dining room-sized tables to discourage parties of two- either eat with tons of friends or get to meet random strangers over your meal. (Also a diner-style booth for those who'd rather remain solitary.)

Communal dining? How ab-so-lute-ly un-American.

Ever been to a school lunchroom, camp, or retreat center?

Couches in a circle, either for lounging or to serve as a meeting area for different groups (they can be reserved ahead of time)

Now this I could go for, seriously. The only problem would be that people would be trying to squeeze in "one more chair." If we use round benches, then dresses and skirts would have to be banned too. Do asexual women favor pants?

Wy would dresses and skirts have to be banned? What do they have to do with what kind of benches there are?

My idea: We should have a rent-a-dog service for people who are interested in taking a dog for a walk but don't really want to have the bother of taking it home. Walking with a dog is a great device for two people to keep the conversation from getting too intimate.

Who's going to ensure the safety of the dogs?

J8

On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

On 8 Mar 2004, 16:59 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

Lots of people (not just asexual ones) like to meet in restaurants. I, however, am autistic, and restaurants are *not* autistic-friendly places. (I don't doubt there are some autistic people who enjoy going to restaurants. But most autistic people have sensory sensitivities that make it challenging.) Considering that asexuality--or at least being "out* about asexuality--seems to be somewhat more common among autistics than among neurotypicals, could it be possible to create an asexual community that would be easy for asexual autistics to participate in?

I find restaurants challenging because of the noise, but if I am signing then I don't have as much of a problem. I was just thinking restaurant due to the lighting; I hate bars because I am stumbling around in the dark and can't see well enough to converse.

Well, there's another point: Neurotypical people tend to associate socializing with eating. For people with major sensory integration problems, eating can be a significant challenge that requires full attention, and is not pleasant (maybe not even possible) in a distracting environment with people trying socialize.

I like the idea of a "community center." It could have a place to eat, but should also have other things people can do together and ways people can meet each other.

I don't know that much about autism to know what exactly is ideal, but I find trees and green plants are very soothing to the eye, so maybe a place with lots of potted trees and an indoor fountain, potted plants around in strategic locations, would be a good start?

A fountain sounds neat. :-)

One question, are small to medium sized rooms OK, or would large rooms be more appropriate?

Small. Too large, too many people, is too easily overwhelming.

At Autreat, the annual retreat run by Autism Network International, we've learned that some people like to eat together in the dining room, even adding more and more chairs to crowd around a table with friends instead of going to an unoccupied table. Others can't handle the large dining room at all, even at a table by themselves, and need to take their trays to eat somewhere quiet. There are picnic tables outside that small groups can use, or people are allowed to take their trays to their rooms to eat alone, as long as they bring their trays and utensils back to the dining room when they're finished. The important thing is to give people choices.

We also set aside space for group activities other than eating: informal discussions in the evenings, and some recreational activities. This year we've arranged for a musical performance by singer/songwriter Connie Deming. It's not uncommon for autistic people to drift in and out of these group activities, or to orbit around the fringes, either preparing to enter the activity, or just because they're enjoying watching and have no wish to come in closer. (Pressure to join in is NOT helpful and is likely to chase the person away.) And spontaneous groups form and re-form as people come together to talk for a while, and then someone drifts out, and someone else drifts in. If a group starts getting large, people tend to start splitting off from it and finding quiet places to continue conversations in pairs and small groups. It's not usually anything "romantic." It's just hard to pay attention to more than one person at a time.

J8

On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

I didn't even know there was such a thing as "asexual" until recently

I knew I wasn't interested in sex from the time I first knew that sex existed: When my parents read me the "where babies come from" book (I was about five), I understood it as an explanation of my past, but it never occurred to me that it had anything to do with my future. My brother, on the other hand, incorporated the information into his expectatons of what would happen when he grew up and got married. Once, when I was about five or six years old, my mother said something to me about "one day when you grow up and get married and have children," and I asked if I *had* to get married. She said no, some people never get married. I thought, "Good, that's what I'm going to do." I never remotely considered being sexual with anyone, despite a great deal of "counseling" during my adolescence and early adulthood, aimed at "reassuring" me that I could have sex.

being nonsexual feels like, well, being neutered in society.

<Ahem> I *am* neuter, physically as well as psychologically. Please don't say "neuter" as if it's a bad thing. Would you like it if I, a neuter, were to say that in a society that traditionally expects men to take the initiative sexually, being nonsesexual feels like being female??

Life wasn't designed for people to live like solitary atoms, they are supposed to economically and emotionally have someone else in their lives for security and long-term stability.

That doesn't have to mean being sexual, though!

J8

Don't believe everything you read or people say. Revenge on the wheelchair crowd for what? It has nothing to do with revenge.

If you don't want to know how the movie ends, then don't read any further. I tired of all this "wheelchair revenge" crap.

Hillary Swank's character becomes paralyzed from the neck down and is bed-ridden for the rest of her life. She tells Clint Eastwood's character to euthanize her, but he refuses. She begins to try and kill herself by biting her tongue off and choking on the blood. That doesn't work and now she has to be drugged constantly to prevent from harming herself more. Clint's character grants her wish in the end. It's about the right to die and nothing else.

Jim Sinclair said:

On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

I have read that "Million Dollar Baby" is Clint Eastwood's revenge on the wheelchair crowd.

Well, the "wheelchair crowd" sure ain't happy about it.

I've never seen a Clint Eastwood movie before, and as a wheelchair user and a disability activist, I sure don't plan on seeing any now.

Other than that, I only pay to see SciFi, Fantasy, Mysteries, or Suspense/Spy movies.

I usually watch movies on VHS or DVD. Theaters are too loud, too distracting, and don't give me the opportunity to rewind and re-watch scenes that I don't understand the first time I see them. I think the last movie I saw in a theater was the second Harry Potter movie (if I go to a movie theater it's usually because I'm taking one or more kid[s]). Last week I was visiting my mother and she rented some films, so I got to see the second Harry Potter movie again (because my mom had never seen it), and the third Harry Potter movie (which neither of us had seen before), and Whale Rider.

J8

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On 13 Mar 2004, 02:10 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

On 8 Mar 2004, 17:00 +00:00, David Jay said:

Dining room-sized tables to discourage parties of two- either eat with tons of friends or get to meet random strangers over your meal. (Also a diner-style booth for those who'd rather remain solitary.)

Communal dining? How ab-so-lute-ly un-American.

Ever been to a school lunchroom, camp, or retreat center?

I was kidding! (Appropriate in a right-wing atmosphere)

Couches in a circle, either for lounging or to serve as a meeting area for different groups (they can be reserved ahead of time)

Now this I could go for, seriously. The only problem would be that people would be trying to squeeze in "one more chair." If we use round benches, then dresses and skirts would have to be banned too. Do asexual women favor pants?

Wy would dresses and skirts have to be banned? What do they have to do with what kind of benches there are?

Well, you probably have never worn dresses or skirts, but you might think about what happens if you try to lift your legs up over a bench when there is a circle of fabric limiting your range. I suspect that's one of the reasons chairs were invented.

My idea: We should have a rent-a-dog service for people who are interested in taking a dog for a walk but don't really want to have the bother of taking it home. Walking with a dog is a great device for two people to keep the conversation from getting too intimate.

Who's going to ensure the safety of the dogs?

Good point I suppose; perhaps only big dogs? (-;

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Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi tlshell@... / http://tlshell.cnc.net/

On 9 Mar 2005, kweenkmatt@... said:

I was just curious, is all. It might be interesting conversation for us all to share how we came to identify ourselves as being asexuals.

I never really thought about it until people started expecting me to be sexual.

I never thought about dating, and no one seemed to expect me to date, since when I was a teenager there was a lot of uncertainty about whether I was female or male. (It turned out I was neither.) Years later, I was absolutely flabbergasted to learn that my father thought I should have dated as a teen anyway, just for the "social experience." To this day I cannot fathom the thought processes involved in that idea. Maybe he thought I was single as an adult because I never "learned" to pair-bond by dating as a teenager? (And of course he would have thought that being pair-bonded was preferable to being single--"everybody" knows that, right?) Whatever he was thinking, I'm just glad he kept it to himself until I was well into adulthood. At the time when I was a teenager, I had no inkling that anybody expected me to be dating, other than a couple of clueless psychologists that I didn't take seriously anyway.

The problem with all the "sexuality counseling" I got was not the sexuality part. That was just boring, but not traumatic or in any way harmful. What was harmful was the implicit assumption that *intimacy* means sexuality. As a result, since I knew I had no interest in ever having a sexual relationship, I figured I'd never have any intimate relationships either. I was therefore completely unprepared when, in my early twenties, I found myself in two intimate relationships within just a few years. The first one was with someone who turned out to be abusive (another thing I hadn't been taught to recognize or deal with), and after initially promising that we could have a loving relationship that didn't need to be sexual, tried to *make* it sexual--and then told me it was my fault for not wanting to have sexual contact voluntarily. If it hadn't been for the second person who was already on the scene while I was in the abusive relationship with the first person, I might never have let anyone touch me again. Fortunately, the second person *was* there, and I learned that there really can be love and intimacy and touching that is not sexual.

From this I learned that I *am* capable of having intimate relationships; and that even if I am in an intimate relationship, I still have no interest in sex. I tried to find other asexual people, not so much to look for a new partner as for validation while recovering from the abuse. In the mid- to late-1980s I couldn't find anything for or about asexual people. I tried to run a newsletter for a while, but most of the people who wrote to me were not asexual, and eventually my interest in it just fizzled. It wasn't until I got involved with other autistic people that I started meeting more asexual people. Before that, I still knew that I was asexual, even when I couldn't find anyone else who was like me.

J8

On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

On 8 Mar 2004, 17:00 +00:00, David Jay said:

Dining room-sized tables to discourage parties of two- either eat with tons of friends or get to meet random strangers over your meal. (Also a diner-style booth for those who'd rather remain solitary.)

Communal dining? How ab-so-lute-ly un-American.

Ever been to a school lunchroom, camp, or retreat center?

Couches in a circle, either for lounging or to serve as a meeting area for different groups (they can be reserved ahead of time)

Now this I could go for, seriously. The only problem would be that people would be trying to squeeze in "one more chair." If we use round benches, then dresses and skirts would have to be banned too. Do asexual women favor pants?

Wy would dresses and skirts have to be banned? What do they have to do with what kind of benches there are?

My idea: We should have a rent-a-dog service for people who are interested in taking a dog for a walk but don't really want to have the bother of taking it home. Walking with a dog is a great device for two people to keep the conversation from getting too intimate.

Who's going to ensure the safety of the dogs?

J8

On 13 Mar 2004, 02:10 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

On 8 Mar 2004, 17:00 +00:00, David Jay said:

Dining room-sized tables to discourage parties of two- either eat with tons of friends or get to meet random strangers over your meal. (Also a diner-style booth for those who'd rather remain solitary.)

Communal dining? How ab-so-lute-ly un-American.

Ever been to a school lunchroom, camp, or retreat center?

I was kidding! (Appropriate in a right-wing atmosphere)

Couches in a circle, either for lounging or to serve as a meeting area for different groups (they can be reserved ahead of time)

Now this I could go for, seriously. The only problem would be that people would be trying to squeeze in "one more chair." If we use round benches, then dresses and skirts would have to be banned too. Do asexual women favor pants?

Wy would dresses and skirts have to be banned? What do they have to do with what kind of benches there are?

Well, you probably have never worn dresses or skirts, but you might think about what happens if you try to lift your legs up over a bench when there is a circle of fabric limiting your range. I suspect that's one of the reasons chairs were invented.

My idea: We should have a rent-a-dog service for people who are interested in taking a dog for a walk but don't really want to have the bother of taking it home. Walking with a dog is a great device for two people to keep the conversation from getting too intimate.

Who's going to ensure the safety of the dogs?

Good point I suppose; perhaps only big dogs? (-;

---

Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi tlshell@... / http://tlshell.cnc.net/

On 13 Mar 2004, 02:33 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

Neurotypical people tend to associate socializing with eating. For people with major sensory integration problems, eating can be a significant challenge that requires full attention, and is not pleasant (maybe not even possible) in a distracting environment with people trying socialize.

When I am with other people, I eat fast so I can spend the rest of my time trying to socialize. (Sometimes successfully.)

Is neurotypical = "normal" ???

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Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi tlshell@... / http://tlshell.cnc.net/

On 13 Mar 2004, 02:42 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

On 9 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

I didn't even know there was such a thing as "asexual" until recently

I knew I wasn't interested in sex from the time I first knew that sex existed: When my parents read me the "where babies come from" book (I was about five), I understood it as an explanation of my past, but it never occurred to me that it had anything to do with my future. My brother, on the other hand, incorporated the information into his expectatons of what would happen when he grew up and got married.

I never thought about it this way. I didn't get any information about sex until I was in junior high and when I was little, the best I could come up with was some version of serial monogamy without marriage as I never actually wanted to get married even though it was assumed by everyone that I would. Sex didn't even come into the picture in my imagination. The "where babies come from" part was rather murky in my mind.

I knew that when my mom was pregnant, her tummy would grow bigger and then she would go to the hospital and come back with a baby, flat again. I didn't really understand more than that for the longest time, and it all seemed very mysterious and yet not that important.

It became important around age 12 or so when my mom mentioned that if I was ever pregnant, that I should not be afraid to ask them for help. Trouble was, I didn't get any instructions on how to detect pregnancy, or how to prevent it, so I decided to do absolutely nothing with boys for fear that anything they might do might make me pregnant. I guess my parents should be forgiven for leaving out some vital info since I was the oldest and they were learning. The rest of the "kids" in my family seem to have turned out OK in this area. (They're not kids anymore...)

I have a habit of making unilateral decisions based on insufficient information that may not always be in my best interest, but I see it being done all the time so I'm not the only one. (-;

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Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi tlshell@... / http://tlshell.cnc.net/

HI I just found this group recently, I dont know sometimes if I am truelly asexual, I dont like sex but I like intimacy. I also consider myself gay, I still feel attractions but not sexual. Do many asexuals still feel attractions to others whether same sex or opposite?

On 13 Mar 2004, 04:30 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

I never thought about dating, and no one seemed to expect me to date, since when I was a teenager there was a lot of uncertainty about whether I was female or male. (It turned out I was neither.) Years later, I was absolutely flabbergasted to learn that my father thought I should have dated as a teen anyway, just for the "social experience."

I apologize for making you feel slighted by my use of the word "neuter" but I wouldn't call you neuter, I'd say hermaphrodite which is the correct term for someone with both male and female characteristics. What I find interesting from a social standpoint is that you were apparently given a male name rather than a more ambiguous one. As for your father, I would guess he was doing his best with a background of zero prior experience or expectation. If you think you were flabbergasted, imagine his reaction when he found out what kind of child he had fathered...it was probably on par with yours about his dating ideas for you. (-:

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Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi tlshell@... / http://tlshell.cnc.net/

On 14 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

I apologize for making you feel slighted by my use of the word "neuter" but I wouldn't call you neuter, I'd say hermaphrodite which is the correct term for someone with both male and female characteristics.

But I *don't* have both male and female characteristics. I am, in clinical jargon, an agonadal eunuchoid. In English, that means I have *neither* male nore female characteristics. In other words, I *am* indeed neuter. (And proud of it!) I used to think that this was why I'm asexual, until I met other intersexed people and found out that almost all of them *are* sexual; and also met other autistic people who are asexual even though they have normal anatomy. It seems that asexuality and intersexuality are independent of each other, and I just happened to get lucky enough to be both :-)

FYI, though, even people who *do* have mixed or ambiguous sexual characteristics don't generally call themselves hermaphrodites anymore. (True hermaphroditism is almost unheard of in humans anyway. Most of the time it's something less drastic than that.) The current accept term is "intersex," and that covers any condition of abnormal sexual differentiation (including being neuter). (Having said all that, I do have a "Hermaphrodites with Attitude" T-shirt from the Intersex Society of North America. But that's more of an inyerface political wakeup call.)

What I find interesting from a social standpoint is that you were apparently given a male name rather than a more ambiguous one.

No, I was raised as a girl. "Jim Sinclair" isn't my real name. It's just a pen name that I adopted for use with my autism writing. I never imagined that eventually more people would know me as Jim Sinclair than would know me by my real name!

As for your father, I would guess he was doing his best with a background of zero prior experience or expectation. If you think you were flabbergasted, imagine his reaction when he found out what kind of child he had fathered...it was probably on par with yours about his dating ideas for you. (-:

I don't need to imagine his reaction--I lived through it. "Flabbergasted" is not the word for it. :-(

J8

Hi Does that mean you have a prepubescent body still? What about your chromosomes, are you XXY? Do you look more male or more female? I know none of this is any of my business, so if you don't want to respond that is understandable. Awenydd

Jim Sinclair said:

On 14 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

I apologize for making you feel slighted by my use of the word "neuter" but I wouldn't call you neuter, I'd say hermaphrodite which is the correct term for someone with both male and female characteristics.

But I *don't* have both male and female characteristics. I am, in clinical jargon, an agonadal eunuchoid. In English, that means I have *neither* male nore female characteristics. In other words, I *am* indeed neuter. (And proud of it!) I used to think that this was why I'm asexual, until I met other intersexed people and found out that almost all of them *are* sexual; and also met other autistic people who are asexual even though they have normal anatomy. It seems that asexuality and intersexuality are independent of each other, and I just happened to get lucky enough to be both :-)

FYI, though, even people who *do* have mixed or ambiguous sexual characteristics don't generally call themselves hermaphrodites anymore. (True hermaphroditism is almost unheard of in humans anyway. Most of the time it's something less drastic than that.) The current accept term is "intersex," and that covers any condition of abnormal sexual differentiation (including being neuter). (Having said all that, I do have a "Hermaphrodites with Attitude" T-shirt from the Intersex Society of North America. But that's more of an inyerface political wakeup call.)

What I find interesting from a social standpoint is that you were apparently given a male name rather than a more ambiguous one.

No, I was raised as a girl. "Jim Sinclair" isn't my real name. It's just a pen name that I adopted for use with my autism writing. I never imagined that eventually more people would know me as Jim Sinclair than would know me by my real name!

As for your father, I would guess he was doing his best with a background of zero prior experience or expectation. If you think you were flabbergasted, imagine his reaction when he found out what kind of child he had fathered...it was probably on par with yours about his dating ideas for you. (-:

I don't need to imagine his reaction--I lived through it. "Flabbergasted" is not the word for it. :-(

J8

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On 15 Mar 2005, ciarnait conall said:

Does that mean you have a prepubescent body still?

I'm 43 years old. I stopped growing when I was fourteen, and have a very small build, but I'm not immune to aging. Also, I was given testosterone (male hormones) for a while when I was 17. It lowered my voice slightly and stimulated the growth of some facial hair. I stopped taking the hormones as soon as I turned 18, but the changes did not go away.

What about your chromosomes, are you XXY?

No, my chromosomes are normal. My condition was most likely caused by prenatal exposure to certain hormone medications that my mother was taking during pregnancy (which are no longer prescribed for pregnant women, because a bunch of intersexed babies got born to women who were taking them). I do not disclose whether my chromosomes are normal-XX or normal-XY, because that's not relevant. All the chromosomes are is blueprints. They tell how I *would* have developed, had it not been for that prenatal drug exposure. What I actually *am* is the result of how I *did* develop. The genetic blueprint was overridden.

Do you look more male or more female?

Depends on whom you ask. :-) I'm small, so at first glance some people take me for a woman. I'm flat-chested and have a bit of facial hair (I never shave it, but since I don't take testosterone anymore it's still thin), so some people take me for a man, or at least a teenage boy. With my voice, on the phone, it's anybody's guess. Sometimes people play musical pronouns, apparently without even realizing it: "Let me put you on hold a minute, ma'am, while I lok up that information." Same person, a few minutes later: "All right, sir, what I found out is...." :-)

Also, when I'm in my wheelchair my small frame is not as apparent as when I'm standing up, so that may also make a difference in how people perceive my gender. I started using a wheelchair part-time in 1997, and now I use it most of the time when I'm outside the house. (I can walk enough to get around inside the house.) It might be interesting to go out in public places with my wheelchair sometimes, and on foot with my crutches other times, and keep track of how people gender-code me to see if that makes any difference.

Strangely enough, my hair is longer now than it's been in about 7 years. I used to wear it at about shoulder length, since that was what I was used to since the 1970s. Then the social pendulum swung away from long hair being androgynous, and long hair became a stronger "female" social cue. Since being 5'3" tall and having a slight build are already "female" social cues in adults, I cut my hair shorter for a while, hoping that would counter this tendency. But last year I didn't cut it for a while, and when it got long enough to put in a ponytail, then people started taking me for a male more often than when I had my hair shorter. Weird. So now I haven't cut it in about a year and a half, and it's down to about my collarbone. I still wear it in a ponytail, and am pondering whether to cut it again.

How about you? Is Awenydd a male or a female name? How is it pronounced? What language is it?

J8

On 13 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

On 13 Mar 2004, 02:10 +00:00, Jim Sinclair said:

Ever been to a school lunchroom, camp, or retreat center?

I was kidding! (Appropriate in a right-wing atmosphere)

Is this group a right-wing atmosphere??

Wy would dresses and skirts have to be banned? What do they have to do with what kind of benches there are?

Well, you probably have never worn dresses or skirts,

I was mis-identified as female at birth, and wore dresses and skirts for the first twelve years of my life. I can't say I was ever very active while wearing them, though.

but you might think about what happens if you try to lift your legs up over a bench when there is a circle of fabric limiting your range.

So don't wear *tight* skirts. I would expect that unless a skirt is way very tight (which usually means the wearer is trying to attract sexual attention--unlikely that an asexual person would want to wear one), it would allow full range of motion. There could be a modesty concern if you lift your legs high enough for the skirt to fall back and expose too much of what's underneath. But I've seen Orthodox Jewish girls and women (who never wear pants, only skirts and dresses) wearing long (like about ankle-length), loose, denim skirts to participate in physical education and athletics. I don't think a long, loose skirt should be an impediment to climbing over a seat-height bench.

Or just make it an incomplete circle, with an opening for people to enter.

That brings up another issue, BTW: Some people bring their own seating, in the form of wheelchairs and scooters. Some furniture configurations are more wheelchair-friendly than others. Benches tend to be much less friendly to wheelchair users than individual chairs. You can generally pull a single chair out of the way to make room to put a wheelchair where the person wants to sit. You can't pull a small section out of the middle of a bench to allow the wheelchair user to sit next to a friend.

My idea: We should have a rent-a-dog service for people who are interested in taking a dog for a walk but don't really want to have the bother of taking it home. Walking with a dog is a great device for two people to keep the conversation from getting too intimate.

Who's going to ensure the safety of the dogs?

Good point I suppose; perhaps only big dogs? (-;

Big or small, the dogs would need to be screened and trained to make sure they won't bolt and get lost or run over if someone carelessly drops the leash, and they won't bite if someone startles them. Big dogs are more likely than little dogs to inadvertently hurt someone if they're too rambunctious and jump up on people or drag them along on the leash. And then there are the people to consider: A lot of people don't know how to handle dogs, and think you're supposed to signal a dog by yanking it around. That hurts the dog. Some people are willfully cruel to dogs. There's also the matter of poop-scooping. If the dog walkers don't bother to clean up, there would be complaints from neighbors and the municipality.

Maybe if there were a fully fenced dog park, well trained dogs, and people monitoring things at all times (dog park rangers), that could work. But if there were just simply a dog park, people who have dogs could bring their own, and people who don't have dogs but enjoy walking them could link up with someone who has a dog.

J8

On 13 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

When I am with other people, I eat fast so I can spend the rest of my time trying to socialize. (Sometimes successfully.)

I can't eat fast, *especially* when I am with other people. It takes too much concentration to navigate the complexities of having stuff in my mouth, not to mention the complexities of getting it into my mouth (as opposed to on my lap or on the floor) in the first place.

The last time I ate in a restaurant was probably about seven or eight years ago now. (I have gotten *slightly* better at eating with others since then, mostly as a result of practice at Autreat.) A friend of mine (F1) had been telling me all about one of her other friends (F2), and F2 sounded like a really neat person that I would enjoy meeting. Apparently F2 felt the same way upon hearing F1 talk about me. So one time when I was going to be visiting F1, she arranged for us to get together with F2.

I arrived at F1's house expecting that either F2 would be coming to F1's house, or that we would be going to visit F2. Instead, I learned that F2 was going to take us out to dinner. I believe my exact response was, "Ack!" I said I don't eat in restaurants. F1 asked if she should call F2 and say we just wanted carry-out. But when I heard about all the trouble F2 had gone to to find a restaurant that I could eat in--located a kosher restaurant, called to make sure they would not hassle me about having a service dog, and then called back again to make sure they had some vegan items on their menu--I didn't want to destroy all those plans by refusing to eat there.

So we went. And we had to get up and change tables twice because of smoke coming over from the smoking section of the restaurnat (it was really nice, though, to be with two other people who also had asthma, so *I* wasn't requiring everyone else to move just because of *my* asthma), and I did not know what to order because I didn't recognize anything on the menu, and they didn't give me a spoon (I can be dangerous with a fork when I'm too distracted to be coordinated--F2 went to the waiter and got me a spoon), and they served water in *glass* cups so I was afraid to pick it up because I didn't want it to shatter if I dropped it.... I am pleased to report that I did manage to eat most of the food that F2 ordered for me, and only ended up wearing a small amount of it. But it took about three hours from the time we entered the restaurant until I was finally finished. And then F1 and F2 said, "Let's order dessert!" (Whereupon I thought very quickly and suggested ordering something to carry out for dessert.)

F2 was indeed a really neat person whom I was very glad to meet, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. But F1 told me afterward that F2 had said to her: "Next time we have dinner with Jim, we'll get carry-out!" :-)

Is neurotypical = "normal" ???

Not necessarily. It means having normal brain wiring, and is usually used in contrast with autistic brain wiring. (Although people with other neurological abnormalities are not neurotypical either. But the term "neurotypical," abbreviated "NT," originated within Autism Network International.) You can still be abnormal in other ways. :-)

J8

On 13 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

I never thought about it this way. I didn't get any information about sex until I was in junior high and when I was little, the best I could come up with was some version of serial monogamy without marriage as I never actually wanted to get married even though it was assumed by everyone that I would. Sex didn't even come into the picture in my imagination. The "where babies come from" part was rather murky in my mind.

Where did you grow up? My elementary school taught us about puberty and pregnancy when I was in fourth grade, and then again in sixth grade. I don't recall if there was anything about how people *get* pregnant in the fourth grade module. They may have just mentioned pregnancy in connection with what happens when a woman ovulated but does not get pregnant (i.e., menstruation). Come to think of it, though, there had to be something about sperm in there.

I knew that when my mom was pregnant, her tummy would grow bigger and then she would go to the hospital and come back with a baby, flat again. I didn't really understand more than that for the longest time, and it all seemed very mysterious and yet not that important.

Wow. Sounds like your parents weren't much for explaining things!

It became important around age 12 or so when my mom mentioned that if I was ever pregnant, that I should not be afraid to ask them for help. Trouble was, I didn't get any instructions on how to detect pregnancy, or how to prevent it, so I decided to do absolutely nothing with boys for fear that anything they might do might make me pregnant.

How did you know that getting pregnant had *anything* to do with boys?

I have a habit of making unilateral decisions based on insufficient information that may not always be in my best interest, but I see it being done all the time so I'm not the only one. (-;

Are you saying that you might have been interested in doing things with boys if you had known how to avoid getting pregnant?

J8

On 14 Mar 2005, tlshell@... said:

I apologize for making you feel slighted by my use of the word "neuter" but I wouldn't call you neuter, I'd say hermaphrodite which is the correct term for someone with both male and female characteristics.

But I *don't* have both male and female characteristics. I am, in clinical jargon, an agonadal eunuchoid. In English, that means I have *neither* male nore female characteristics. In other words, I *am* indeed neuter. (And proud of it!) I used to think that this was why I'm asexual, until I met other intersexed people and found out that almost all of them *are* sexual; and also met other autistic people who are asexual even though they have normal anatomy. It seems that asexuality and intersexuality are independent of each other, and I just happened to get lucky enough to be both :-)

FYI, though, even people who *do* have mixed or ambiguous sexual characteristics don't generally call themselves hermaphrodites anymore. (True hermaphroditism is almost unheard of in humans anyway. Most of the time it's something less drastic than that.) The current accept term is "intersex," and that covers any condition of abnormal sexual differentiation (including being neuter). (Having said all that, I do have a "Hermaphrodites with Attitude" T-shirt from the Intersex Society of North America. But that's more of an inyerface political wakeup call.)

What I find interesting from a social standpoint is that you were apparently given a male name rather than a more ambiguous one.

No, I was raised as a girl. "Jim Sinclair" isn't my real name. It's just a pen name that I adopted for use with my autism writing. I never imagined that eventually more people would know me as Jim Sinclair than would know me by my real name!

As for your father, I would guess he was doing his best with a background of zero prior experience or expectation. If you think you were flabbergasted, imagine his reaction when he found out what kind of child he had fathered...it was probably on par with yours about his dating ideas for you. (-:

I don't need to imagine his reaction--I lived through it. "Flabbergasted" is not the word for it. :-(

J8

Go see the movie. I firmly believe in anyone's right to live or die. What gives the state or government the right to legislate peoples' private lives and what they chose to do with them?

The Netherlands has a fully government backed Euthanasia policy. It's completely legal. They don't have any problems with "Kevorkians" running around providing bargain basement killings.

http://www.minbuza.nl/default.asp?CMS_ITEM=MBZ257609&CMS_NOCOOKIES=YES

tlshell@... said:

On 13 Mar 2004, 02:59 +00:00, Jonathan Brennan said:

Don't believe everything you read or people say. Revenge on the wheelchair crowd for what? It has nothing to do with revenge.

If you don't want to know how the movie ends, then don't read any further. I tired of all this "wheelchair revenge" crap.

The story is that Clint Eastwood has been "mad" at wheelchair users ever since he was successfully sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act for having a hotel that was noncompliant. The movie is supposedly his revenge.

The premise of the movie's ending, as has been pointed out by many disability advocates, is simply wrong. One can specify that they do not wish to be kept alive by artificial means. This has nothing to do with "right to die" which is a separate issue beyond simply stopping treatment.

There is no such thing as a "right to die" at the moment and it's being fought on the basis that it may lead ("slippery slope" theory) to laws allowing mercy killing.

Unfortunately, we do have historical precedent for the latter. I can mention Dr. Jack Kevorkian as an example here in the U.S. of someone who took the law into his own hands to "allow people to die" and ended up killing some people himself. If it were legalized, we'd have a lot more Kevorkians running around.

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Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi tlshell@... / http://tlshell.cnc.net/

http://www.geocities.com/jnthnbrnnn/

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