Affective-Sexual Ableism and the Dispute over the Legitimacy of Autistic Desire on Social Networks

Abstract

This study analyzed how autistic sexuality is produced, contested, and negotiated on social media, based on the narratives of autistic content creators who produce adult content and the public's reactions expressed in the comments on their posts. This is a qualitative, exploratory, and interpretive study, developed through social network analysis. The corpus consisted of videos published on the social media platforms TikTok, Instagram, and X, as well as public comments associated with this content. The thematic analysis identified three central categories: Diagnosis under suspicion, Affective-sexual ableism and the delegitimization of autistic desire, and Claiming affective-sexual agency. The results show that when autistic people make their sexuality, autonomy, or participation in erotic circuits public, the diagnosis tends to be placed under suspicion, while discourses emerge that associate autism with infantilization, asexuality, or inability to consent. In contrast, the content creators analyzed mobilize narratives of self-affirmation that claim the right to desire, feel pleasure, and be recognized as legitimate subjects in the affective-sexual field. It is concluded that autistic sexuality on social media is configured as a field of contested narratives, in which ableist norms are challenged by strategies of resistance and identity affirmation. The study contributes to deepening discussions on the affective-sexual ableism of autistic people and to understanding social media as contemporary spaces for the production of stigma, contestation, and recognition.