Member Article – The Overlap Between Autism & Kink
from
Recon News
29 April 2025
By Dr Liam Wignall
Welcome back to the second deep dive between kink and psychology with me, Dr Liam Wignall (kink researcher and psychologist). The first blog post focused on sexual health at kink events, and you can read it via the link below. As it's the end of autism awareness month, this blog will explore some of the research into the overlap between autism and kink.
Before I go into detail about this, it's important to understand what we mean by autism.
There's variability in how autism might present itself in people, with common misconceptions about what autism is. Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference which affects everything about the way a person experiences and moves through the world. Autistic people often struggle with implicit societal rules around small talk and social etiquette, preferring deeper, more meaningful conversations and tending to be direct rather than 'beating around the bush'.
They often find conventional non-verbal communicative behaviour, like eye contact, uncomfortable or even painful. To navigate social situations, autistic people may mirror others' behaviours and body language, and then continue to adopt these in future interactions, to mask their 'differentness'- a process that can be very tiring!
Autistic people also differ in their interests and behaviour. They often prefer routines, predictability, and sameness – this can include having a regularly scheduled bedtime or checking out a restaurant's menu online in advance and planning their order. When these routines and plans are disrupted, they can cause stress and anxiety. They also have a tendency towards intense, detail-focused interests – as a child, this may be an obsession with collecting stickers or Pokémon cards, and as an adult it may still be that obsession with collecting stickers or Pokémon cards.
In terms of its prevalence, research estimates that around 1 in 44 American children are autistic, with more conservative estimates suggesting 1 in 100 people. The complexity of how autism manifests means that it can be difficult to get an official diagnosis, leading people to avoid the medical route and instead self-diagnose. Therefore, these statistics may be under-representing rates of autism in the general population.
Autistic people can experience negative interactions from people who don't understand their differences. Like kinksters, they can feel marginalized from a society that doesn't understand their interests and communities.
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So now you know some facts about autism, what research has been carried out to explore the links between kink and autism? Well, not much.
To address this, I explored autistic traits in a subsection of the kink population – the pup subculture (a subculture I've published a fair number of academic papers on). My colleagues and I carried out an online global survey on 413 people who engage in pup play, looking into various aspects of pup play, including how and why people engage in it, the cross over with pup play and other kinks, and the relationship between pup play and mental health and wellbeing.
At the end of the survey, we included the Autism-Spectrum Quotient-Short Form (AQ-S). The AQ-S consists of 28 questions broadly and measures autistic traits (i.e. features that are associated with being autistic) – it isn't a diagnostic tool, but a higher score on the AQ-S is likely indicative of autism. A score of 65 or more on the AQ-S is often a cut-off point to differentiate autistic from non-autistic participants. And remember, about 1 in 44 people will score above 65 or more on the AQ-S.
So how did the pups score?! We found 1 in 2 participants scored above 65 or more on the AQ-S. That suggests that autistic traits are much more prevalent in the pup subculture versus the general population, where only 1 in 44 are predicted to meet this cut-off. We explored the data a bit more and found that those with high autistic traits tended to be younger and be more likely to identify as either a pup or a handler (rather than a switch/both) – this makes sense given autistic people often have a preference to reduce uncertainty by occupying specific roles.
We also found participants with high autistic traits were less likely to report belonging to a pup community but stated that they actively wanted to be. I think wanting to "find our tribe" is something most kink people can relate to and is one of the real benefits of things like Fetish Week London and Folsom. We know that autistic people, too, really struggle to find community, so it's worrying that this might also be the case in kink spaces.
Finally, we looked at attachment to pup identities and autistic traits, finding that people with higher prevalence of autistic traits were less connected to the community and less strongly identified with their pup role. There is societal stigma towards autism (and neurodivergence in general), and so people high in autistic traits may try to distance themselves from other stigmatised activities (i.e., pup play and kink).
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I'm currently doing follow up research interviewing autistic pups to find out what about pup play and kink appeals to them and (although I'm still analysing the data) there are two overarching rationales: sensory motivations and social motivations.
Kink gear feels good – the constricting feeling of rubber, the creak of stiff leather, the compression of Lycra. Some people told me they love the sensation of wearing gear, but also that it helped them regulate sensory information. Some autistic people have noise or light sensitivity – wearing a hood can help reduce noise and restrict vision so they can focus on the fun.
The social motivations are a bit more in-depth. Autistic people often report feeling stigmatised in society. Kinky people also often feel this way. It makes sense that these groups find comfort chatting and playing with other people who know what it's like to be marginalized. Think about the first time you went to a kink event and how great it was seeing so many other people like you, who have similar experiences – it's almost refreshing. This is what participants described to me.
Autistic people can often misunderstand social situations and engage in something called "stimming" behaviours (a physical movement or vocalisation to self-regulate, destress or just feel pleasure), such as finger clicking or fiddling with certain objects. These behaviours may seem unusual in everyday situations, but participants told me that they feel comfortable doing these behaviours in kink settings: "You've got me clicking my fingers and a guy dressed as a dog next to me – we're all weird in kink and that's what I love."
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To finish, I want to highlight the importance of being inclusive of autism within kink communities and online. Where autistic individuals experience loneliness or feelings of exclusion, it's not because of their autism but how people react to it.
As an inclusive, expansive and friendly queer community, we should be supportive of difference and diversity. I have many autistic kinky friends, and the scene is much stronger with them in it. Awareness of how to be inclusive of autism within kink can only improve the scene, Recon and society.
If you want to hear more about this topic, I'll be presenting at the Masterclass at Fetish Week London on Wednesday 9th July 2025.
If you want to get more information on this topic, you can access the websites below!
***If you'd like to share a fetish or kink experience in a member article, send your ideas or a first draft to: social@recon.com
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