Consent is not just for sex: Honoring the body's NO in daily life

For Autistic children and all of us

I was blessed to be raised in a loving home with the clear message that my body was my own, and no one was allowed to touch me in a way that didn't feel good. If anyone ever did, I was to say, "No! That's MY body."

But, as an undiagnosed Autistic kid, so much of the world touched me in ways that didn't feel good.

The bright lights. Sounds that were too loud. Multiple people talking at once. Too much socializing. Foods I couldn't bring myself to touch.

I'm a hyperempath for nature and animals and kids. News stories felt like personal assaults. So did assaults on nature. Every car engine revving up. Every inch of asphalt covering the soil. I felt it in my body as physical jolts of activation.

And then there was the not enough-ness for which I didn't have a name.

The hours trying to fall asleep at night under my skylight and comforter - having no idea that what I needed was loud white noise, an eye pillow, a weighted blanket, vibration on my chest.

The message I received about overt touch to my body was that I was in charge. But the message I received about other kinds of sensory stimulation was that I needed to toughen up and get a thicker skin.

What happened was I stopped listening to many of my body's NO's.

To say I didn't listen to my body's NO's feels inaccurate. I stopped speaking the same language as my body.

I didn't understand it when it was saying NO - in panic attacks, in chronic jitters in my chest, in gagging, in insomnia, in headaches, in total overstimulation from the pace of work and social life I was leading.

These were natural reactions my Autistic body was having to being chronically overstimulated in some ways and under-stimulated in others, compounded by my PDA nervous system triggers.

Until I was 40, everyone thought it was psychological anxiety instead of what I now know it was, which was sensory and autonomic nervous system distress.

In my 20s and 30s, you know what happened?

I often had sex with my then-boyfriend, and later with my now-husband that my body didn't want.

Let me be very clear: I was never coerced or pressured.

I said I wanted it - I gave what we would call today enthusiastic consent. My partners did nothing wrong.

The trouble was my brain and heart wanted to have sex, but my body often didn't.

And I didn't know how to tell the difference.

How could I have known the difference?

During the day I pushed through my body's NO to do things I either wanted to do or thought I should do.

If you spend a lifetime not respecting your body's own NO out of the bedroom, how can you magically know how to respect it in the bedroom?

In my late 20s I began to display patterns of behavior around sexual contact that one would expect for a person who had been sexually violated. But I couldn’t uncover any memories of abuse or assault. 

It took years to realize that sexual trauma lived in my body simply because I had ignored my own body's NO so many times.

Is it a coincidence that I went in and out of mini burnouts during this time?

One Autism diagnosis and a lot of trauma therapy and other support later, my relationship to my body and sexuality are doing so much better. 

But the lessons I learned from this decades-long journey are with me every day as a parent.

Every time my child advocates his limits, I am grateful. Every time he tells me what cuddles or stims feel good to him, I hold a quiet celebration.

Kiddo knows his body’s NO and he knows his body’s YES. He knows them better at age 7.5 than I knew mine at 35. Because he knows his own NO and YES, he is learning other people’s bodies have YESes and NOs too.

Trusting an Autistic child’s NO, and teaching them to trust it too, helps protect our kids from burnout and abuse in childhood.

It ALSO gives them the foundational self-knowledge that they will need if they’d like to safely enjoy sex when they are older, respecting their own NO and that of their partner.

What can you do as a parent to support your Autistic (or any) child in learning their own body’s NO?

• It starts with saying, "Thank you for telling me," when a child asks you to turn down the volume. Or leave the visit. Or not give them a goodnight kiss.

  
  

• It starts with not going to the party when we're too tired, and telling our kid about our decision.

  
  

• It starts by naming and normalizing that all bodies have different sensory systems, and what feels OK or good to one person can feel bad or even painful to another.

  
  

• We can explain to our kids that the head and heart can want something that stresses the body (In The PDA Safe Circle we call these things hearts outside the circle).

  
  

• We can teach this when it comes to sensory stimulation of any kind, including but not limited to any sex education.

  
  

• We can teach that the body’s NO is sacred - and that while we may choose to or have to push through it sometimes, such pushing will come with a price, and we will need to recover after.

  
  

No one can get through childhood or life in total sensory comfort - least of all an Autistic person.

But knowing our NO helps to prevent burnout and lead to a life of thriving - as a kid, as a teen, as an adult.