Touch (part 2 of Autism & Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves)

An image of a brain, along with 5 icons that represent the 5 senses. Image source.

Blog series on Autism & Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves

Part 1: Strangers
Part 2: Touch
Part 3: Doctors

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So. This is a post about how, to protect me from sexual abuse, adults warned me about people touching me "in a way I didn't like", but then because I am autistic and was undiagnosed for my whole childhood, people were always touching me in [non-sexual] ways that I didn't like, and everyone told me my discomfort didn't matter.

When I was in elementary school, the school nurse came to talk to our class about "swell secrets and tell secrets." In other words, there are 2 different types of secrets:

1. Swell secrets: this is something that actually you should keep secret. Like for example, what birthday gift you are buying for someone.
2. Tell secrets: this is something you should not keep secret; you should tell your parents or a trusted adult. Like for example, some adult touched your genitals and then told you "don't tell your parents."

This seemed simple enough to me, and I was never worried about it as a kid. I assumed that if someone touched me in the "bad" way, I would know it was bad because they would then say "don't tell your parents" and then I would tell my parents and that would be the end of that.

But, umm, now that I'm an adult and I've read articles about how child abuse works, I am thinking maybe abusers don't always say the words "don't tell anyone." Probably it's more likely that they make the victim feel too ashamed to tell anyone, maybe by making the victim think it's their own fault. Or the abuser acts like what they're doing is totally normal, and the victim assumes any trusted adult would also think it was fine and normal, so there's no point in telling.

So, uh, maybe it wasn't good that the main message I got to protect me from sexual abuse was "watch out when people tell you to keep a secret for them- you have to check which kind of secret it is" because if I was abused I would probably not read the situation as "this person wants me to keep a secret for them."

And I'm not really sure if "swell secrets and tell secrets" truly was the thing the adults emphasized the most, or if that's just the one aspect that my brain latched onto because it's very straightforward and easy to understand.

I don't know. I was never sexually abused, thank goodness, so this is all hypothetical. I just want to say it feels to me that this advice wasn't all that useful.

The other aspect related to warnings about touch was that I should tell my parents if "someone touches you in a way that is inappropriate." Or "in a way you don't like." Or "in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable." I understood that all 3 of these were awkward euphemisms for touching "private parts." I actually remember feeling a little amused at these long cumbersome phrases that adults used; they sounded so awkward and unnatural- "someone touches you in a way that is inappropriate"- like, what in the world, surely there's a less-weird-sounding way to phrase that, right?

It has only just recently occurred to me, though, that I very much was NOT taught that it's wrong if someone touches me "in a way I don't like" or "in a way that makes me uncomfortable." As in, taking those literal words at face value. As in, if someone touches me and I don't like it, I have the right to tell them to stop- no, certainly I was never taught that, certainly I never believed that. I understood that "in a way I don't like" had nothing to do with whether or not I liked it; it was simply a euphemism for touching "private parts."

In middle school I was seeing a therapist, and at one of the first appointments she said, "I'm just asking this because I have to ask everyone, I know it's not related to why you're coming here, but ... has anyone ever touched you in a way you didn't like?"

And I hesitated. The first thing I thought of is when I used to fight with my sister and we hit each other- certainly I didn't like that. But ... when adults say "touched you in a way you didn't like" they don't actually mean someone touched me in a way I didn't like; they mean touching "private parts." So I kind of awkwardly asked her to clarify the question... I'm not comfortable with saying "no" to this particular wording of the question, when I KNOW that there have been times my sister hit me and I didn't like that. And when I answered that yeah sure my sister has hit me before but I've never been sexually molested (or however a shy 11-year-old would phrase that), then the therapist was satisfied with that and moved on to other things.

In other words, she was ONLY asking about sexual abuse, but she used the words "touched you in a way you didn't like." I think there's something wrong about that. Yes, it's understandable that a therapist might specifically want to ask about sexual abuse rather than other kinds of trauma. But... the idea that something only counts as "in a way you didn't like" if it's sexual- that's messed-up.

And here's another story, a story I don't remember the details of, but piecing things together 20-some years later astonished me. I remember when I was preschool-age (maybe 4?) and my mom would brush my hair every day, and she always told me "stop moving, you need to stop moving or else I'll have to start all over" and it was so hard to sit there and not move, and it always felt like it was taking so long, and I didn't want her to start all over. I don't remember my own actions though. I don't remember how I was moving that made her say "stop moving."

Now I'm married, and there have been a few times I have asked my husband, Hendrix, to brush my hair, because I thought it would be romantic. But nope it wasn't. It always felt like he was doing it all wrong, and I assumed that's because he has never had long hair, so he just doesn't know how to brush hair.

But there have also been times when Hendrix is rubbing my back, and happens to pull on some of my hair ever-so-slightly, and that tiny bit of tension causes a tickling feeling where the strand of hair attaches to my head, and then I have to immediately scratch my head at that spot to get rid of the tickling feeling because OH MY GOODNESS I CANNOT STAND IT.

I remember one time he was rubbing my back, and I said to him "you have to scratch now to get rid of the tickling feeling" and he couldn't figure out what I was talking about, had no idea where I wanted him to scratch or how hard he should scratch.

Actually, this is something I've always had trouble with: realizing that other people don't feel what my body is currently feeling. Like, they have no way of knowing, because it's not their body. It's me who's feeling it, not them. I feel so silly talking about this, because isn't it obvious? I'm the one who feels what my body feels, and other people don't. Even though some sensory input is so overwhelmingly annoying that it's the only thing I can think about, that doesn't mean it's obvious to other people too. I have to tell them, or they won't know. I have to communicate.

So Hendrix rubs my back, and my *feeling* is that it's OBVIOUS that if you happen to put a tiny bit of tension on somebody's long hair, that's going to tickle at the point where the hair meets the head, and it's THE MOST ANNOYING FEELING EVER and therefore you need a good hard scratch to get rid of the feeling. But, umm, no, that's not "obvious." So I had to explain it all to him.

All of this has me thinking back to 20 years ago when my mom used to brush my hair before preschool, and I HATED IT. Wait a minute, did I hate it because it tickled? Was she trying to be more "gentle" because she knew I hated it, and that made it tickle more? Was I constantly scratching at the roots of my hair to get rid of the tickling feeling, and that's why I remember her saying, so many times, that I need to stop moving because if I mess it up she'll need to start over? And was I unable to communicate what the problem was- either because I was too little, or because I assumed the problem was obvious- so we never realized that maybe we could find a different, non-terrible way to brush my hair?

"Has anyone ever touched you in a way that you didn't like?" It never would have occurred to me that Mom brushing my hair was "touching me in a way I didn't like." Yes, of course I knew I didn't like it, but I believed that was my own problem. I was the one who had trouble "being good" and sitting still. I was the one causing problems by "messing up" my hair. Yes, of course I didn't like it, but my not-liking-it wasn't something that anyone should take seriously; it was just me failing to be an obedient child.

And so when the therapist asked that question, I didn't think of Mom brushing my hair, or anything like that. I thought of me and my sister hitting each other. I knew that my not-liking-it was valid in that case, because there were rules, and we got in trouble if we hit each other. I knew that if someone hits me, I'm allowed to "not like it." Not so with the hair-brushing, or all the times someone has touched me *very lightly* and I just COULD NOT STAND IT. Which, I now realize, was for autistic reasons.

I feel quite weird suggesting that Mom brushing my hair was an example of "someone touches you in a way you don't like", because generally "someone touches you in a way you don't like" is a euphemism for sexual abuse. But I'm not talking about anything like that at all- I'm just saying that there was touching and I didn't like it, and that should matter.

The big key difference between my example and sexual abuse is the intent of the person doing the touching. If Person A sexually abused Person B, that means Person A is a bad person. They should go to jail! They should never be allowed to work with kids again! But in my story, nobody is a bad person. But that doesn't mean there's no harm or trauma.

And so I'm not concerned with accusing anyone of being a bad person. My focus is on the person who experiences touch that they don't like, and how they should have the right to make it stop. In practical terms, this means they politely communicate "I don't like when you do that" and then the other person, because they are kind and respectful and hadn't realized it was a problem, stops. And that's that. Problem solved. I'm not interested in "punishing" anyone; I just want to solve the problem.

The focus should be on the person who doesn't like being treated that way. NOT on determining if the other person is or is not a bad person.

I've noticed that, when women talk about their experiences with sexual harassment or sexual assault, it's common that people respond by arguing that it wasn't "really" sexual harassment/assault. Apparently, to be "really" sexual harassment or assault, it has to meet these 3 criteria:

1. Someone says/does a sexual thing to another person
2. Intentionally
3. For creepy, pervert reasons

So you get people making all kinds of excuses, "oh it wasn't really a sexist joke, she just misunderstood" and "oh he didn't realize she didn't like it because there were mixed signals" and so on. And all of this argumentation and excuses revolves around the issue of "Is Person A a bad person, a sexual predator?"

I submit to you that this shouldn't be the point. Because in this perspective, if we come up with enough reasons to doubt that the situation meets the 3 criteria for what's "really" sexual harassment or assault, then apparently that means Person B was wrong to say anything. Move along, nothing to see here, Person B is the one in the wrong. Their "not liking it" is invalid, because Person A didn't actually do anything bad.

Okay, I don't care if Person A is "a bad person" or not. If they should be punished or not. Really, I don't care. And when we talk about consent, and how to teach children about consent, that shouldn't be what it's about. I care about Person B having the right to communicate "I don't like this" and expect that people will then listen to them and stop doing it. The thing that matters is they don't like it. Don't respond to them with "let me explain to you why you are wrong to not like it, because Person A is not a bad person."

Because I'm just realizing now, as a child I definitely was NOT taught that I had the right to tell people to stop if they were touching me in a way I didn't like. Even though adults consistently told me I should tell a trusted adult "if someone touches you in a way you don't like." They only meant it as a euphemism for touching genitals; it had absolutely nothing to do with what I personally liked or didn't like. And so, I'm realizing that no, I never was taught about consent.

I'm realizing that I believed things were wrong because there were rules that said they were wrong. I wasn't taught that people are in charge of their own body and get to set boundaries about the way other people treat them. When I didn't like the way people were touching me, for autistic reasons, adults told me I was the one being unreasonable. (And maybe a lot of that was because I didn't know how to communicate about it, so I would try to endure it as long as I could and then end up snapping at them "STOP IT!") And I treated other kids this way too... sometimes I teased my sister and when my parents told me to stop because she didn't like it, I explained that actually I am making hilarious jokes and therefore she is wrong to not like them and therefore I don't need to stop.

Soooooo. How about this instead: If someone touches you in a way you don't like, you can politely communicate to tell them to stop, and they need to stop because you are in charge of your own body. If they stop, great, no harm done, move on. As an entirely separate issue, children cannot consent to sex, so if an adult touches your genitals, that's bad and you should tell a trusted adult. 

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Related:
How Are Autistics Supposed To Know Which of Our Pain is Socially Acceptable To Express?