Arousal and Nurtural Emotions

Before we open this can of worms, let me just say that I don’t know anything about autism.  I have no relatives or neighbors or co-workers with autism.  I applied for a job once where I would care for teens with autism, but I didn’t get a callback.  Once, a man came to the thinking church and talked about how he discovered that he had autism when he turned 50.  (I don’t think that you should worry about turning 50 for that reason.)  During his talk, I took a look at the church bulletin. There were “signs.”  I read the list and decided that I must be autistic too.  Clearly, I don’t understand it at all.  Despite my lack of credentials, I’m thinking I’ll follow this idea and type out loud.

On Touch, Kiefer Sutherland has a son who has autism.  This young actor shows no expressions. I imagine the director told the kid to stare at a point, stand, and say nothing. (I could soooo do this job.) However, for the rhetorical record, I don’t think this portrayal depicts the standard issue autistic pre-teen.  I couldn’t know.  (I’ve also watched Parenthood. It has an autistic pre-teen.  Other than the height and dark curly hair, the depictions aren’t similar. Hollywood directors need to compare notes if they want to educate the American people.) The autistic pre-teen in  Touch demonstrates no emotions.  His perpetual staring into an abyss and away from the given drama caused me to wonder if an autistic person could be gay.  I think it would be hell for a gay man to not be able to entertain.

Not knowing who to turn to, I Google’d the question.  I’m not the first.  In fact, an autistic man asked Yahoo! if it could be possible that he was gay.  That’s an odd question, birthing from within him.  It seems only he can know that answer.  However, I’ve met a few guys (and Dr. Love) who don’t know they are gay—so this is a compelling conundrum.  Maybe this man is grappling with the questions because he has an attraction to other men but doesn’t have an emotional connection, while he watches internal images of sexual trysts—, starring him!  That would certainly be confusing.  But, we can learn from his predicament—arousal and emotions are different.

I Google'd "How is arousal related to emotions?"  I read a couple of paragraphs in various articles and realized that I can't fake my way through neuroscience (after bagging leaves for 4 hours and drinking 2 beers).  But, I found this article, "How do Emotion, Attention, Thought, and Arousal Work Together?"  Mark Pettinelli cites a study that found "arousal, emotion, and self-regulation can be [from] specific subconstructs revealing interesting patterns of relations."  So, arousal, emotion, and self-regulation come from different starting points. Most of the articles want to show a relationship from arousal to emotion to behavior and so it seems like there's a baton relay going on in our minds.  But, Pettinelli reminds that lots of stuff is going on at any given time.  He cites the original study:

     Two people may meet accidentally and discuss the weather or the latest television program in a casual

     fashion. Yet while this desultory conversation proceeds, there is an exchange of feeling tone, and each

     may begin to feel the effects of mutual attraction and warm feelings. This experience leads to other 

     meetings, until the participants are sufficiently aware of their feelings to make them a subject for 

     communication on the conscious level.

From this gestalt effect, we see that arousal, emotions, attention, and thought may be in competition with each other for their human bearer's decisions. 

Once on this train of thought, I began to wonder what it's like for an autistic person with (gay) sexual cravings.  Can one have sex if they  have an aversion to contact?  I imagine it’s hell to have sex but there’s an equal or greater hell to not have sex when you've got interrupting images that promise relief only with enactment.  Again, this situation—like the first—manifests in the straight world.  If autistic straight people find a way to have sex, then autistic gay people will too. 

Again, we can look to the masses to understand. Yawn.  I don’t like that I have a gay question and am returning to the straight camp for a sanity litmus.  

I need to get back to work for the American people.  Oh wait—that was what Pres. Clinton said after arousal [->emotion] ->sex.  I need to get back to my original idea. 

What’s the relationship between arousal and emotions and/or gay sex?  As ignorant as I am about autism, I imagine that followers of the They-Them twins think lesbians are attracted to girls because it arouses (positive) emotions.  Well, there is that; but, I am learning that arousal and emotions are not one in the same.  First, arousal comes, and then emotion(s) might come. If I’m lucky the sex comes.  Ahh- this is where I was going with this thought.  Relief.

If arousal occurs and then lends to an emotion, this shows Nature preceding Nurture.  Therefore, attraction is not a choice.  It’s a prepackaged trigger that competes for and directs its bearer to a solution before “what is learned” gets involved and makes a decision.

Thoughts?  I hope you feel comfortable saying pretty much anything after this unchartered odyssey...


- - -
http://cnx.org/content/m43583/latest/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002494/