The Mating Life of Geeks: Love, Neuroscience, and the New Autistic Subject

Abstract

In this article, we track the emergence of a new autistic subject, one that is socially inept yet brilliant, earnest yet charming, obsessive yet humorous, arrogant yet vulnerable, and unquestionably worthy of our attention. In contrast to the historic definition of the autist as one lacking the capacity for love, the new autistic subject is enabled and inflected by the gendered construction of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and holds the promise of being potentially productive and even (desirably) reproductive. Through an analysis of current trends in autism science (extreme male brains and assortative mating) and shifting narratives about autism and love, we trace how processes of heterosexualization inform the shift from loveless to loving and lovable, and we further explore how such processes produce new forms of exclusions in the name of neurodiversity. We locate ASD as a site for the reinscription and biologization of historical ideas about gender as well as the naturalization of normative heterosexuality. Finally, we argue that it is through this process of normalization via heterosexualization that this new subject emerges, leaving many lost to the queer, to the feminine, or to the irredeemably abject.