Point to ponder

art by Hajime SorayamaI've noticed a trend among some of the people who talk to me by blog and email: an unusually high number of them say they have Asperger's Syndrome. I have it too. I finally got diagnosed last year, after at least two decades of trying to convince people that I should get tested. My symptoms aren't always obvious, so no one believed me. I didn't entirely believe myself. And AS is a hell of a thing to live with even when you know you have it. It's a lifetime of offending people without meaning to, of not understanding what people really want or need from you, of shame for screwing up again and again when you know you're too smart to keep making the same mistakes.

Do you see where I'm going here? This isn't a "poor, pitiful me" post; it's an explanation for why I developed a mind control fetish - and perhaps why so many other Aspies are into it.

If you're an Aspie and a sub, fantasizing about being totally controlled means fantasizing about being unable to screw up. If you can only do what your controller wants you to do, you can't offend or disappoint. You're perfect.

Or if you're an Aspie and a dom, (I assume) you can fantasize about the people you control being unable to take offense. They'd be totally accepting - loving - no matter how socially inappropriate you were with them. You could do no wrong in their eyes.

I have no data to back up my theory, just a few conversations; and I know there are lots of other reasons for people to develop an EMC fetish: feelings of inadequacy, revenge fantasies, lust for power, lust for surrender.... (Some of those could apply to Aspies, too. I won't say I've never written revenge into my stories; and looking back from the other side of my diagnosis, I realize I was taking revenge on the bullies who mistreated me because of my difference.). But I have a hunch that there are more Aspies among the EMC fetish ranks than among most other fetish ranks. And since Aspies are obsessive by nature, we might be some of EMC's most devoted fans.

That's a nice thought, isn't it? As long as none of you go all Annie Wilkes on me.