Welcome to This Week in Autistic Culture
This week, Angela and Simon dive into new research about Autistic traits and romantic relationships — and find themselves questioning some of the assumptions behind it.
From attachment styles and relationship maintenance to masking, regulation and the need for connection, they explore what happens when Autistic experiences are measured against expectations that may not have been designed with Autistic people in mind.
It’s time to open the vaults for our brand-new segment: The Autistic Culture Archive!
Each week, Angela and Simon will become cultural archaeologists, excavating a film, book, musician, fandom, hobby or cultural figure and using the Ten Pillars of Autistic Culture to uncover the Autistic fingerprints hiding in plain sight.
First into the archive is The Rocky Horror Picture Show
And if our first excavation leaves you wanting to dig deeper, every entry in the Autistic Culture Archive will have its own Field Report, bringing together the research, evidence, rabbit holes and connections we couldn’t squeeze into the show — and inviting you to add your own field notes to an archive that is never truly finished
As always, we’ll take you through everything coming up across the Autistic Culture Podcast Network this week!
This Week’s Topics:
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror:
📻 On Air This Week:
Monday 5th October
Mindful Mondays with Ashley Dupuy
Ashley returns with another mindful reflection and guided meditation to help neurodivergent listeners begin the week with intention and regulation.
The Still Growing Up Film Club - Episode 6: How to Be You and Find Your People with Matilda
In the Season One finale of The Still Growing Up Film Club, Cece Fanning revisits the beloved 1996 film Matilda to explore belonging, justice, community and the families we find for ourselves.
Growing up in a family that neither understands nor appreciates her, Matilda learns to rely on herself from an extraordinarily young age. But through books, school, friendship and eventually Miss Honey, she begins to discover something different: there are people in the world who will value you precisely for the things that make you different.
Tuesday 6th October
Autistic Standpoint Theory - Episode 4: Autism, Identity & the Science of Being Seen
In the final episode of Autistic Standpoint Theory, Isha Snow is joined by psychometrician, mixed-methods researcher and autistic self-advocate Scott Frasard, PhD, to explore what happens when an autistic researcher turns the tools of measurement back towards the systems attempting to measure autistic people.
Scott discusses how being autistic shapes the way he approaches research, including his ability to recognise patterns, contradictions and assumptions that others may overlook. Together, he and Isha explore psychometrics, research methodology, autistic participation in research and why lived experience matters when deciding what questions get asked in the first place.
Wednesday 7th October
The Neurocomplex Creative - Season 2 Episode 5: Lucy Lane’s Story
In this episode of The Neurocomplex Creative, Vicki Peterson sits down with her daughter, Lucy Lane, a young actor, singer and musical theatre performer beginning her professional career in New York City.
Lucy reflects on growing up as a child actor in Hollywood, discovering acting techniques that helped her feel more grounded, and what she’s learning about building a creative life around a brain and body that don’t always work like everyone else’s. She and Vicki discuss EDS, dysautonomia, advocating for invisible needs and navigating the physical demands of professional performance without allowing a medical record to define what’s possible.
Clinical Misfits - Season 2 Episode 4: What If Your Neurological Symptoms Can’t Be Explained? | Functional Neurological Disorder
In this episode of Clinical Misfits, Dr Mary explores functional neurological disorder (FND), a term used to describe neurological symptoms that can include changes in sensation, speech and movement, paralysis and seizure-like episodes. She questions the language historically used to describe these experiences and what happens when unexplained symptoms are too readily dismissed as psychological or “all in your head.”
Dr Mary considers the relationship between these symptoms, the autonomic nervous system and trauma, particularly for neurodivergent people whose lives may include experiences of bullying, rejection, chronic illness, pain and other forms of trauma. She also discusses approaches used to manage symptoms, from medication and trauma therapies to sensory regulation, movement and other forms of self-care.
Thursday 8th October
The Neurodivergent Experience - Episode 131
Jordan James and Simon Scott return for a conversation about the Neurodivergent Experience!
📚 From the Archive - Friday 9th October
Autistic Culture Podcast Rewind – Cats is Autistic
In this episode of The Autistic Culture Podcast, hosts Dr Angela Kingdon and Matt Lowry, LPP, draw connections between the behaviours and traits exhibited by cats and the common experiences of autistic individuals.
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🎧 Autistic Culture Radio
Looking for a different way to experience ACPN? Autistic Culture Radio is our curated Spotify listening experience, blending music with every programme released across the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.
Updated daily, each episode pairs carefully chosen songs inspired by its themes, creating a continuous soundtrack to Autistic culture. Save the playlist to your Spotify library and dip in whenever you want to discover new conversations, music and voices from across the network.
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Join Autistic Culture Plus to support autistic creators and help us commission even more shows from our community.
This is the first time I have scrolled through the Spotify list and found the songs which go before; after; with the podcasts.
Was so happy that "Get what you give" from the New Radicals was #63.
[that song means an awful lot! Also MAMBO NUMBER FIVE which I heard in a Millennium celebration in a fantastic film called LIFE IS LIFE - and when the protagonist's daughter finally said the titular phrase she began to feel the fight].
So cool that "Finding Your Tribe" is tied with Matilda! [and "Being Yourself"].
Book Matilda found Lavender and Bruce Bogtrotter and eventually Miss Honey. I think there was a little boy in her kindergarten [Reception - as it was back then - or whenever Roald Dahl set it] class.
Especially when Lavender put a frog into the jug. And the moment when they were spelling out the married women of Difficulty.
(Made me think of a new or several new Japanese matchmaking services which I read about in the press today).
There is a great new film for the Roald Dahl fans [and also the Lithgow fans] called THE GIANT. It is releasing in November in Australia.
[And then Pawel Palikowski's new film the Thursday after Polish Independence Day/Remembrance Day/Armistice Day - FATHERLAND].
Went to a restaurant fish tank which gave real COLLECTING FISH vibes especially the enrichment-style backgrounds which are full plant and fish picture backgrounds. A diverse mix of smaller and larger fish and the plants were *sauce*!
Another film about school and chosen families is A LITTLE PRINCESS (the 1994/95 version by Alfonso Curacon). You might also appreciate some of the theatrical versions especially the one Frances Hodgson Burnett originally wrote - SARA CREWE (Helen Keller was a fan as well and she wrote about it in one of her letters).
The PsyPost on "positive social maintenance traits" - I did wonder if it was less about tactics and more about strategy/survival. Because a lot of those positive relationship traits take a lot of energy!
The Conversation on extremist content - too well I remember when the National Socialist Network was trying to recruit "an army of autistics". Yes - engaging is often covert and/or illegal.
There was a really great organisation around 2020-21 called Autistics Against Fascism. Anarchist Andy Fleming talked about it on his 3CR programme YEAH NAH PASARAN.
This part surprised me:
Some autistic people charged or convicted of terror-related offences have even described moving between extremist groups trying to fit in and find out where they belong.
[the moving part - not the trying to fit in and find out where they belong].
"If you’re worried about your own child, try to keep communication open and avoid ridiculing or confronting them."
Ridiculing someone is almost worse than confronting them - and they may or may not be able to pick up you are ridiculing the belief and/or the other people who believe the belief and not THEM.
And I see that Lukasiuk and Łaba-Hornecka looked at "autism-like traits" which were spread through the general population [PsyPost].
Life history theory + slow evolution strategies/reproduction strategies - and anxious and avoidant attachment styles associated with more fast strategies
{I note that fast strategies are often adopted in means and times of high stress - which might include/involve relational stress}.
This is an interesting part of that study [PsyPost]:
"In terms of evolutionary strategies, autistic-like traits proved to be weak predictors of life history outcomes. “The results did not support the hypothesis that ALTs predict a fast rather than a slow reproductive strategy,” Łukasik said. “ALTs were only weakly related to reproductive strategies.” Instead, attachment styles acted as a bridge between the variables."
Mentioned also: ASQ measured social anxiety? relational difficulties generally?
Modern relationships might be too much for explanatory power of life history theory.
Finally PsyPost recommended some studies from the last 5 years - except for 2015's "Fewer creative ideas but more original thinkers".
Frasard, too, is a good introduction to research methods and psychometric norms and rules for those of us who may not have had that enculturation! [Science of being seen].