Neuroqueer Intimacies in Online Dating Apps

Abstract

What can we learn from the intimacies bypassing neurotypical understanding of relationships? Drawing from neurodiversity studies (Yergeau, 2018, 2020; Egner, 2019; Kapp, 2020), I question the widespread notion of intimacy connected to neurotypical familial sexual relationships. This paper includes a bibliographic review of neuroqueer intimacies, followed by autoethnographic journal entries that recall the experiences of a neurodivergent, autistic person seeking intimate connections on dating apps. I comment on Remi Yergeau’s critique of the ‘Cassandra Affective Deprivation Disorder.’ CADD is allegedly a condition that would affect neurotypical partners of autistics. CADD’s tropes stigmatise neurodivergent traits as being male-based and a societal burden. It erases the neurodivergent folks who are neither heterosexual nor cis-gender identified (Bertilsdotter Rosqvist et al., 2020). Cassandra’s bias reinforces a normative view of how some bodies should perform (Yergeau, 2020), and the traits of a normative performance are scrutinised in intimate platforms. In dating apps, there is a constant requirement to prove the ability to perform neurotypical traits, like constant eye contact and linguistic and gestural displays of affectivity.