My experience disagrees. I’m probably (diagnosed by my therapist but not a doctor) autistic and I have both a pretty deep intuitive understanding of intimacy as described here, evidenced by writing stories that include it, and little to no bad experience with misunderstanding it—though mostly because I didn’t have intimate relationships at all, I was aware enough of what was at stake to not make myself vulnerable.
While reading this, I thought “Man, an autistic by default is going to ram through all this social mechanism like a train”.
My experience disagrees. I’m probably (diagnosed by my therapist but not a doctor) autistic and I have both a pretty deep intuitive understanding of intimacy as described here, evidenced by writing stories that include it, and little to no bad experience with misunderstanding it—though mostly because I didn’t have intimate relationships at all, I was aware enough of what was at stake to not make myself vulnerable.