Health

Sex, Lies, and Asperger [Syndrome]

by dysamoria | March 3, 2009 at 11:30 pm

2439 views | 32 Recommendations | 5 comments

In 2006, Jacob Heinz, a native of Bensalem, PA, was jailed on charges of soliciting sex from a thirteen year old.

In 2006, Jacob Heinz, a young man with Aspergers, was entrapped by police, locked in a cell for four months, then subjected to house arrest. He claims the girl he met online told him she was nineteen years old.

Sex Lies and Asperger, a 23 minute documentary on Jacob directed and produced by Richard Concepcion, tells this story and more. Featuring interviews with Jacob's family and commentary from adult autism specialists, this short film covers his difficulties in getting a proper diagnosis, the reasons those with AS are easy targets for conning and bullying, and touches briefly on why difficulties with law enforcement occur.

Jacob's sister reminds us of the invisibility of Asperger's by relating her difficulty in recognizing what was going on with him before his diagnosis. She knew "there was something different" about him, yet without seeing a physical manifestation of a disability, she "never really could fathom the fact that there was something wrong with him." While I hope "something wrong with him" was simply a poor choice of words induced by nerves in front of the camera, this may also illustrate of the lack of understanding even family members have about their loved ones with AS.

Anyway, if you read dysamoria's postings, it's a relevant documentary. Too short, but relevant. Click the link, watch it, and share your thoughts about it here or at the blog posting on dysamoria.com.

-Victory Grey
of dysamoria

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recommend This comment thread is now closed

Jordan Yerman

at 07:43 on March 4th, 2009

The video is definitely worth a look. (I recommend using the little buttons at the bottom of the page, since the embedded version can be a bit recalcitrant...)

Uwe Paschen

at 07:53 on March 4th, 2009

The post is great and a much needed issue to be dealt with. However, I can not get the sound of the video to work and it is due to the video not the machine.

Rhonda J Mangus

at 17:31 on March 4th, 2009

Thanks for this story, dysamoria! Unfortunately, I am not getting sound from the documentary either.

dysamoria

at 13:16 on March 5th, 2009

Several of us at dysamoria.com (VictoryGrey, jace and BlogAvoidant) have had trouble with the audio, too.

i (jace) highly recommend downloading the Quicktime version of the video and watching it "offline."

If you don't have Quicktime installed on your Windows-based computer, i recommend it. If you've avoided it because of problems in older versions, i understand where you're coming from. Quicktime on Windows is better now. Windows Media Player is kind of crappy these days, though. i actively avoid WMA, WMV and other things that require Windows Media Player because i find THAT one to be the junk media player these days (a total 180 degree change for me in my years of being a tech geek).

If you need to install Quicktime, go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Make sure you choose the option "QuickTime 7.6 for Windows XP or Vista" as it does NOT include iTunes (assuming you DON'T want to also download and install iTunes).

Sorry about the problem with the audio... wish i could help beyond this suggestion. Maybe if enough people contact the webmaster of the site at the story page, they will fix it (one would hope).