PhronesisAutistic hygiene protest — the intense resistance many autistic individuals display toward bathing, tooth brushing, hair washing, nail cutting, and related caregiver-imposed cleaning routines — is not dysregulation to be suppressed but a legitimate displacement-resistance signal. We apply the Displacement Framework to formalize hygiene protest in autism. The autistic sensory ground state S0_embody is defined as proprioceptive predictability, interoceptive coherence, and bodily autonomy.
The caregiver's hygiene routine imposes a displacement forcing D_hygiene — unpredictable tactile input, loss of bodily control, combined sensory overwhelm — that pushes the autistic individual out of S0_embody. The protest IS the return signal. The pathological outcome is not protest itself but the chronic wrong attractor W_protest formed through repeated coercive hygiene encounters: anticipatory dread, generalized refusal, shame-secrecy cycle, and eventual hygiene neglect.
Nine formal propositions cover: S0_embody as autistic sensory ground state (P1), W_protest as hygiene-refusal wrong attractor distinct from episodic protest (P2), D_hygiene as imposed-cleaning forcing function with Bogdashina sensory fragmentation (P3), interoceptive difference as basin-depth modifier (P4), protest as legitimate return signal with ASAN bodily autonomy framing (P5), caregiver-calibration mismatch and Winnicott's holding environment reframed for sensory difference (P6), PDA profile amplification (P7), cumulative Phi_hygiene across sensory, relational, functional, and identity domains (P8), and return paths including sensory-friendly tools, low-demand framing, collaborative routine co-design, interoceptive therapy, and caregiver psychoeducation (P9).