Member-only story
Sexual Empathy
This isn't about physical skills. It's about building bridges to a partner's deepest sexual identity.
By Dr T J Jordan
There are magic moments in lovemaking when we feel as though we finally are merging. Not only are our sensations in sync, but our emotions are peaking in tandem. Somehow we have managed to reach beyond mere bodies.
This is the experience of sexual empathy.
Empathy is the ability to understand and actually to share the feelings of another, stepping into their vantage point for the moment. Empathy is feeling with another, while sympathy is feeling for another.
There is a neurological foundation for empathy. Mirror neurons in our brains help us connect with others’ experiences. Many other developmental factors, including social influences, prime us for empathy. Sexual empathy is a landscape specific to partnered sex.
The origins of our sexuality go back to our very earliest experiences of being loved, rejected, abused, neglected, aroused. Our tastes in sex encompass objects, smells, sounds, sights, places that we have learned to associate with excitement throughout an infinity of micro-experiences…
