Love: What Really Matters

The Vital Importance of Erotic Empathy

by Joe Kort, Ph.D., LMSW

One of the most important ways to be sexually fulfilled is through deeper communication. “Sexuality is one of those topics that can be awkward to talk about,” even for therapists, says psychotherapist Amanda Luterman, the founder of the Centre for Erotic Empathy in Montreal. She urges couples to explore and express erotic empathy by “validating and including the unique experience of the person in front of you as a sexual being.”

“All too often, couples love each other, but there is noise between them, a feeling that they’re not fully acceptable, not fully received, or not able to truly be their authentic erotic self,” she says. “Both people in a relationship have a plethora (过多的，过剩的) of things that interest them, sexually speaking. In a relationship, we are not necessarily everything that our partners find attractive,” but we allow our insecurities to convince us that we need to be, out of fear of being found inadequate or unappealing.

“Eroticism is about two people wanting to feel desired and desirable with each other,” Luterman says. “Erotic empathy allows your partner to find you attractive. Even when you don’t feel you are, your partner can see you in a way that you do not see yourself, and you have to understand that and allow it to happen. A mistake we make is rejecting our partner’s initiative because we don’t feel attractive.”

So, if you come home from the gym feeling sweaty and smelly, but your partner is turned on by seeing you, Luterman advises, “erotic empathy would say, ‘Let me adjust this moment to include the conditions I require to be able to feel erotically present.’ Give your partner a kiss, put your hand on them, and say, ‘I love that. Don’t move. I need 12 minutes.’ If you don’t feel you can enjoy your own body, it can be a distraction or a difficulty to be present with your partner, so those adjustments are really important.”

Joe Kort, Ph.D., LMSW, is a sex and relationship therapist and co-director of Modern Sex Therapy Institutes.

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