Sexual sensations have emotional content in and of themselves, perhaps inherently so, and have a tendency to create or strengthen empathic connections and shared identity. Audre Lord ["Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power". in Laura Lederer, Ed., Take Back the Night: Woman on Pornography. NY: Morrow 1980] writes:

The erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person. The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.
(p. 298)

(Or, I might add, it can threaten through its capacity to lessen difference)


(return)