What’s the secret to amazing sexual chemistry that lasts? While falling in love, feeling drawn to each other, and sharing intimate moments are all important, the real key may lie in something less discussed: matching sexual styles. Recent psychology research sheds light on how differences in sexual preferences and approaches can lead to frustration and conflict between partners, while alignment fosters satisfaction and connection.
H2: The Myth of “Sexual Chemistry” Many popular depictions of sexual chemistry focus on the magical, inexplicable spark of attraction and passion between two people. However, studies suggest that long-term sexual compatibility is less about initial attraction and more about a complex interplay of behavioral patterns, emotional needs, and communication styles[1].
Renowned sex therapist David Schnarch argues that the idea of finding a “soulmate” who perfectly meets all of your needs is a setup for disappointment. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of having the confidence to first identify your own sexual preferences, and then to share them. He uses the term “differentiation,” (borrowed from Bowenian notions) meaning the ability to maintain your sense of self while being emotionally close to a partner[2].
Three Types of Sexual Styles
According to Donald Mosher’s Three Dimensions of Depth of Involvement in Human Sexual Response model, there are three main sexual styles that individuals tend to exhibit[3]:
- Partner Engagers: Focus on emotional connection and affection. Sex is a way to express love and feel “in sync” with their partner.
- Role Enactors: Approach sex with an emphasis on fun, creativity and adventure. They enjoy roleplaying, trying new things, and get bored with too much routine.
- Trancers: Prefer a slower, more immersive experience. They like to be fully relaxed, block out distractions and focus inward on physical sensations.
While many people are a blend, most lean toward one style over the others. Problems arise when partners have very different, even opposite styles.
In future posts, I’ll explore these styles in greater depth, recognizing that a person can improve their depth of involvement in each style.
When Styles Clash
Imagine a Partner Engager paired with a Role Enactor. The Partner Engager may feel objectified or disconnected by the Role Enactor’s penchant for sexual experimentation and fantasies. “I want to feel your love, not act out some script,” they might say. Meanwhile, the Role Enactor feels stifled and bored by the Partner Engager’s more vanilla approach. “Sex should be fun and exciting – not this predictable chore,” they think.
Or consider a Trancer matched with a Partner Engager. The Trancer’s need for quiet and stillness to savor the sensations frustrates the Partner Engager who associates sex with lively emotional sharing. “Why won’t you look at me or talk to me?” frets the Partner Engager, while the Trancer wonders,”Why are you so clingy and distracting – just relax into it!”
Pathologizing the Differences
When styles clash, partners often default to labeling and blaming. The Role Enactor calls the Partner Engager “boring and prudish.” The Partner Engager calls the Role Enactor “shallow and sex-obsessed.”
The Trancer calls the Partner Engager “needy and insecure.” The Partner Engager calls the Trancer “disconnected and selfish.” Each one sees their own style as the proper way to “do” sex, and views the mismatch as evidence that something is wrong with their partner.
This dynamic erodes empathy and destroys intimacy. Each feels increasingly resentful, rejected, and misunderstood – not exactly a recipe for sexual chemistry. To move forward, couples need to cultivate sexual empathy.
Cultivating Sexual Empathy
Sexual empathy is the ability to understand and appreciate your partner’s sexual style, even if it differs from your own[4]. It involves:
- Learning about the different styles and how they manifest
- Reflecting on your own style and how it shapes your assumptions about sex
- Respectfully seeking to understand your partner’s point of view
- Negotiating ways to meet each other’s needs through open communication
- Practicing flexibility and a willingness to occasionally stretch beyond your comfort zone
For example, a Role Enactor could agree to incorporate more affection and eye contact to meet their Partner Engager’s need for emotional connection during sex. A Partner Engager could experiment with roleplaying their partner’s favorite sexy scenario now and then.
A Trancer could make an effort to occasionally whisper words of appreciation to their partner during sex. And their Partner Engager partner could get more comfortable with periods of silence and stillness.
A Paradigm for Sexual Compatibility
Armed with an understanding of sexual styles, couples can move away from finger-pointing and toward a more nuanced view of sexual compatibility. They can untangle what differences are dealbreakers vs. what differences simply require more creativity and compromise to navigate. This prevents the toxic pattern of trying to change each other.
Conclusion
While there is no perfect recipe for sexual chemistry, insight into your natural sexual style – and your partner’s – is key. By honoring these differences and practicing sexual empathy, couples can stop seeing each other as “flawed” and start to truly sexually accept each other. As you develop an appreciation for what makes your partner tick in bed, you may find that bridging your different styles leads you to a whole new level of sexual and emotional intimacy. Instead of getting hung up on whether you have enough “spark” based on some mythical notion, focus on keeping the lines of communication open and being willing to continually grow together as lovers.
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Footnotes:
[1] Basson, R. (2001). Human sex-response cycles. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 27(1), 33-43.
[2] Schnarch, D. M. (1997). Passionate marriage: Keeping love and intimacy alive in committed relationships. Henry Holt & Co.
[3] Mosher, D. L. (1980). Three dimensions of depth of involvement in human sexual response. Journal of Sex Research, 16(1), 1-42.
[4] McCarthy, B., & Farr, E. (2012). Strategies and techniques to maintain sexual desire. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 42(4), 227-233.
Originally published August 10, 2013.
My boyfriend is sexually attracted to me and also emotionally. And so do I. We both love each other very much. But he told me he doesn’t feel chemistry with me. We’ve been together for a little over 4 month. The chemistry was never there for him. I haven’t noticed, if it wasn’t there I’d didn’t affect me. But for him it’s stating to make him not wanting sex at all with me.
Do you believe a sex therapist can help? Do you believe we can create chemistry?
As you read, I think people put a lot of stock in “chemistry” and for magical reasons. No one can argue with your boyfriend when he says it is “chemistry.” But what does that actually mean? Does he even know? Most people say it is just “a feeling” and leave it at that. I think couples therapy is good for everyone, but it depends upon whether or not both of you want to invest in the relationship or not. It’s a new relationship, so it would have to be a mutual decision. -Dr. K
My husband and I got married two years ago in our 50s. We decided to wait for sex. Big mistake. No chemistry. Very interested in your class.
Dr K.
Do you think that if couples are lacking in chemistry that it could be grown or if it is missing from the start (although you dearly, dearly love the person) that the relationship might not be right for you?
Hi Janelle, Great question. And complicated, too. The first question I’d ask them is: “How motivated are you to work on desire? How committed?” I believe that “chemistry” is a complicated short-hand for a lot of things. “Something in the way she moves, or looks my way, or calls my name, that seems to leave this troubled world behind…” James Taylor. Attraction to another seems to increases with a rise in their self-confidence, capacity in the world, and a more distance-taking perspective. We have many stories of someone who was ‘just there’ for years, and never noticed…until that moment when everything changed.
We’re often so afraid to look squarely at the feelings: “I love you, I’m just not IN love with you…” And yet, we keep hoping that our responsibilities stop at just the “feeling” and no action is required. When we, as sex therapists, get very deeping down to it, we notice a bunch of things that may seem subtle and imperceptible if we aren’t paying attention. “It was the way she directed her full attention to me when she went to kiss me. I could really FEEL her in that look…” “I never realized it, but I actually felt unsettled when he put his head above me to kiss me. I felt a ‘trapped’ feeling. I had to ask him to kiss me on his side, and that made it better…” “He just won’t stroke me the way I like to be stroked. He said he gets ‘bored’ and after two minutes stops. I can’t relax to really enjoy sex easily, and stroking me helps so much…”
“Love” requires an ability to merge. “Desire” requires an ability to distance and gaze upon. Sometimes “best friends” have merged into a comfortable bubble, so close that it is hard to distance adequately to gaze upon the other.
One thing is for sure: Chemistry is a brief short-hand that few people spend long enough to really analyze. We prefer to say “I have it” or “I’ve lost it” and close the discussion. But what if you are married with three kids, 3, 6, & 9? Resigning yourself to suffering “poor chemistry” the rest of your life, or divorcing, is a lousy excuse for living a passionate life. Go to a great sex therapist and work on it. That’s what I’d say.
Thanks for the question, Jenelle.
Did a man write this article? I’m going to have to totally disagree with you. Women date and marry men for all types of reasons. Often times that reason is security. Men marry women generally for one reason and that’s sex and serial attraction. So a man who’s very much attracted to a woman can be married to a woman who isn’t attracted to him in the least past his wallet (OK and maybe he’s a respectable person, comes from a good family, etc etc). So, the sec for him is great and it doesn’t matter what tricks he learns, she won’t be into it.
Look if a woman has real chemistry with man she’s going to feel things that if the security guy did the exact same thing to her but she doesn’t have that chemistry with him then she will feel nothing.
I’ve had men, who have said they’ve had amazing sex with me and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I hated every moment of it. When they ask me what turns me on I want to say “when you leave”. And when I finally tell them I feel absolutely nothing they can’t believe it.
On the other hand I’ve had knock down 25 organs and 3 hours later amazing sex too and the difference is chemistry.
I think it’s different for men and women and in my experience most people go their whole lives without experiencing real chemistry because they rush into sex and rationships for fear of being alone but those who wait, those who aren’t afraid to be single for a whole those that are willing to wait for the guy who when he touches you, you feel warm all over and when you hear his voice your heart races. That’s chemistry. OK if you get nothing else from this comment get this one thing. Styles don’t matter because 2 guys do the same thing to you and you have chemistry with the one and it’s amazing and with the other guy you feel nothing. Chemistry chemistry. Whoever wrote this article is either a guy or if it’s woman she must be married to a guy who’s given her a great big house in the suburbs, a lot of Shiney stuff and very few mind blowing organs.
Dear Lauren,
Thank you for your personal stories.
This article doesn’t deny that some people connect with others sexually, and with others they don’t. But it challenges the notion of “chemistry.”
If it’s chemistry, what is this chemical called?
It talks about how being “turned on” or “turned off” is a complicated process depended upon a complex variety of interactional variables. One writer clustered these variables into groups, that have been very helpful in helping couples relate better sexually.
“Chemistry” you are born with, or so it implies. You have it, or you don’t.
“Styles” imply a tendency, a preference, maybe a built-in preference, or one shaped by experience, but one that *can* be shaped.
I can’t understand why you make gender-related comments, because after working for 30 years with people, I’ve discovered that just as many men feel they have no “chemistry” with their wives, as the opposite.
I know you are right that some people choose to marry for status and wealth, or to escape poverty, instead of genuine fondness and admiration, and that’s probably less true depending upon how high up your social status is, and the stability of your family of origin. But this is not what this article speaks to. In the USA anyway, marrying for those reasons is less common.
And when your heart races when someone touches you? I’d call that “love.” But that’s just my feminine side talking.
Thanks again for your comment. Dr. K (the article’s author who decidedly never married for wealth. 😉 )
My husband and I have been struggling with personality clashes and other emotional issues for a number of years. In the past 2.5 – 3 years (we’ve only been together 4 and been married for 1 year) our physical intimacy has completely dried up. I feel like having sex and want him but he is too emotionally disconnected to even try physical intimacy. He doesn’t think that being sexually close can positively impact the emotional side of our relationship and so he never engages in even so much as a passionate kiss. We are at our wits end with each other and literally hanging by a thread here.
Will a weekend workshop help us achieve emotional AND sexual closeness? What do you recommend?
Hi Rachelle,
You are pointing out how intimately connected “emotional disconnection” is from “sexual disconnection.” Once we developed our neocortex, sex became, well, “complicated.” How we’ve been raised, how we attach to other people, how we feel about ourselves and our bodies, and especially how we feel about our relationship, is going to impact us both emotionally and sexually. Nurturing, loving, connected sex is OF COURSE going to positively impact the emotional side of a relationship (but you knew that…). So will passionate kisses. Our workshops don’t treat sex and emotions as separate spheres. We treat two entire people who are complicated human beings. We try to determine, before people even come in, what might be happening to create distance, and to learn as much as we can about your personal and relationship dynamics.
You don’t have to know ahead of time whether it is more important to focus on sex OR emotional closeness. Let us help you to decide when you complete the thorough assessment we do. After that, we can provide you with a week-end intensive that will be tailored to your needs.
Thanks for your comment…
Dr. K