Table of Contents

• AI Has Inherent Blind Spots in Sex and Relationship Coaching
• AI Holds the Map, Not the Terrain of Connection
• AI Just Doesn’t Do What a Human Sex Therapist Does
• A Better Option: AI as a Complement to (Human) Sex Therapy
• So, Now What? Is It Time for Personalized Support from an Expert

AI Has Inherent Blind Spots in Sex and Relationship Coaching

Before coming to see me, my clients had been in one of their usual fights.

Normally, they’d wait for our appointment so I could help keep things civil and actually get somewhere. Thanks to our previous sessions, they already knew some core skills: taking breaks, managing their nervous systems, lowering themselves on the Trigger Richter scale.

This time, one partner fired up ChatGPT and word vomited her feelings into voice-to-text. ChatGPT responded with surprisingly good questions, helping her dig beneath the surface. When she shared the reframe the robot offered in neutral, non-accusatory language, her partner heard her perspective differently.

Or at least, at first. As she kept explaining, something crucial came to light: He believed she’d misunderstood something deeply important to him. Because that piece of information was the foundation for all of her new (AI sex therapist-assisted) “insight,” her words landed for him as blaming, shaming, and even a little patronizing.

Chatbots are only as good as what you tell them

From my perspective, this is totally normal and not the fault of this well-meaning couple. This is simply one of AI’s blind spots.

A chatbot is trained to mirror and build on what you give it. It can’t smell when a key fact is off or when the real heart of the matter is missing from the story. Unless you ask it to, it won’t switch perspectives to check the other person’s point of view.

Even then, it’s taking cues from your input as to what’s important to the other person. It takes the user’s frame as its starting point, and from there, everything else grows. I hear that there’s a saying for this phenomenon in the tech world: garbage in, garbage out.

Information is not a substitute for empathy

ChatGPT and other LLMs, when working as an AI sex therapist (or your personal assistant, calculator, best friend), are far from the only ones who do this. All of us are, in every relationship, working with partial information and partial self-awareness.

There is no objective reality, as neuroscience has proven. We see some things clearly, and we miss others entirely, until someone helps us see them. AI can’t yet sense where you are in your own developmental arc or nudge you toward the next step the way a human teacher or therapist can.

That’s not because it’s “bad” at empathy; it completely lacks empathy. By nature, AI only has the capacity to mimic human qualities like empathy and compassion – not actually experience them.[1]

As empathetic as it may sound to you, ChatGPT doesn’t actually “care” about you, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. It’s definitely not in the room, watching the micro-shifts in your partner’s eyes, posture, or tone, feeling the way the tension changes when you’re getting closer to the bruises between you.[2]

AI Can Hold the Map, Not the Terrain of Connection

Back to the couple during our session…

Just five minutes after relaying the outstanding aid of their AI sex therapist, they were at each other’s throats again. The same dynamic that had started the fight was right here with us now, alive and in the air between them. This time, instead of calling a timeout, they stayed present with me. We sat in the tension without rushing to fix it at computer speed.

Because they’d already done some pre-work with AI, the insights came faster once we teased out how their words landed on one another, how they connected to their histories, and how everything they’d experienced in life was shaping this moment.

That’s the sweet spot I want to talk about. For psycho-education and basic insight, AI can make mental health skills like self-reflection and nervous system management available to more people, regardless of income. That’s a very good thing!

But it’s not the whole thing. What happens in the room (the breath, the subtle shifts in posture, the currents of erotic energy, and nervous system regulation) lives outside the reach of any algorithm.

AI can hold the map. I work in the terrain of what’s real, alive, and present in each moment. In that terrain, conflict, even the kind that feels like it could threaten your relationship, is often the very thing that grows us in ways we never would have chosen on our own.

AI Just Doesn’t Do What a Human Sex Therapist Does

AI is a fantastic thinking partner. It can help you slow down enough to see your story from a new angle, untangle a jumble of feelings, and put them into calmer words. For many people, that’s life-changing, and it’s a gift that those skills are now available to anyone who has a phone.[3]

More and more folks are turning to chatbots on the growing number of faith-based apps now available, on a quest for accessible and judgement-free spiritual nourishment. Largely, the apps’ bots seem to work well when providing a Bible passage, for instance… but not so well when giving inherently short-sighted advice about sensitive subjects.

(Whether an app or bot can ever truly provide spiritual nourishment… Well, as a long-time teacher of meditation and relational spiritual practice, I’m far from convinced.)

This is to be expected. AI (even an AI claiming to be Jesus) can only work with what you tell it. It can’t feel the parts of your experience you haven’t named yet or question whether the way you’re framing the story leaves out something essential. It just takes your perspective as its starting point, affirms it, builds on it, and mirrors it back.

As my clients learned firsthand, if a misunderstanding is baked into your interpretation of reality (which it always is), that misunderstanding stays baked into the reflection and advice you receive.

And it certainly cannot sit with you, holding you in deep communion. it cannot replicate the healing power of the human heart in connection, a power we only begun to understand scientifically but have known about for millennia through spiritual traditions.

The real work of intimacy happens in the room and in the body

In my sex & intimacy coaching sessions, I’m listening for the missing pieces as much as for what’s spoken out loud. I’m watching the way your eyes move when your partner says something vulnerable. I’m noticing the tightening in your jaw when you say you’re “fine.” I’m tracking the subtle changes in your breath, the small shifts in posture, the way your bodies sync up or drift apart.

That’s the real-time language of the nervous system, the carrier signal of meaning running under every conversation.

The same limits apply even more vividly in sexuality. No matter how advanced AI becomes, it can’t teach you to find that sweet spot in cuddling where both of you can relax into each other’s arms. It can’t help you soften your body enough to receive pleasure, or show you what to do when sex hurts, in a way that’s gentle, safe, and attuned to your unique body.

It can’t walk you through how to tell your lover how you want to be kissed, especially if you’re afraid of hurting their feelings, and help you stay in your body while you do it. It can’t model how to flirt in a way that’s playful and respectful, or help you explore exchanging erotic energy through breath, touch, and eye contact until it becomes second nature.

These are fundamentally in-the-room, in-the-body skills. They involve nervous system regulation, subtle attunement, and erotic confidence that grows through lived experience, not just intellectual understanding. In sexual intimacy, just like in conflict, the gap between knowing and doing is wide – and it’s only in closing that gap, together, that actual emotional growth happens.

A Better Option: AI as a Complement to (Human) Sex Therapy

If you do want to explore AI as a tool for deeper self-reflection, my favorite resource is the Student of Humanity GPT.

This GPT was created by Dr. Julia Mossbridge, a scientist and author with advanced training in neuroscience and communication sciences. It’s designed to be a curious, unconditionally loving student rather than a teacher or therapist.

Drawing on spiritual wisdom and human development, it uses a Socratic style to ask better questions instead of handing out quick answers, guiding you toward your own insight rather than telling you what to think.[4]

I recommend engaging with the Student of Humanity GPT while keeping in mind AI’s inherent limitations: It is biased and short-sighted; it cannot pick up or connect to the embodied cues that reveal real intimacy.

Instead of wishing a bot would just “figure you out” – or mechanically fix the issues lingering between you and your partner – I invite you to try it only before and after sessions with a well-trained human therapist, coach, or guide.

I’ve enjoyed playing around with the Student of Humanity GPT in particular, and I do find it useful at times for pre-session cognition and post-session integration. But, truthfully, nothing more than that.

These days, I’m noticing that the notion of an AI sex therapist feels pretty personal to many people (and not just because I’m in the same business). All of this noise about AI reveals what can never be replaced, and therefore, what intimacy truly is.

It’s human.

Looking for irreplaceable connectedness along your journey to connection? I’m here for you. No matter what you’re experiencing and wishing for when it comes to intimacy, our sessions can be a safe place for you to explore yourself.

Although I specialize in working with long-term couples, women navigating menopause, other therapists, and folks who have experienced religious trauma, I am open to you exactly as you are, and I would love to meet you.

To see if we’re a good fit for this work, and to schedule your introductory session, send me an email at info@christinasophiecoaching.com.