Aempaths: men who can’t understand people as anything other than objects

The phenomenon of men with no empathy or compassion

The term ‘sociopath’ is overused, to the point we muddy ‘low empathy’ and ‘malicious behaviour’ into one profoundly unscientific category. Perhaps for that reason we need a new neologism that lacks the intentional cruelty or sadism of sociopathy: Aempaths. These people do not use their empathy skillset to exploit other people- they do not have any empathy in the first place. They aren’t charming, coaxing, coercive, and convincing: they are simply unaware that care, compassion, or interest in others is something anyone would ever sincerely experience. They have never felt anything for anyone.

This is someone who simply does not see human beings as anything other than objects to use to meet a need: (sex, money, food, or shelter) and is wholly unable to understand human interactions as anything other than wholly transactional.

I met a fascinating individual today who exhibited this really interesting disordered characteristic: a totally pragmatic, manipulative attitude to interactions with people, explicitly women, coupled with an aggressive understanding of them as existing for sexual pleasure. He viewed them like HTML code: a strategy had to be used to make them do what he wanted, and that strategy was devoid of sincerity, emotion, or kindness. He viewed any interaction with them as a means to potentially having sex, and that having to do so at all was a…