NEWS: The End of Sex as We Know It

I finished having sex like 20 minutes ago.

Fuck technology.

Fuck it in it's stupid, smelly, online, blinking-light-ridden asshole!

RE: "could exacerbate the 'individualization' of sex,"

Does that mean: "Would make masturbation worse"? 'Cause I would think bad masturbation would encourage people to go out and have sex with partners . . . or perhaps join a sex research institute or something . . .

Oh my, they never saw the propaganda film. Electric Gonorrhea: The noisy killer.

puh-leez...this is nothing but alarmist bullshit...take it to CBS Nightly News where Stone Phillips can scare the masses with it...

Only until the return of John Spartan.

Haha. I want in on some of that drug-fuelled cyber sex they mentioned.

hilarious.

maybe i'll marry viagra, and I'll never be lonely again.

welcome to SG
excellent first post.

Because sex can only be a physical act, and not mental, nerds everywhere scream in terror and make false research like this.

"i still jerk off manually."

OK, if these scientists had you sit in a room and on one side of the room they offered you sex with a real live willing partner (of your prefered gender) and a computer terminal with some top-of-the-line cyber sex complete with a fake orifice for you to fuck (or a vibrator, whichever you prefer). How many people would step up to the computer?
Virtually none! Everyone wants sex with a real person, some people are into other things, and that's perfectly fine, but just because some people are realizing something unique within themselves about what turns them on doesn't mean everyone is going to be forsaking real-life sex for some simulation.

I think these scientists are drawing a poor conclusion from noticing the changing dynamics of relationships as we become more (and less) connected to the world around us. How we interact with others is changing, and how we value that interaction is changing. But that doesn't mean we're going to give up having sex, just like we haven't given up on any number of things (like hating people for arbitrary differences, for example).

These folks may have some point. I mean, marriage rates are lower than ever in US history, and on average marriage happens later in life than ever. I don't have any research to prove it, but I believe that sex outside of marriage is significantly more difficult for many adults to obtain than it was, say, in the 70's, pre-AIDS. (Suicide Girls, I would imagine. have no problems in finding potential sexual partners, should that be what they are wanting. But we ain't all that lucky...) Obviously there is still a huge amount of sex, but I do think that more people than ever have given up on actual sex in actual relationships, particularly people who are over 30, many of whom cannot easily attract people who are as beautiful as internet models. (Yeah, go ahead. Tell me I'm only saying this because I'm hard up.) There are some real advantages to this, of course. You don't get diseases, unwanted pregnancies don't happen. It is cheaper generally than trying to get sex thru relationships. But there are downsides.

I don't know what this means long term. Like so many things about this period of history, it is too soon to tell. But the seperation of sexuality from its biological roots in human relationships and reproduction is a strong mark of this age, in many ways. I'm not for it or against it, but it does seem to be a fact. And it surely takes no research to notice it, if you've been alive as long as I have.

I read an article recently about new online adult games where people can meet up & interact live online & have virtual sex. If this kind of "game" infiltrates the teenagers, as I'm sure it will, it could lead to some weird erotic computer associations for those kids. That's where the scientists may see the problem. I can see that could become an issue too. But it's probably not going to be "the norm". I suspect it will only lead to people getting all hot 'n bothered online & then when they meet, they'll be substantially disappointed to see the other end user isn't what they'd imagined they'd be. That happens today with almost any online interaction where people meet, flirt & eventually meet in person. But it could also make long distance relationships work in a weird way, if there was some sort of interface where people who aren't in close proximity could have an online encounter instead. Yeah. I know. There's already cyber-chat-sex. Not the same.

Time will tell/show us where this new technological advance will lead us. I think there will be a split where some people will prefer the non-face-to-face encounters & others who dislike the online interactions. Just like I don't like telephone conversations. I'd prefer to be in person while talking to someone.