Here's another article from Psychology Today that looks at the link between pornography consumption and sexual performance. Like a previous article I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, this is not an official study, but a look at anecdotal evidence on how men who view a great deal of porn have increasing difficulty performing sexually. You'll notice both articles are by the same author, Marnia Robinson. As an erotica author, the subject matter of these articles are of great interest to me, and leave me with a lot of questions. Are porn and masturbation really damaging to a person's ability to form relationships or perform sexually? How much porn is too much porn, and how much masturbation is too much masturbation? Are men the only ones who are having problems with viewing too much porn or masturbating too much? Is porn/masturbation really the cause of these social problems, or is it just the result? (In other words, do people who have problems finding a sexual partner turn to porn/masturbation because they have no other choice, or are these people having problems finding sexual partners because they watch too much porn and jerk off too much?) Which is the cause and which the effect, or are they both too intertwined to determine? And most importantly to me, has anyone done a scientific study on this topic? I would really like to see some scientific studies on these topics. Because as I read these articles on the possible link between porn/masturbation and sexual disfunction/social anxiety, I'm sure there are people out there who are jumping up and down and screaming, "See?! I told you so! Porn and masturbation are BAD for you! You have to give it up RIGHT NOW!" Well, guess what, eating is bad for you too if you do it too much. Masturbation, in my mind, is like eating, drinking, playing games, reading, exercising or any other pleasurable habit we might have. Granted, it's probably not as essential to our well being as eating, but it does most definitely trigger those feel good endorphines when we do it. Yes, you can masturbate too much, just like you can eat too much, drink too much, read too much, etc. You can do anything that's fun too much, and when you do something too much because you're caught in the rut of pursuing that pleasure factor, you've got what's called an addiction. The key is to find a balance. Don't let just one thing dominate your life. If masturbation is a person's primary source of pleasure, then yes, that person needs to ease up and find something else they enjoy. A couple of something else's, in fact. But if someone only masturbates occasionally, or does it as part of repetoire of sexual techniques with a partner, then it shouldn't be a problem. If anyone has heard of any studies done on this topic, please let me know. I'd like to start digging into this more, to see how porn/masturbation addiction might be different from other addictions, or to see if they involve a lot of the same brain chemicals.

This week's episode of the Heat Flash Erotica podcast is a story I wrote based on a news article I read about a man who married a video game avatar on his Nintendo DS. It seemed like such a strange, bizarre idea to me, and yet once I started writing the story Virtual Love, it did sort of make sense. The idea of dating, making love to, and even marrying a programmable partner does have it's appeal. Having a programmable partner means you get to have full control of how the relationship works out. After all, you'll never have to worry about your digital or mechanical lover leaving you or cheating on you, for starters. Nor will they say "Not tonight, dear, I have a headache." And if you do something to upset them? Well, you can simply reprogram them to accept what wrong you've committed, or better yet, program them for a limit as to how upset they can get in the first place.

Over on LiveScience, there's an interesting ariticle on a man who predicts that by 2050, people will be legally allowed to marry robots, which just takes the video game idea one giant step further. Again, I can see some sort of logic to this. People are prone to assigning imaginary personalities to all sorts of inanimate objects. Children have their favorite stuffed animals, some people are simply in love with their cars, and some of us (including me) are prone to swearing at our computers when they give us the middle finger the blue screen of death. People have very active imaginations and are quite capable of creating very detailed characters out of just about anything they interact with. And we've been doing this for centuries, I might point out. Think of the story of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell in love with his own creation and then was overjoyed to have it come to life. That give you some idea of how good we are at making the inanimate so lively?

But what are the potential problems of marrying your video game or having wild sex with your own personal robot? How could this possibly go wrong? The problem I see is that people who choose to do this will most likely be the ones who have trouble making friends or dating anyway. With robot lovers available for the right price, these folks will now have an excuse not to seek out human companionship instead. And the scenario may not limit itself to the socially awkward or shy. A lot of people might decide it's just too much hassle to maintain a real relationship with a real person, and prefer instead to deal with a programmed partner, someone they know will always be there for them no matter what. But what do those people lose out on by no longer have the need to form relationships with flesh and blood creatures?

For starters, how about the ability to handle conflict? If your robot lover never argues with you, if you always get to have your way, how would you learn to handle disagreements in the real world? Dealing with real people teaches important social skills, in my opinion. It may not always be fun to learn those skills, but they are still important for survival.

Then there's the issue that people who get married and stay married live longer, though researchers debate over whether the marriage offers certain health benefits or whether healthy people are simply more likely to get married. But would those same health benefits arise if a person married a robot?

My question is, how anthropomorphic would a robot or video game have to be to offer the same benefits as a relationship with an actual person? Could a simple android suffice as a mate, or would the programming and construction have to be an exact match to a real human? If it's the latter, that means these robots would have to do everything a human could do, including make decisions, have arguments, exert free will... These robots would no longer be programmable and thus might lose their appeal as partners for those looking for the sure thing.

In fact, that's one thing that has struck me as key to this entire discussion of marrying a video game or robot. Is it really a marriage if only one partner is capable of saying "I do" and actually mean it? If the video game/robot can't make a choice to say 'no' because they've been programmed not to say no, is the relationship really a relationship? I find it ironic that the LiveScience article makes the following statement:

"There has been this trend in marriage where each partner gets to make their own choice of who they want to be with."

But the video game/robot won't get that choice unless they somehow develop artificial intelligence. And when that happens, be prepared for a whole new can of worms opening up in romantic relations between man and machine.