The Future of Intimacy: AI's Role in the So-Called "Sexual Revolution."
Why AI will likely make things worse when it comes to sexual ethics.
Artificial intelligence has not developed in a vacuum. While it’s important to consider the opportunities and challenges that come with AI, we can only fully understand its impact when we understand the current realities of the world in which we live.
In this post, let’s explore just one of the many developments that will impact the world of AI. How does artificial intelligence connect with an allegedly “sexually liberated” society?
The History of an Unhealthy Revolution
In 1905, Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality was published, playing a significant role in the intellectual underpinnings of changing attitudes towards sex and sexuality. In it, Freud introduced the concept of “polymorphous perversity,” which suggested that sexual expression did not adhere to the socially constructed norms in society. However, he argued that polymorphous perversity needed to be restrained. Decades later, in his 1966 work Eros and Civilization, Herbert Marcuse contended that sexuality had to be liberated from traditional societal constraints, thus providing the intellectual foundations for the sexual revolution.
In reality, many other factors were at play in the decades preceding Marcuse’s work. For example, during the 1920s, attitudes towards dating changed with the growing ubiquity of the automobile, giving rise to the beginnings of “hookup” culture.1 But by the 1960s, attitudes toward sexuality began a drastic shift. Within two years of the FDA’s approval of the oral contraceptive pill in 1960, over a million women were making use of it. Over the next few decades, attitudes towards marriage began to change,2 and divorce rates rose, peaking in the early 1980s.3
There are likely only fewer divorces today because fewer people are marrying.
Pornography exploded in popularity, sexual permissiveness entered the mainstream, and attitudes towards sex fundamentally changed. Today, as many as 86% of college students report participating in non-committal sexual encounters at least once in college.4 Indeed, the 21st Century has witnessed its own share of profound change regarding relationships: first, dating websites, which tended to hover around the peripheries of society, and then, dating apps, which exploded into mainstream culture in the 2010s. They are now used by over 300 million people.5
The Results
This so-called “sexual revolution” has caused a fundamental shift in our relationships. It is no coincidence that in the U.S., more than three times the number of children live in single-parent homes than the world’s global average.6 This additional strain on both parent and child leads to increased loneliness. Overwhelmingly, studies show that both men and women who engaged in non-committal sexual encounters had lower self-esteem compared to those who hadn’t.7 The rise in dating apps means that people are dating outside of their social circles, which provides ample opportunity for unsafe relationships, isolation, and inappropriate behaviour from those without any social incentives to act respectfully. On dating apps, “Time and resources are limited,” writes Ashley Fetters, “while matches, at least in theory, are not.”8 More broadly, even secular feminists are beginning to recognize that hookup culture is not as “freeing” as once suspected. In The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Louise Perry explains:
The heterosexual dating market has a problem, and it’s not one that can be easily resolved. Male sexuality and female sexuality, at the population level, do not match. On average, men want casual sex more often than women do, and women want committed monogamy more often than men do. Hook-up culture demands that women suppress their natural instincts in order to match male sexuality and thus meet the male demand for no-strings sex. Some women are quite happy to do this, but most women find it unpleasant, or even distressing. Thus hookup culture is a solution to the sexuality mismatch that benefits some men at the expense of most women.9
These factors—and many more that are beyond our immediate focus—impact the relational landscape in significant and concerning ways.
Enter Artificial Intelligence.
The change in the sexual ethics of our society is leaving people lonely, jaded, and, in some sad cases, damaged. AI—the Great Exacerbater—will likely only intensify these emotions.
Aside from the theological issues with pornography, there is clear evidence that consuming porn is wildly damaging in numerous ways.10 But with AI, it things will get much worse. Here’s just one example: Taylor Swift made headlines this week, not for anything she’d done, but because social media was inundated with sexually explicit AI-generated “Deepfake” images of her. The emotional stress of Deepfake AI-porn is obvious but almost impossible to stop.11
AI-powered dating apps have “only recently taken off” in the last year.12 Tinder has a new “AI photo selection” feature to ensure maximum eligibility. People are using AI to puff up their profiles. Others will use AI to edit or even fabricate their pictures. AI could even expedite the entire process by showing you who it thinks you will like. As if it wasn’t fast enough already!
Perhaps, as we saw in a previous article, more and more people will begin to eschew regular relationships for AI-generated ones. This is already happening on the fringes.
My concern with AI entering the dating world is that it will take the objectively negative impact of the so-called “sexual revolution,” speed up the process, and exacerbate the damage.
It’s one of the reasons I believe that we, as the Church, need to prioritize meaningful connections, community, and pastoral care. For the reasons above and several others, I truly think that the Western world will desperately need the genuine love and care of the Church more than ever.
But what do you think?
By the way, I’ve already written a bit about this in the post below. Why not check it out?
Embracing Human Connection in an Age of Algorithms
You might not see it yet, but artificial intelligence is in the process of transforming the global Church. Things are changing, and fast. What do we do? In the first of seven guidelines for church leaders in an age of AI, we’re diving into a vital exploration of why, in a world increasingly reliant on algorithms, automation and screens over sanctuaries, n…
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Justin R. Garcia, “Sexual Hookup Culture: A Review,” Review of General Psychology 16, no. 2 (2012), 162.
A Thornton and D Freedman, “Changing Attitudes toward Marriage and Single Life,” Fam Plann Perspect 14, no. 6 (1982): 297–303.
“NCHS Pressroom - 1995 Fact Sheet - Advance Report of Final Divorce Statistics,” May 24, 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/95facts/fs_439s.htm.
“Hookup Culture Statistics - New Survey Data On One Night Stands, Casual Sex and Hooking Up,” Bedbible Research Center, last modified March 17, 2023, accessed January 31, 2024, https://bedbible.com/hookup-culture-statistics/.
Marta Rodriguez Martinez, Tom Goodwin, and Naira Davlashyan, “What the Ex-Tinder Boss Thinks about the Future of Dating,” Euronews, last modified November 22, 2023, accessed February 1, 2024, https://www.euronews.com/business/2023/11/22/loneliness-is-biggest-threat-after-climate-crisis-ex-tinder-boss-says-ai-will-fix-relation.
Stephanie Kramer, “U.S. Has World’s Highest Rate of Children Living in Single-Parent Households,” Pew Research Center, n.d., accessed February 1, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/.
Justin R. Garcia, “Sexual Hookup Culture: A Review,” Review of General Psychology 16, no. 2 (2012).
Ashley Fetters, “The Five Years That Changed Dating,” The Atlantic, December 21, 2018, accessed February 1, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/tinder-changed-dating/578698/.
Louise Perry, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022), 11.
Fight the New Drug, “10 Negative Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Body, Relationships, and Society,” Fight the New Drug, n.d., accessed February 2, 2024, https://fightthenewdrug.org/10-reasons-why-porn-is-unhealthy-for-consumers-and-society/.
Stopping Non-Consensual AI Porn Is Almost Impossible. Here’s Why | CNN Business, 2024, accessed February 2, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2024/01/31/deepfake-ai-pictures-taylor-swift-contd-js-orig.cnn.
Caroline Forsey, “Swipe Right for the Future: Exploring the Impact of AI on Dating Apps,” Hubspot, last modified November 21, 2023, accessed February 2, 2024, https://blog.hubspot.com/ai/ai-dating-apps.
You capture the sickening feeling of knowing your image could be weaponized at any moment—intimacy under that kind of threat is a different universe.