Marianne Brandon Ph.D.
The Future of Intimacy
SEX
Why we must talk about how the digital revolution impacts primal desire.
KEY POINTS
- Sex Tech is influencing our most primal sexual instincts.
- Time spent with sex tech is increasing while many say that human sex feels less compelling.
- Many younger people have only experienced intimacy through digital “super-stimuli.”
- Ignoring these erotic shifts is riskier than facing them.
We used to think of technology as the province of logic, reason, and progress. But tech doesn’t just change how we work, communicate, or play. It’s now reshaping the very fabric of our erotic lives. From algorithmic dating and OnlyFans to AI companions and hyperreal porn, technology in its broadest sense is touching our most primal drives. And even if the evidence for these changes is currently only correlational, not causal, it doesn’t mean we should stay silent. There are clear patterns emerging in how sexuality itself is likely being rewired. If we see value in human intimacy, then dismissing them as “just trends” could be a grave mistake.
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We are primates first and always. Our sexuality was sculpted over hundreds of thousands of years by evolutionary forces that reward erotic curiosity. Our most potent sexual impulses arise from ancient brain regions including the limbic system, the hypothalamus, the body’s own electrical storm. Part of what makes sexual desire so easily influenced, manipulated, and redirected is that they bypass the brain’s executive functions.
Today, I’m seeing this primal current being channeled more and more toward artificial sexual and emotional experiences. Older adults in my practice sometimes describe being excited by AI interactions in ways that human sex no longer evokes. This thrill feels effortless, the novelty endless. Helping couples bring sexual intensity back into the human relationship can be a real therapeutic challenge. Erotic vitality is hard to sustain over decades even in the best circumstances, and our most feral, lusty selves are often locked away because expressing these desires feels vulnerable and thus unsafe. It’s simply easier to get naked with an algorithm than to risk emotional exposure with a partner.
For younger generations, the story looks different, but the outcome may be even more complex. Many folks under 25 have never experienced the old-fashioned thrill of attraction and sexual anticipation with a human. Instead, they grew up marinating in supernormal sexual stimuli: hentai, TikTok thirst traps, interactive porn, romantasy novels. So, it’s not a simple thing to expect them to suddenly desire human intimacy. It can be like telling someone who’s eaten apple pie since childhood, “now that you are 30, it’s time to prefer plain apples”. And when these young adults engage in human sex, research repeatedly demonstrates that they often re-enact what they’ve been taught: aggressive, performative sexual acts like choking.
Sex therapists know that once a person’s arousal templates are set — what John Money called “love maps” — they’re powerfully persistent. Asking someone to suddenly find deep satisfaction in human connection, after years of potent algorithmic erotica, can feel like asking them to dream in a foreign language.
Still, this isn’t a moral panic about porn or a lament for “the good old days.” I don’t idealize human intimacy. It’s super challenging, messy, risky, and often disappointingly fragile. But it’s also the arena where empathy, attachment, compassion for other human beings, and true vulnerability are forged, at least for now. Our challenge isn’t to shame digital desire, it’s instead to find a way to blend digital desires with human intimacy. Not an easy task, but I would argue an impossible one if we don’t start talking more openly about it.
Technology has always impacted, and very often positively influenced, human behavior. But it’s increasingly becoming the sole gratifier of our erotic circuitry. Pretending that it isn’t, or hoping that the next generation will somehow magically reset toward more natural desire, strikes me as dangerously naive. These sexual shifts are happening now, in real time, reshaping how we pair bond, fantasize, and feel.
So no, the data may not yet prove causation, and none of us can predict how human sexuality will be impacted in the future. But when something so primal is being sculpted by tech innovation as fast as our hearts can swipe, staying silent isn’t neutrality, it’s neglect. Future humans are depending on us to mindfully examine this gap.
References
Fisher, H. (2023). Anatomy of love: A natural history of mating, marriage, and why we stray*. W.W. Norton.
Money, J. (1986). Lovemaps: Clinical concepts of sexual/erotic health and pathology, paraphilia, and gender transposition. Prometheus Books.
Prause, N., & Pfaus, J. (2015). Viewing sexual stimuli associated with greater sexual responsiveness, not erectile dysfunction. Sexual Medicine, 3(2), 90–98.
Turkle, S. (2017). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books.
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