I know this question is asking for your opinion (speculation), but your opinion is informed by so much knowledge that it is always interesting and thought-provoking (at a minimum).

Since your program of abstaining from masturbation and pornography for an extended period of time before seeing a real woman appears to have helped a number of men on this board, I don't think the question is totally off topic.

The 1954 novel "The Big Ball of Wax" by Shepherd Mead dealt with some aspects of this topic as did the 1995 film "Strange Days" (scripted by James Cameron and directed by his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow).

A totally immersive experience has always been the holy grail of porn and although the technology isn't there yet, devices such as the Real Touch appear to be getting us closer at a rapid rate.

So, what happens when men no longer need women for sex? (I'm not saying that they don't need them at all. I know that my marriage was--and my current relationship is--based on much more than sex, although I would be lying if I said that sex wasn't important.)


-- Modified on 2/3/2010 9:55:32 PM

There will always be those that are more comfortable working on some machine to replace human contact, than to have real human contact.  But this is a reflection of their own dysfunctions and inabilities to relate to real women, and not because fake is better than real.  

We already have lots of experience with a totally immersive medium called movies- something with which you sound very familiar.  We sit in a dark isolation chamber with bright lights and overpowering audio systems to stimulate our senses and create a fantasy environment and suspend disbelief.

But when it's all over and you walk outside, wouldn't you still rather go to Paris than just see a movie about Paris?  One will always be a shallow substitute for the other, and that applies about 100 times over for a real sexual relationship with a woman versus a simulated sexual experience with a device- even a sophisticated device.

I'm afraid in the end, all this effort to create a better artificial fuck is sadly misdirected by people who miss the point of it all.  The "Orgasmatron" remains the fantasy of the emotionally stunted who would be better served working on their interpersonal skills with live women than trying to trying to perfect a substitute for them.

Sleeper, about a time in the distant future when human interaction is reduced to artifice, both sexually and otherwise.

Interestingly, the orgasmatron was a take off of a device called the Orgone Box, which was developed by a brillant (or mad, depending upon your point of view) disciple of Freud named Wilhelm Reich.

Sadly Herr Reich was promptly tossed in the hoosgow by the paranoid US public in the 1950's on account of his novel and revolutionary sexual ideas, this after he thought he had escaped persecution from the communists, who had come to rescue him from the Nazis.  The poor man just could not win.  He was elderly and died in prison.

The government destroyed most of his works including his orgone box, but it you are interested, there are some books around by him and they are a must read for anyone interested in sexuality from an intellectual point of view.

I would suggest his book:  Listen Little Man, as a start.

Men already don't NEED women for sex.  We WANT women for sex...well, at least I do!  No technology is ever going to replace the touch of a woman, her smile, her laughter or the intimacy that can exist between two people.