Parasocial relationships refer to one-sided relationships in which a person develops a strong sense of connection, intimacy, or familiarity with someone they don’t know, most often celebrities or media personalities. These relationships exist only in the mind of the individual, who experiences a bond despite the lack of reciprocity.
Forming parasocial relationships is fine.
Fapping (masturbating) to nsfw content is fine (unless it is illegal or unethical).
But forming a parasocial relationship with someone you fap to feels like cheating if you are in a relationship and a poor substitute for a relationship if you are single.
I wouldn’t mock a person for having parasocial relationships, but I would mock them for paying a lot of money to an OnlyFans model. I think that there is a spectrum of acceptable parasocial relationships and I am trying to draw a line where “ok” ends and “despicable” begins.
Maybe we just don’t mock people? Why do you even care if other people do this?
I just think that such behaviour is unhealthy and we’ll see just how unhealthy it is in the coming years.
But why do you care what someone else does whether its unhealthy or not, especially when it doesn’t affect you. I don’t disagree though
I don’t know. Getting old and conservative in my own way, I guess.
straight to gulag
Despicable? I’m curious about where this line is, can you elaborate?
Also, what is your attitude on people who have sex with many partners (with informed consent etc). That could be polyamorous or simply dating & one night stands.
There was an AMA on reddit last week from someone who managed DMs for OF models. Their job was basically to get people hooked and thinking that they had a real relationship with these models via DMs…when the people weren’t even talking to the actual models at all. I think that probably qualifies as despicable.
I think this is problematic because being deceptive is inherently wrong in most cases. But are these buyers getting what they paid for? Social interaction? If the model was doing the chatting, would that make it more moral? I think it’s not so black and white
I wouldn’t generalize this behavior to all OF models or pornstars either, not that you are. I think people who do porn are tacitly entering into a kind of parasocial relationship with the audience, and it’s a two way street.
I don’t know specifically, but I think masturbating to a person you have formed a parasocial relationship with is close to that line.
I do not condemn nor condone such behaviour, it might be against my personal moral compass, but as long as both sides know what they are doing it isn’t bad.
How do you feel about the use of AI chatbots for that kind of thing?
Kind of a tangent but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts considering a lot of them are paid services and people can develop connections to those personalities. I feel like the word parasocial gets real muddy at that point.
First of all, ai bots will probably steal all kinds of information from people. And the money that is spent on them could be useful for so many more useful things. I would suggest to seek genuine connections or even go to chatrooms over bots, ai or otherwise.
Not to mention how dealing with bots might warp your ability to socialise. A lot of things that are acceptable to bots are unacceptable to real people. Some people use them to play out fantasy scenarios of non-consent, abuse, etc.
Having said all that, if somebody wants to play around with that stuff, it’s fine as long as it’s not your only way to socialise or seek intimacy. I remember The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker and it talked about how video games are not inherently bad and don’t make us more violent, but they take time away from us that we can use to do social things instead.
Depending on how hard it is for a person to socialise, a group hobby or even group therapy sessions might be the solution.