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.
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.