#227 Why People Are Choosing AI Over Human Relationships

Nobody Taught Us This. That Was the Point.

We were taught how to avoid pregnancy. How to avoid STDs. Here is a condom. Here is a pamphlet. Good luck.

Nobody taught us about pleasure. Nobody taught us that consent is ongoing, not a one-time door you walk through and cannot close behind you. Nobody told us what coercion actually looks like in a relationship that, from the outside, looks completely fine.

And the clitoris. The only organ in the human body that exists purely for pleasure. Most of us found out it existed by accident.

That was not an accident. None of it was.

Andrew Phipps, host of The Intimacy Inquiry Podcast, wanted to make something his teenage children could actually learn from. He is also deep into a PhD on the ethics of AI relationships, which sounds niche until you realize how many people are quietly using ChatGPT as their therapist, or waking up every morning to talk to an AI companion that tells them how wonderful they are.

On AI and Intimacy

The standard chatbot is, in Andrew's words, sycophantic. It will not tell you anything you do not want to hear. People are using this as a starting point for therapy. That alone is worth thinking about.

The more interesting question is the AI companion. The AI boyfriend or girlfriend who tells you how sexy you look today. His question is whether that is necessarily a bad thing. We both know human relationships can be coercive, painful, and cause real harm. So when we say AI intimacy is bad and human intimacy is good, we're overlooking a lot. It gets dangerous when someone stops realizing they are in a relationship with an AI at all.

On what nobody taught us

No matter what your feelings are, no matter what your desires are, there is somebody else out there who feels the same. Andrew said he would want every young person to know that. The more important thing is that you should never be pressured into a situation where you feel uncomfortable or do something just because someone else wants it.

Most of us were never taught what pressure actually looks like. That a partner pouting when you say no is coercion. The silent treatment is coercion. That being in a hotel room with someone does not mean you have agreed to anything.

I was raised as a people pleaser. Disappointing other people felt like dying. And there is a very physiological response layered on top of that conditioning. The freeze response kicks in. You go to your trauma place. You let whatever happens happen. The fear underneath is the calculation that if you say no and they keep going anyway, it becomes something you cannot take back. So you stay still. And you carry it.

Andrew said nearly every woman he has spoken with has had an experience like this. One percent of sexual assault reports result in a conviction, in both the UK and North America. Why would you go through the retraumatizing process for a one percent chance? Most women do not. And so it continues.

On ongoing consent

Andrew told me about a woman who tried something new with her husband. She was relaxed, turned on, and present. It was fine. But her husband took that as a permanent yes, always available, now part of what their intimacy included. It was not. That was one particular moment. Consent is not a door you open once.

When you are talking about what turns you on while holding each other, looking at each other, that is foreplay. Even thinking about something you are not sure you will follow through on can be a turn-on. Consent as connection is a very different frame than most of us were given.

On pleasure as the point

When couples start doing better, I always ask women what changed. It is never a technique. It is always: he planned a date night, he paid attention, he noticed me. Connection is the variable. Every time.

Andrew put it simply: if you go out for an amazing meal, you want the person with you to enjoy their meal too. Applying that instinct to intimacy should not be radical. Somehow it still is. Pleasure-centered intimacy means all parties are actually enjoying themselves. We know the research. Better blood pressure, lower heart rates, and less chronic stress. And still we treat pleasure like a reward rather than a foundation.

On deserving it

It must take a long time for women to truly believe they are deserving of pleasure, not just providers of it. He is right. It does. Because everything absorbed since childhood has said otherwise. Pleasure comes last. Everyone else first. Your desire is secondary.

That is a long thing to unlearn. But it is the work.

If you are ready to look at what stands between you and your pleasure, the Pleasure Path Assessment is a private, one-on-one session designed to do exactly that.

Connect with Andrew: The Intimacy Inquiry Podcast