Recently, I came across an article
on a transhumanist website that made the amazing claim that in the
not-so-distant future, people will improve their life expectancy by having sex
with robots programmed to give them ‘super-orgasms.’ Transhumanists believe
that it will one day be possible to vastly expand the human lifespan through
technology. Various means of extending human longevity have been proposed but
this seems like one of the wackier ones. The author of this article is not alone in the belief that human lifespan can be extended through sex. Celebrity medic Dr
Mehmet Oz goes so far as to advise
people that if they have 200 orgasms a year they will extend their life by six
years. While there is some evidence linking more frequent orgasms to longer
life, the claims by Dr Oz and (some) transhumanists extrapolate far beyond the
available evidence.
There have been a number of research studies linking sexual
activity with longevity, but these findings need to be interpreted with a
certain amount of caution because a statistical association between sex and
longevity does not necessarily prove that one leads to the other. Additionally,
the relationship between sexual activity and longevity may be different for men
and women. For example, there have been studies linking frequency of orgasm (Smith, Frankel, & Yarnell, 1997) and of
sexual intercourse (Palmore, 1982) in men
to longer life. The study by Smith et al. controlled for factors such as age,
smoking, social class, and baseline coronary heart disease,
and remarkably still found that men who had the most frequent orgasms (twice a
week or more) had a 50% lower mortality rate compared to men with the lowest
frequency of orgasm (less than once a month). However, this study did not take
relationship status into account. Additionally, for women, frequency of
intercourse did not predict longevity, but past enjoyment of intercourse did
(Palmore, 1982). Palmore suggested that quantity of sexual activity may be more
important for men’s health, whereas for women the quality is of more
importance. The author admitted though that we cannot say for sure whether more
frequent or better sex is what actually leads to longer life. An alternative
possibility is that people who are in better health have more frequent sex
and/or enjoy it more. If this is the case, better health might explain the
association between sexual activity and longer life. It is worth noting that in
Palmore’s study health ratings were the strongest predictors of how long people
lived.
Although Palmore’s study found that
in women frequency of intercourse generally was unrelated to longevity, another
study found a relationship between frequency of orgasm during intercourse and
longevity in women (Seldin, Friedman, &
Martin, 2002). There is considerable variability among women in whether
and how often they reach orgasm during intercourse. Some women reach orgasm
regularly, others occasionally, and others not at all. (See this post for further discussion of these differences, and this post discussing possible reasons why this occurs.) Seldin et
al. found that women who described themselves as less neurotic and those who
tended to drink more alcohol had a somewhat higher frequency of orgasm during
intercourse. In fact, the relationship between orgasm frequency and longevity
only approached significance after taking neuroticism and alcohol use into
account.[i] It is possible that individual differences in the ability
of women to achieve orgasm during sex might be related to longevity. That is,
women who are more orgasmic might be healthier in other ways that affect their
life expectancy.
According to Howard
Friedman, one of the authors of the Seldin et al. paper, frequency of
orgasm in women was linked to their sexual satisfaction, and sexual
satisfaction was linked to marital satisfaction. Dr Friedman was careful to
point that although all these factors were correlated we do not have enough
information to know what was causing what. It might be that more orgasms lead
to greater sexual satisfaction which in turn improves marital satisfaction.
However, the converse could also be true. That is couples who are more
satisfied with their marriages generally might have more frequent sex, leading
to greater sexual satisfaction. Couples who are unhappy in their marriages,
e.g. if they fight frequently, have little intimacy, poor communication, etc.
will probably have less frequent sex and less sexual satisfaction. So there is
probably a two-way relationship between sexual satisfaction and marital
satisfaction. Therefore, marital satisfaction might
be as important for longevity as orgasm frequency. People who are in stable
loving supportive relationships may be healthier and live longer than those who
are in disharmonious relationships. This seems
applicable to the studies on male sexual frequency cited earlier, which did not
address why some men are more sexually active than others. Men who have more
frequent sex might be in better quality relationships (or in a relationship at
all) than men who have infrequent sex.
Although there is evidence of a connection between orgasms
and longer life, there is simply not enough information available to justify
statements by Dr Oz to the effect that if one has a certain number of orgasms a
year, one will increase one’s life expectancy by a certain number of years.
Similarly, claims by transhumanists that using sex robots to induce
“super-orgasms” will induce longer life overlook the human factors involved.
Whilst it may be conceivable that people in the future may use robots to
enhance sexual pleasure, similar to the way some people use sex toys, it hardly
seems likely that people will use them as substitutes for marital partners.
Without the element of marital satisfaction, it is debatable whether orgasms
alone will produce the same benefit to life expectancy.
Another difference between robot and human partners that might
be important is that of intentions. Robots are designed to just do what they
are programmed to do, and do not have desires of their own. Humans on the other
hand do have desires and intentions, and this affects how their behaviour is
perceived by others. In particular, there is evidence that one’s perceptions
about the intentions of another person can affect how physical pleasure is
perceived. That is, an experience may be perceived as more enjoyable if one
believes that the person providing the experience actually intends for one to
experience pleasure than if they do not. This was tested in an experiment in
which participants received a back massage from a specially designed chair (Gray, 2012). When participants believed that
the chair was being controlled by another person who had freely chosen to give
them a massage they perceived the experience as more pleasurable then when they
thought it was being randomly administered by a computer. In actuality, in both
cases, the decision to administer massage was determined by a computer, but the
participants were led to believe otherwise. Although not yet tested it may be
possible that people may perceive sexual activity as more pleasurable when it
is performed with someone they believe is actually intending to give them
pleasure, as compared with similar activity with a machine that has no feelings
about the matter. Perhaps, the health benefits associated with sexual activity
are tied up with the sense of being cared about by another person. Machines may
not be able to provide this sense of caring. Of course, if it ever comes to
pass that robots are invented that are indistinguishable from real human
beings, much like in the film Blade
Runner, machines might actually replace humans as both sexual and marital
partners. Personally, I don’t think
this will happen any time soon. In any case, before such an event does occur,
people would need to decide if such a situation is even desirable.
[1] For the statistically minded, this effect was described by the authors as “marginally significant” (p < .10) and hence did not actually reach a conventional level of statistical significance.
Post Script
It has come to my attention that some transhumanists consider that transhumanity.net, the source of the article that inspired this post, is not a credible source of information about their views. Therefore, the remarks in my blog post should be taken as being in response to a specific article on that website, rather than a broader reflection on what transhumanists in general believe.
Post Script
It has come to my attention that some transhumanists consider that transhumanity.net, the source of the article that inspired this post, is not a credible source of information about their views. Therefore, the remarks in my blog post should be taken as being in response to a specific article on that website, rather than a broader reflection on what transhumanists in general believe.
© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without
permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original
article is provided.
This article also appears on Psychology Today on
my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.
Other posts
about sex and psychology
References
Gray, K. (2012). The Power of Good Intentions: Perceived Benevolence Soothes Pain, Increases Pleasure, and Improves Taste Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3 (5), 639-645 DOI: 10.1177/1948550611433470
Palmore, E. B. (1982). Predictors of the Longevity
Difference: A 25-Year Follow-Up. The
Gerontologist, 22(6), 513-518. doi: 10.1093/geront/22.6.513
Seldin, D. R., Friedman, H. S., & Martin, L. R.
(2002). Sexual activity as a predictor of life-span mortality risk. Personality and Individual Differences, 33(3),
409-425. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00164-7
Smith, G., Frankel, S., & Yarnell, J. (1998). Sex and Death: Are They Related? Findings From the Caerphilly Cohort Study The Journal of Urology, 160 (2) DOI: 10.1016/S0022-5347(01)62990-2
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