For 28 days, Keshav added an unusual task to his daily to-do list: masturbating as part of an AI-guided sexual wellness study.
Before and after each session, he tracked his mood, energy level, cravings for substances and other vices, and tendency to procrastinate.
Keshav participated in an experiment conducted by AI companion company Joi AI. The study examined what might happen when erotic self-stimulation becomes an “AI-guided health habit.” During July, 10 “masturbation consultants” were asked to masturbate every day except Sunday. Twice a week, they used Joi AI’s erotic digital companion; on other days, they used their preferred method. “It’s like chatting with a real person,” says Keshav, a 38-year-old single trader from Indonesia who asked that his last name be withheld for professional reasons.
For a fee, Joi AI users can chat and interact with pre-created characters or design their own AI companions. The platform includes adult and fetish-oriented scenarios, such as blackmail fantasies, group-sex role-play, psychological dependency themes, squirting, and other sexual role-play features.
During five-minute video calls with digitized characters, Keshav said his AI companions performed simulated sexual acts while displaying nudity and engaging in explicit conversations. Because he enjoys traveling and nightlife, he sometimes placed the scenes in settings such as airplane bathrooms.
Some AI companions were “quite pushy and extroverted,” he says, while others were more reserved and required users to build a relationship before a sexual interaction could develop. In some cases, the characters requested virtual gifts, including handbags or lipstick, costing up to $5 in the platform’s internal currency.
After ejaculation, Keshav noticed that his energy level fell slightly, while his ability to focus improved. “My energy was a little lower, but my concentration was a little better,” he says.
Keshav and nine other participants were each offered $2,000 for the qualitative, in-house research project conducted by Joi AI. The company promoted the study as a daily guided masturbation tool that combines audio “sounds” with the goal of helping users “masturbate with a purpose.” Joi AI described the project as part of its broader effort to address “male loneliness.” Six of the 10 participants completed the study. Access to the platform starts at $3.99 per month, although users can spend significantly more: 10,000 “Joi Neurons” cost $99.99, while a private video from an AI companion costs 1,000 Neurons.
Before beginning the research, Joi AI surveyed 2,500 adults. The company reported that 75 percent of respondents masturbate to reduce stress or anxiety, while 43 percent use masturbation before major events such as dates, exams, or difficult conversations. The study aimed to explore how masturbation may affect sleep, stress, sexual desire, concentration, arousal, and the length of AI-assisted sessions compared with other methods.
“Ejaculation releases dopamine,” says Julie Levin, Joi AI’s director of brand and communications. “We wanted participants to track whether their cravings—for better or worse—were being met and how masturbation affected their self-control.”
A preliminary analysis of 134 session reports reviewed by WIRED indicated that participants’ reported stress levels fell by 25 percent, while concentration increased by 17 percent. Before the study, 37 percent of survey respondents said they had tried or were open to AI-assisted masturbation. In the experiment, participants gave AI-guided sessions satisfaction scores comparable to more established methods. “The study found no significant differences between the methods, so there is no single best method for masturbation,” the company said in its report.
The report also found that participants’ self-reported cravings for nicotine, alcohol, junk food, and doomscrolling fell by 44 percent after masturbation. However, these findings do not establish that masturbation can treat addiction, and the company’s conclusions have not been independently validated by scientific research.
“The fact that unhealthy cravings were reduced feels like real progress to me,” Levin says. “What if this became an unexpected way to help people manage addictive behaviors?” She adds that masturbation is generally less harmful than consuming alcohol or nicotine, though the study does not prove that it can replace evidence-based addiction treatment.
Source: www.wired.com