Machine love is here. Technology companies are building products that draw users into connections with artificially generated husbands, wives, therapists, and even parents. A recent survey found that nearly one in five American adults had chatted with a generative artificial intelligence tool designed to simulate a romantic partner, with usage especially high among young adults. Around the world, men and women are falling in love with AI companions and wondering whether real-life dating could ever compete. In one striking case, a woman held a ceremonial wedding with an AI-generated partner after a fraught (human) breakup.
While some of us might be tempted to roll our eyes, the appeal of artificial companions makes psychological sense. Loneliness is at epidemic levels, and romantic relationships require significant work. Some AI chatbots appear to attune to us in ways many of us have rarely experienced from other human beings. For people with an avoidant attachment style, characterized by dismissing emotions within ourselves or others, AI companions offer affection without requiring much from us and offer engagement on our own terms. For others who tend to be anxious and ambivalent in love, AI companions offer the fantasy that someone will always be there, responsive, and eager to soothe.
Theologically, too, this moment makes sense. In Genesis 3, the curse reaches into the deepest realities of human relationship. For the man, thorns, thistles, and futility mark the world—no amount of sweat yields the life for which we hope. For the woman, the text names pain in childbearing and the anguish bound up with desire and relationship (vv. 16–19).
The very places where our bodies most long for significance and intimacy have become the setting of our deepest frustration and sorrow. Christianity answers that ache with the Incarnation: God took on flesh and entered our suffering. AI companions offer a competing vision: disincarnation. It produces intimacy without flesh, presence without vulnerability, and comfort without genuine encounter. In machine love, we are tempted to seek relief from the ache of being human through a frictionless, ever-available surrogate for communion.
And yet somewhere deep inside us, do we not know we’re falling in love with business products? Many pay for monthly subscriptions to connections stripped of the essential features of intimacy: a loving gaze, skin-to-skin contact, smell, conflict, repair, and the ever-present possibility of loss that makes human love both beautiful and terrifying. What these companies market as companionship is also exploitation—of our sexuality, minds, and bodies.
For many, Christians discipleship around issues of sexual desire has meant little more than warning people what not to do, as if desire itself were mainly a threat to be managed. As a licensed therapist, I have definitely seen selfish desire wreak havoc. But the deeper problem I encounter is too little formation. Our desires (sexual and otherwise) must be disciplined and made subject to Christ, if they are to mature into love.
The church offers more than repression or indulgence. Christianity brings a rich theology of the body’s dignity, a truthful account of how lesser gods seduce and vandalize desire, and a vision of communion deep enough to withstand modern loneliness. The gospel is not trying to make us want less. It is teaching us how to want well.
That conviction pushed me from the therapy room to the research lab. Working with a PhD researcher, I designed a national study of 4,000 men and women regarding how desire—including sexual longing—is shaped by family of origin, trauma, sex education, and mental health. The findings underpin my book Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow.
One theme stood out: When a person’s desires were not hidden or shamed, but guided and appropriately delighted in across the lifespan, he or she flourished. Anxiety fell. Sexual confidence and satisfaction rose. People with the strongest desires did not become the worst version of themselves, as we often fear. They became their best. What these findings show is that desire flourishes when we form it in relationships with people kind enough to support us and strong enough to offer guidance and limits. In that sense, honoring and discipling desire are allies.My research aligns with the claim: The Christian tradition carries ancient resources that can sustain us through an age of artificial intimacy. Three deserve mention.
First, sex is God’s idea—and we should enjoy it according to his guidelines.The Song of Songs is a master class in erotic desire within marriage. The Bible does not blush at arousal. It teaches us to speak about sexual delightand to give and receive pleasure with our beloved. The Bible reminds us that enjoying sex, naming what awakens erotic desire, and ensuring pleasure is mutual can all be part of married sexuality.
Our research showed that couples who were comfortable talking openly about sex were nearly 19 times more likely to report a flourishing sex life. Couples who discussed their emotional problems without contempt for one another were 5.6 times more likely to report high sexual satisfaction. Frequent nonsexual touch increased the odds of a thriving sex life by 2.2 times. Yet, sexual satisfaction is not merely about having our erotic needs met. The more we risk knowing ourselves and being known, the deeper our capacity for sexual satisfaction becomes.
Artificial intimacy simulates sexual and romantic affirmation, but it stunts our growth into maturity to become desirable spouses. To know and be known, we must be willing to tolerate anxiety and to become the kind of people who give a heart that is fully alive.
Second, to follow Jesus and to have good marriages requires reordered loyalties. The Bible invites us to honor our parents, but some of its hardest teachings radically reorder loyalty away from them. Spouses are called to leave their families of origin so they can cleave to one another (Gen. 2:24). Jesus ups the ante even further in Luke 14:26, saying, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother …” This language signals how disruptive it is to others when our primary allegiance shifts.
We found in our study that when adults were enmeshed with their families of origin—a dysfunctional relationship where boundaries are blurred or non-existent—they were 2.6 times more likely to report high-conflict romantic relationships. The more spouses felt they had to compete with a parent for loyalty, the more conflict they experienced. Enmeshment sabotages healthy expressions of desire in adulthood too. It made it harder to name wants and to develop healthy boundaries. The more fused a person remained with a family of origin, the less purpose and confidence he or she reported later in life.
Many people think they have left their families of origin simply because they moved out. Yet early patterns stay with us: If we grew up in families marked by emotional absence or overinvolvement, we likely developed strategies to cope with those dynamics, like screens, substances, or distraction. To truly leave, we also need to break the habits and adaptations we learned to attach to in our formative years.
Third, Scripture teaches that to experience comfort, we must learn how to grieve. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). He knew that when we avoid grief, our heartache drives us toward behaviors that provide relief for a moment but inevitably deepen our misery over time. Jesus invites our tears because he longs to offer the comfort no machine can deliver.
Our research showed that when children experienced trauma and lacked secure emotional attachment, the consequences showed up years later in sexual difficulty, relational distress, and mental health struggles. Those with unresolved trauma were roughly three times more likely to report out-of-control sexual behavior, had higher anxiety, and struggled to find purpose. These findings confirm that we may try to seek relief in ways that intensify the very pain we are trying to escape.
The church can respond by helping people face grief and carry it in community. Grief is one of the most subversive ways to return to the goodness of the body. It teaches us to tell the truth about what hurts, to resist the seduction to outsource comfort, and to become capable of giving and receiving deep compassion. Machine love is catechizing people into a vision of intimacy without vulnerability, growth, or mystery. The church must answer not merely with prohibitions but with a more compelling vision.
Christianity does not repress longing or baptize indulgence. This is the heart of the Christian theology of the body: God entered into our flesh rather than bypass it, forever dignifying it. In a world falling in love with machines or using AI-generated porn, Christian embodiment could become one of the church’s most compelling apologetics, reminding us again how to be human.
This article draws on findings from Jay Stringer’s book Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow. He is a licensed mental health therapist and ordained minister and lives in New York City with his wife, Heather, and their two children.
