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How sexual fantasies affect your relationship
There are two main types of sexual fantasies. One, however, is more destructive than the other.

- There are two main types of sexual fantasies.
- One of them is more harmful to the a relationship or marriage than the other (by a lot).
- Sexually fantasizing about somebody else, though, neither hurts a relationship nor helps it; instead, it has the same mental impact as random daydreaming.
The beginning of a relationship is exciting. You get to learn more about a beautiful person who wants to learn more about you at the same time. You both get the opportunity to make an increasingly deep connection with one another. But relationships can't stay in this exciting phase forever. Eventually, things slow down, less effort is put in, and interest might start to wane. However, it may be possible to restore excitement and interest in a long-term relationship.
Gurit Birnbaum and colleagues conducted a four-part study that examined how sexual fantasies affect relationships. Specifically, they looked at two types of sexual fantasies: dyadic fantasies—those that involve the other partner in the relationship—and extradyadic fantasies—fantasies that focus on some other person outside of the relationship. They found that by fantasizing about our significant others, we desire them more and behave in ways that strengthen the relationship.
Study structure
This study examined the impact of dyadic and extradyadic fantasy through four stages, each using a different sample than the last. In the first stage, 40 couples were brought to a laboratory, were randomly instructed to fantasize about either their partner or someone else, and then describe their fantasy in narrative form to a researcher. I'm sure that sounds sexy to somebody.
Soon after, they were provided with a questionnaire designed to measure their desire to have sex with their partner and to make their partner happy. Those who had dyadic fantasies reported being more motivated to have sex with their partner and to engage in relationship-promoting behavior.
Because these groups were randomly assigned to fantasize either about their partner or somebody else, it can be said that dyadic fantasizing was the cause of the increased desire. It may be true that people in healthy relationships tend to fantasize about their partners more often than not, but this stage showed that merely fantasizing about one's partner causes the relationship to improve, regardless of whether it was healthy to begin with. It's important to note that a "healthy" relationship in this context is one where the couple has sexual desire and demonstrates relationship-promoting behavior to one another; sexual fantasizing probably can't help a toxic or abusive relationship.
The second stage was similar to the first but was tweaked to clarify the impact of extradyadic fantasizing on the participants' desires. In addition to sexual fantasies, some participants were asked to fantasize about nonsexual activities with either their partner or someone else. After filling in the questionnaire, the groups that had nonsexual fantasies rated their sexual desire and motivation to behave in relationship-promoting ways as highly as those who had extradyadic fantasies. Essentially, this means that sexually fantasizing about somebody else neither hurts a relationship nor helps it; instead, it has the same impact as random daydreaming.
Can they help a relationship?
The problem with the first two stages was that they took place in the highly romantic setting of a laboratory. I've been told that nearly all relationships take place outside of laboratory conditions. To get a more realistic picture of how fantasies affect relationships, stages three and four were carried out in the real world.
In these last two stages, the participants filled out a diary of their sexual fantasies immediately after they occurred. Every evening, they filled out a questionnaire that measured whether they behaved in a way that would improve their relationship (i.e. "I told my partner I loved him or her") or in a way that would damage their relationship (i.e., "I criticized my partner"). The fourth stage also posed questions on how the participants perceived the quality of their relationship on a five-point scale.
By analyzing the diary entries, the researchers could compare how dyadic and extradyadic fantasies affected the relationship. The results showed that dyadic fantasies made one more likely to behave in a way that strengthens the relationship and to perceive the relationship more positively.
Conclusion
One crucial detail in this study was that dyadic fantasies increased desire even when the fantasies were not spontaneous. Most of us fantasize about our partners whenever we feel like, not at the prompting of researchers. But those spontaneous fantasies eventually go away, and sexual desire for your partner can diminish over time.
This study found that "artificial" dyadic sexual fantasies increases desire in a relationship, which means that they can be intentionally used to improve a relationship. In fact, evidence suggests that "fantasies training" (essentially, guiding partners to generate sexual imagery) promotes a healthy relationship. Sexually fantasizing about your partner—even if done intentionally—makes them seem more appealing, and this motivates you to build a happier and healthier relationship.
‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
- A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
- It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
- While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
Tribalism and discrimination
<p>One question the "Genetic Pressure" series explores: What would tribalism and discrimination look like in a world with designer babies? As designer babies grow up, they could be noticeably different from other people, potentially being smarter, more attractive and healthier. This could breed resentment between the groups—as it does in the series.</p><p>"[Designer babies] slowly find that 'everyone else,' and even their own parents, becomes less and less tolerable," author Eugene Clark told Big Think. "Meanwhile, everyone else slowly feels threatened by the designer babies."</p><p>For example, one character in the series who was born a designer baby faces discrimination and harassment from "normal people"—they call her "soulless" and say she was "made in a factory," a "consumer product." </p><p>Would such divisions emerge in the real world? The answer may depend on who's able to afford designer baby services. If it's only the ultra-wealthy, then it's easy to imagine how being a designer baby could be seen by society as a kind of hyper-privilege, which designer babies would have to reckon with. </p><p>Even if people from all socioeconomic backgrounds can someday afford designer babies, people born designer babies may struggle with tough existential questions: Can they ever take full credit for things they achieve, or were they born with an unfair advantage? To what extent should they spend their lives helping the less fortunate? </p>Sexuality dilemmas
<p>Sexuality presents another set of thorny questions. If a designer baby industry someday allows people to optimize humans for attractiveness, designer babies could grow up to find themselves surrounded by ultra-attractive people. That may not sound like a big problem.</p><p>But consider that, if designer babies someday become the standard way to have children, there'd necessarily be a years-long gap in which only some people are having designer babies. Meanwhile, the rest of society would be having children the old-fashioned way. So, in terms of attractiveness, society could see increasingly apparent disparities in physical appearances between the two groups. "Normal people" could begin to seem increasingly ugly.</p><p>But ultra-attractive people who were born designer babies could face problems, too. One could be the loss of body image. </p><p>When designer babies grow up in the "Genetic Pressure" series, men look like all the other men, and women look like all the other women. This homogeneity of physical appearance occurs because parents of designer babies start following trends, all choosing similar traits for their children: tall, athletic build, olive skin, etc. </p><p>Sure, facial traits remain relatively unique, but everyone's more or less equally attractive. And this causes strange changes to sexual preferences.</p><p>"In a society of sexual equals, they start looking for other differentiators," he said, noting that violet-colored eyes become a rare trait that genetically engineered humans find especially attractive in the series.</p><p>But what about sexual relationships between genetically engineered humans and "normal" people? In the "Genetic Pressure" series, many "normal" people want to have kids with (or at least have sex with) genetically engineered humans. But a minority of engineered humans oppose breeding with "normal" people, and this leads to an ideology that considers engineered humans to be racially supreme. </p>Regulating designer babies
<p>On a policy level, there are many open questions about how governments might legislate a world with designer babies. But it's not totally new territory, considering the West's dark history of eugenics experiments.</p><p>In the 20th century, the U.S. conducted multiple eugenics programs, including immigration restrictions based on genetic inferiority and forced sterilizations. In 1927, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that forcibly sterilizing the mentally handicapped didn't violate the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "… three generations of imbeciles are enough." </p><p>After the Holocaust, eugenics programs became increasingly taboo and regulated in the U.S. (though some states continued forced sterilizations <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">into the 1970s</a>). In recent years, some policymakers and scientists have expressed concerns about how gene-editing technologies could reanimate the eugenics nightmares of the 20th century. </p><p>Currently, the U.S. doesn't explicitly ban human germline genetic editing on the federal level, but a combination of laws effectively render it <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal to implant a genetically modified embryo</a>. Part of the reason is that scientists still aren't sure of the unintended consequences of new gene-editing technologies. </p><p>But there are also concerns that these technologies could usher in a new era of eugenics. After all, the function of a designer baby industry, like the one in the "Genetic Pressure" series, wouldn't necessarily be limited to eliminating genetic diseases; it could also work to increase the occurrence of "desirable" traits. </p><p>If the industry did that, it'd effectively signal that the <em>opposites of those traits are undesirable. </em>As the International Bioethics Committee <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>, this would "jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics, disguised as the fulfillment of the wish for a better, improved life."</p><p><em>"Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps"</em><em> by Eugene Clark is <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank">available now.</a></em></p>The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle may finally be solved
Meteorologists propose a stunning new explanation for the mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle.
One of life's great mysteries, the Bermuda Triangle might have finally found an explanation. This strange region, that lies in the North Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been the presumed cause of dozens and dozens of mind-boggling disappearances of ships and planes.
Astrophysicists find unique "hot Jupiter" planet without clouds
A unique exoplanet without clouds or haze was found by astrophysicists from Harvard and Smithsonian.
Illustration of WASP-62b, the Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze in its atmosphere.
- Astronomers from Harvard and Smithsonian find a very rare "hot Jupiter" exoplanet without clouds or haze.
- Such planets were formed differently from others and offer unique research opportunities.
- Only one other such exoplanet was found previously.
Munazza Alam – a graduate student at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
Credit: Jackie Faherty
Jupiter's Colorful Cloud Bands Studied by Spacecraft
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8a72dfe5b407b584cf867852c36211dc"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GzUzCesfVuw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>Lair of giant predator worms from 20 million years ago found
Scientists discover burrows of giant predator worms that lived on the seafloor 20 million years ago.
Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois)
- Scientists in Taiwan find the lair of giant predator worms that inhabited the seafloor 20 million years ago.
- The worm is possibly related to the modern bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois).
- The creatures can reach several meters in length and famously ambush their pray.
A three-dimensional model of the feeding behavior of Bobbit worms and the proposed formation of Pennichnus formosae.
Credit: Scientific Reports
Beware the Bobbit Worm!
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f9918e77851242c91382369581d3aac"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_As1pHhyDHY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>FOSTA-SESTA: Have controversial sex trafficking acts done more harm than good?
The idea behind the law was simple: make it more difficult for online sex traffickers to find victims.
