Introduction:
Sexual aversion is a condition envisioned as a phobic reaction to genital sexual contact. So, it is more of an anxiety disorder than a sexual disorder. This avoidance or aversion could be severe when a person regrets any kind of physical contact, like holding hands, fearing that this contact could lead to intercourse. The prevalence of aversion disorder holds much distinct information, while it is typically not considered a rare condition.
Clinical studies say individuals with sexual aversion develop high anxiety about possible sexual contact. Here, the aversion is not always about intercourse; it can be towards specific sexual-related elements. This aversion towards specific elements like semen can become more generalized. The treatment of sexual aversion involves more anxiety-reduction approaches. Researchers are studying virtual and augmented reality use by people with sexual aversion disorder.
How Do Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Work?
Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that makes the allowance for full immersion in a computer-generated environment and instances. VR technology includes headsets that help create a stimulating and desirable world that, when encountered, feels more like reality.
The primary applications of VR and its headsets are video games and other entertaining activities specifically designed for children and teenagers. But more recent research studies have recommended that presenting virtual and simulated realities could help individuals encountering sexual conditions like sexual aversion and sexual dysfunction.
Virtual and augmented reality are two distinct things in the digital era, though they are often used as synonyms. Augmented reality works to enhance the virtual and real worlds. So, it is a combination of real-world elements and the digital world. This digital technology is similar to or suitable for desktops and mobile phones.
The specialization of augmented reality is that it provides the likelihood of reflecting digital elements in reality. The significant difference between augmented reality and virtual reality is computer-generated stimulation. So, the real or alternative imaginary world is graphically generated accordingly.
Aim of VR and AR in Treating Sexual Aversion:
The treatment based on the virtual environment focuses on the problems with sexual aversion, namely disgust, the experience of fear, and avoidance by exposure to virtual and fictional sexual contexts. Clinical research studies say that the virtual environment’s potency can progressively trigger the emotional responses associated with sexual aversion disorder.
How Does VR and AR Exposure Help Treat Sexual Aversion?
The primary problems in sexual aversion lead to difficulties in having sexuality for pleasure, solo play, or with a partner. This aversion towards the anticipation of sexual contact is more related to cognitive-related problems like anxiety than sexual or physical ailments. So, recovering from such aversion difficulties typically involves changing one’s thoughts, behaviors, and reactions in romantic and sexual circumstances. An example of recovering from sexual aversion is gradually exposing oneself to frightened and prospective sexual contexts.
Recent clinical research findings validate that virtual and augmented reality could help contribute to such changes in reality, specifically in poor sexual function and past sexual traumas. Such technologies create an immersive and potentially realistic computer-generated world that could result in favorable health outcomes like increased sexual pleasure and overall sexual well-being. They work by alleviating the primary psychological distress caused by external factors such as sexual contexts.
How Effective Are Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Treating Sexual Aversion?
The treatment for sexual aversion invariably involves controlled, persistent, and recurrent exposure to aversion-related anxiety-provoking sexual contexts. VR and AR exposure aims to decrease the fear and avoidance of sexual contact by gradual degrees. Fear and avoidance are the two typical reactions to sexual cues in the case of sexual aversion.
Virtual reality technologies are an optimal and ethical fit for the intervention of sexual aversion since stimulations in this medium could be tailored to distinct levels of sexual explanation and can be frequently experienced even in those sexual contexts that seem impossible or risky to present in real-life circumstances or sex therapy. So, the situations that are typically anticipated and feared by individuals do not happen in virtual reality settings. The situations include sexual assault, failure, trapped feelings in sexuality, or any rejection. They just use the digital phase to overcome their fear of these situations.
Benefits of VR and AR
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Virtual and augmented reality technologies help individuals overcome fears attributed to their aversion to or avoidance of sexual contact.
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It also helps one learn new skills to implement in real-world circumstances. Such skills would be difficult or impossible to develop.
As individuals are immersed in the alternate world created by virtual reality technology, their mind and body behave accordingly. They cannot be affected in the alternate world. People seem more willing to encounter harder situations in VR and AR because they are frictional and could be safer.
Conclusion:
Sexual aversion disorder is typically treated with techniques that help alleviate or reduce the anxiety associated with the aversion to sexual contact. The common anxiety-reducing technique is systematic desensitization, which creates a hierarchy of sexual contexts that stimulate raised anxiety levels, followed by exposure to anxiety-provoking stimuli.
Lately, clinical research has explored other fields and technologies that could significantly change the thoughts and behaviors of individuals with sexual aversion disorder. One such find is virtual reality, which presents an alternate or fake world with computer-generated stimulation. Though, Virtual reality and augmented reality are still emerging fields of technology. Late research studies indicate that virtual reality could offer beneficial effects for sex therapy in the case of sexual and mental-related sexual disorders like sexual aversion.
