Jerk Alert: Guys Masturbate to Your Facebook Pictures

About a year ago I read an article about a website in France that featured uploaded photos of cute real girls on the streets of Paris. No photoshopping, no styling, no airbrushing, just fresh faces and natural photography. I remember smiling and thinking guys must be desentisized to the overly sexualized, perfected, Heidi Montagaloid versions of women that the media and porn industries promote.

But after last weekend I witnessed this trend take a creepy twist as two guys admitted that they acually use Facebook profiles as masturbation material. At an impromptu bar crawl with an extended group of friends one of them professed he would rather go home and "j*rk off to Facebook" then "buy some girl drinks and hope for a number at the end of the night." In disbelief that this could actually happen I texted another guy friend and he confirmed that his old roomate would say he had a "Facebook date" at least once a week. Those dates would start with him blasting music and closing his bedroom door.

As if women don't deal with enough jerks on Facebook already! Guys, don't let the "F" in Facebook confuse you.

The (Virtual) Girlfriend Experience

I am not the judgmental kind when it comes to love, sex and dating, but when it includes grown men maintaining relationships with virtual teenage girls I start to feel like a hockey mom on the Republican ticket.

Yesterday I read an article about LovePlus, a dating simulation game made for Nintendo DS that lets men establish romantic relationships with virtual highschool girls. Apparently these guys court their doe-eyed cartoons by using voice recognition software to strike up conversations and a screen clock that captures how much time they spend with their VGF (virtual girlfriend).

According to the website Global Nation Inquirer its creators, Konami Digital Entertainment, "have long thrilled young men obsessed with high-tech, manga, and anime, known as "otaku," by letting them chase virtual girls in the alternative universe of their digital dreams." The game was released in Japan last September and has become the country's leading virtual dating game selling 430,000 copies. That means there are more men with virtual girlfriends in Japan then there are single men in Manhattan.

Just in time for the games' one year anniversary Konami has partnered with Atami, a resort town in Japan, to create a special vacation experience where male visitors can use barcode technology at landmarks and take photos superimposing their anime gals. There are even creepy hotel rooms with two beds where they can use Augmented Reality to look through their phone and see their teenage girlfriend in a summer kimono. Although local hotels were skeptical at supporting this alternative lifestyle, the experience has boosted tourism attracting more than 2,000 male visiors to Atami. Looks like the honeymoon isn't over...

What do you all think? Is Love Plus and its accompanying resort experience yet another way that relationships can morph over time or is it an unatural evilution of technology?