Given the singularity event, and the plural observations of a whole range of emotions by AIs and anthroPCs here, Jereven isn't all that difficult to accept. Rather nice, really.
One of the Admiral's characters, Manuel O'kelly Davis, when he was trying to figure out Mike, stated that one theory of his time and space was that sentience came into being after reaching a certain critical number of connections between neural pathways. "Can't see the difference if pathways are protein or platinum." Same thing with romance.
Now the meat/metal barrier.... I don't know enough about it. (Sex robots.... Not -my- shot of jack, and probably not the same deal.) But having said, I'm not about to give a couple that cross that barrier a hard time, as long as it works for them, and no one gets hurt.
Oh, an elaboration, for those not in the know. "The Admiral" is the late great sci-fi writer, Robert Heinlein. Mike and Manuel are figures in his book THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS.
(Read that thing to tatters a couple of times.) Said book was nominated for a Nebula award in 1966 and won a Hugo for best sci-fi novel in 1967.
DC , l5ls.