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Sexuality is far more complex than being solely what arouses you. As virtual and augmented reality tech advances, its potential benefits to exploring human sexuality extend far beyond watching immersive sex scenes or playing CGI sci-fi games. Virtual porn may be well established but AR porn is still finding its niche both commercially and socially. There are currently many avenues of exploration available to couples via AR; and many more developing all the time.
Image: Bryony Cole at TedX Bucharest, 2017.
In an April 2020 interview, sextech expert Bryony Cole may have steered the discussion away from sexbots and virtual porn but she also outlined some crucial points key to understanding where sex and intimacy technologies are headed. “Sexuality really encompasses everything from orgasms and pleasure and relationships to education, health, crimes, assault reporting, medicine, and gender identity,” Cole told Hive Life. With women leading the $30 billion sextech industry and the COVID-19 pandemic ushering in a 30-40% increase in sex toy purchases, understanding how to embrace adult AR products in your own relationships includes going beyond heteronormativity and focusing equally on health, education, and arousal.
Safe Erotic Exploration
Image: Mapping a room for AR with Microsoft Hololens.
Sextech’s focus on education, empowerment, and safe exploration provide AR adopters plenty of opportunities already. Couples interested in inviting another person into their bed can safely realize their fantasy with AR. Not as all-encompassing as VR, blended, occluded AR content can act as a supplement to real-world activities between couples without leaving either party a third wheel. Exploring fetishes via Virtual and Augmented Reality may seem quite obvious but there’s more to sexual discovery than simply trying out a few kinks. Pushing a sexual relationship into new arenas need not be daunting or intimidating, nor must it pose a risk. Try out encounters with an extra person, albeit a virtual one, before attempting to find your IRL unicorn for a threesome encounter.
Deepfakes may remain a contentious issue but that same AI tech can be used to create a virtual avatar of a person for more immersive long-distance interactions. Allowing one partner to experiment with voyeurism and watch their partner with someone else without the emotional risks usually involved. It’s easier to deal with any jealousy when the person your beloved is getting railed by doesn’t actually exist. (Pair with an AI-guided “fucking machine” toy for maximum effect.)
Image: Hybri allows for creation of an ideal AR partner.
The same can be said of an individual’s journey of self-discovery. Whether it’s a same-sex fantasy, something on the trans spectrum, or using AR to inhabit the fluffy-tailed furry fuck-bunny within, there’s no social shame or ridicule involved here.
Fantasies at Your Fingertips
Live camera filters, virtual environments, VR and AR concert and theater experiences, virtual conferencing, and the myriad more overtly sexual AR products already available are laying the groundwork for a near-limitless virtual playground for consenting adults to explore together. While this puts what were once pure fantasies at our fingertips, it also brings self-knowledge and a better understanding of others closer within reach. In ways even the most compelling motion pictures and novels can’t approach, VR and AR gives us new ways us understanding and accepting not only our own sexualities but also those of our fellow humans.
Exciting tech.