Part 1: The Sexbots Are On The Way

What will sex be like in the future? Will we strap on sensor pads and let a remote lover get to work? Will we go to orgies for sex every Friday night and speed date for romance on Saturdays? Perhaps we will bypass all the messy, physical business and just pop a pill to give us an orgasm? Will sex be exclusively a solo activity, too diseased and dangerous to share? Anything is possible. Hopefully, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way as well – but you never know.
Technology has had a huge impact on our sex lives. The Irish, more than most, have experienced a radical change in this respect over the last thirty years: not only have our attitudes and behaviour changed hugely, but technology has equipped us with new ways to meet one another and a range of new and different ways to experience pleasure.
Until relatively recently, very few people would admit to using a dating agency. The fear was that you’d be branded as sexually desperate. These days, nobody thinks twice about joining a site such as Maybe Friends or Match.com. After all, using these sites is seen as practically no different to meeting likeminded individuals through on-line communities or through sites such as MySpace or Bebo.
The internet has far-reaching tentacles in this area. If you’re after something a little bit more interesting than a date on Saturday night, there are plenty of sites to cater for your desires. Want to go to a sex party? Join a married couple? Or just have some no strings attached fun? The Internet has opened up a realm of sexual possibilities in all of these erogenous zones, allowing us to indulge in almost every sexual whim – or at least to watch other people do so.
Sure we still meet people in pubs, clubs, at the gym or through friends. But the great thing about the Internet is that it opens up the possibility of hooking up with people who we’d never have met through these traditional means. In a sense, it offers a way of going for it – of breaking free from the normal constraints.
There is another, less open side to it: as time goes by, more and more of us may set to using the Internet to screen potential partners, perhaps demanding those we chose to share our beds meet stringent criteria, whether it be in terms of looks, beliefs, interests or sexual practices.
Technology has not only changed the way we interact, but has changed the ways we can experience pleasure too. Cybersex, webcams and text messaging all make it possible to have sexual interaction with people even where a significant geographical divide comes between us. It’s nowhere near as good as a one-on-one experience – but that may change over the next few years, as technology moves forward, offering all sorts of remote controls that we wouldn’t have dreamed possible a few years ago.
Picture this: you are sitting at your computer, your lover’s face fills the screen, as he tells you exactly what he is going to do to you. You feel a physical sensation created not by your imagination, not by your hand – but by a vibrator, manipulated by him from across the ether. Welcome to the world of ‘teledildonics’.
Sex in the future may involve a variety of new sensations, but one thing’s for sure – there’s bound to be lots of gizmos. If current trends are anything to go by, the popularity of sex toys is sure to increase. It wasn’t all that long ago when sex toys were considered the last resort of the saddo. Nowadays, 43% of Irish people admit to owning at least one toy. And let’s fact it: in the hands of a good lover, they really do add to the repertoire.
Sex toys themselves continue to become ever more sophisticated. Instead of a “one-size-fits-all” approach, manufacturers have been developing products to cater for every possible taste. Sex toys come in a range of sizes and materials as well as offering different types of stimulation. Add to this a bewildering array of designs and you have an incredible amount of choice. Some are designed for the lone user, others can be used by two or more people. Some can be used remotely or underwater, other are disguised as everything from rubber ducks to pens.
Teledildonics already exist and allow people at remote computers to stimulate each other using sex toys. While you won’t find this technology at your local Ann Summers, Sinulate Entertainment, which makes the device, have already sold thousands, and chances are good that similar systems will become easily available in the next few years.
So what exactly will the toys of the future be like? Well, that’s one of the questions on the minds of America’s top sex researchers when they gathered in San Francisco recently.
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction believe that virtual sex will become a multi-sensory experience within the next ten years as technology becomes more sophisticated. This could work by hooking up with someone at another computer or – alternatively – by creating a virtual partner who is programmed to look, act and say whatever the user has pre-determined. Such a system would allow the user to act out any number of fantasies without ever approaching another flesh and blood human being.
Another area being explored is uniting video imagery with a multi-sensory experience. Interactive sex games such as ‘VirtuallyJenna’, which allow gamers to sexually interact with a virtual Jenna Jameson, have proved to be big business. Clearly, the possibility of marrying tactile sensations with porn movies could mean huge profits.
Virtual sex interaction with greater tactile qualities is practically guaranteed to be available sooner or later. What researchers are not so sure about is the possibility of robot lovers. Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design have designed a robotic device that imitates the warmth and feeling of a hug. Some researchers believe technology such as this could used to create ‘sex’bots in the near future. Others suggest that the cyborg technology needed for such a device is still very far away. Sex requires several complex actions and the robot boffins are still having difficulties making their creations do relatively simple tasks.
If the cyborg technology does become available, the virtual humans already exist. Abyss Creations make a range of high-end, designer love dolls, called RealDolls. Priced at $6500 excluding shipping, the RealDolls don’t come cheap – but, it says on the tin, they look and apparently feel almost human.
Whether or not better virtual sex and sex robots could ever replace human sex is another matter entirely. It’s probably fair to say that as technology improves, we will engage in more virtual sexual experiences, but it’s doubtful we would ever feel that these were anything more than substitutes for a one-on-one experience. After all, sex isn’t only about your own orgasm but about human contact and sharing pleasure.
In his book Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life, author David Boyle suggests that what the inventors of virtual sexual technology forget is that sex is exciting because it takes place with a flawed human being and that virtual sex, no matter how perfect, will never be able to match the excitement of the real thing.
Besides, when it comes to sex, human beings are often at their most creative. According to Dr Marty Klein, writing in the ‘Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality’, one of the difficulties in predicting the future of sex is that human beings find creative ways to use technologies that have been developed without an overt sexual use. Without the press or the camera, we would never have had the porn industry – but it’s doubtful that’s what either William Caxton or George Eastman had in mind when they made their history changing inventions.
The future of sex is about more than the technologies that may fuel changes. Yes these have an important role to play but so do our attitudes, our beliefs, medicine, religion and our lifestyles. In the next issue I will be having a look at these issues and examining just how different our sex lives could actually be in the next ten years. Stay tuned.
(Next week: Are We On The Verge Of The Golden Age of Sexual Freedom?)