2014: Sex is about to get even hotter

Welcome readers to 2014! In one respect, sex in 2014 will, I predict, be pretty much like sex in 2013, and indeed like every year since humanity first climbed out of the trees and began walking upright – that is, two or more people getting naked and doing pleasurable things to one another’s bodies. As the cliché has it – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

However, the way we engage with our sexuality and with our attitudes to dating, hooking up, intimacy and pleasure is to a large extent reactive to society, to culture and, increasingly, to the digital technology which has become such an integral part of the modern world. Gazing into my crystal ball, here are some of the hot issues for the forthcoming year.

Hot Technology: Next generation sex toys
Not content with vibrating at different speeds, the new generation of sex toys will be all about interfacing with digital technology. The recently unveiled Vibease claims to be the first wearable “smart” vibrator. You put it on, open up an erotic audiobook and switch on your Vibease via an app on your smart phone. The Vibease syncs with the audiobook and its vibrations change as the story progresses. You can also record your partner’s voice and set the vibration levels so that you can get off while listening to him or her give voice to filthy fantasies or read out the week’s shopping list – whatever floats your boat. Regular readers will know that I don’t pass judgement!

In a similar, but slightly sillier vein, is remote-controlled pleasure pants. Yup, that’s right. The OhMiBod Remote App is due in March and is a Bluetooth enabled vibrator housed in a special (but, it has to be pointed out, not very sexy) pair of blue underpants. OhMiBod reacts to input from your phone using its touch sensors and volume settings to control the vibrator. The designers are currently working on a long range remote app, which means you could conceivably pleasure your partner from a different country, not just a different room. Condom manufacturer Durex is experimenting with something similar, a novelty product they’ve dubbed ‘fundawear’ – vibrating his or her underpants that can be remotely activated by a smart phone. All very well but I’d prefer some lovely lingerie myself.

Hot Problem: Performance anxiety
Sticking with technology, performance anxiety will be taken to a whole new level in 2014 with sexual data analytics available from an app called SpreadSheets (groan!). SpreadSheets will keep a record of how many times you’ve had sex, the dates and times, as well as your average thrusts per minute, how long you last and how loud the sex is, using data captured from your iPhone’s internal accelerometer and microphone. Frankly, this is an awful idea and sure to make people compare themselves with some notional “average” – but since its release last August the app has been downloaded more than 8,000 times in over 115 countries.

Hot Politics: The Age of consent
Last December Minister for Justice Alan Shatter put forward a proposal to lower the age of consent from 17 to 16. In 2006 the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children’s Rights recommended in 2006 that the age be reduced to 16, and that “consistency and coherence” be brought to the law. As the law currently stands, a 16-year-old can consent to medical treatment, including treatment for sexual health, without parental permission, but is still prohibited from actually having sex. However one feels about the age of consent, the fact that a 16-year-old boy can be charged with a crime for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl, who is seen as a victim, is unjust in the extreme.

Government sources say Enda Kenny and the cabinet have no appetite for yet another socially divisive topic after the fierce arguments around the Protection of Life During Pregnancy bill and the ongoing marriage equality debate. Despite that, during 2014 you can expect to see the age of consent discussed in countless op-eds with arguments for and against rationalising the law in line with international standards and pearl clutching from the guardians of the nation’s morals.

Hot Actor:Jamie Dornan
Nicknamed the “golden torso” during his time as a Calvin Klein model (thank you Google Images!), Northern Ireland’s Jamie Dornan is poised to conquer the world with his perfect mouth and chestnut beard. If you have yet to see his turn as a creepy, yet strangely alluring, serial killer in The Fall, get yourself the box set now. Filming for the second season begins in February and Dornan is currently working on the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey playing the BDSM loving billionaire Christian Grey.

Hot Film: Her
It would have been Fifty Shades but producers have pushed back the film’s release to February 2015, in time for Valentine’s Day apparently – because nothing says romance like a non-disclosure agreement and a red room of pain. Instead the honours go to Her, Spike Jonze’s near-future tale about a writer who falls in love, and has a sexual relationship, with his computer’s advanced operating system. It sounds like sci-fi comedy, but I suspect it is prophetic.

Hot Topic: Sexuality, freedom of speech and online abuse
Where freedom of speech ends and online abuse begins is set to be the topic of 2014. Online abuse reached something of a nadir in Ireland last year with two local scandals bringing the topic to national prominence – and unsurprisingly both had a sexual element.

In July a young woman was forced to flee the country when a Facebook email claiming she had engaged in a threesome with two Ireland rugby players went viral. In August a 17-year-old girl was photographed in a 'compromising position' during Eminem’s Slane concert and suffered a torrent of Twitter abuse as a result.

Both these incidences highlighted the fact that for all our supposed modernity, Irish women are still penalised for engaging in sexual activities, particularly if those activities fall beyond the confines of a committed monogamous relationship.

How to deal with online abuse is likely to continue to be the hot topic across the digitally connected world, as police and the media are finally beginning to accept that threats made over the internet should be taken seriously. Last year the activist Caroline Criado-Perez received hundreds of rape threats on Twitter for daring to suggest that the Bank of England put Jane Austen on the new £10 note. This January, two trolls, John Nimmo and Isabella Sorley admitted to sending abusive tweets and were convicted.

Canada is currently hearing its first case of online abuse as the trial of Gregory Alan Elliot got under way this January. Elliot has been charged with criminal harassment for sending threatening and sexually explicit messages to a woman on Twitter. If convicted, he could face jail.

Online abuse has flourished in the last few years, particularly as social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have been slow to respond, and the police, who may not be all that tech savvy, have been unsure how to deal with complaints, often seeming unwilling to treat them seriously. As we live more and more of our lives online, how the authorities respond to threats will become increasingly important.

Hot Dat: There's an app for that
In 2014, online dating will become a quaint old-fashioned idea favoured by an older generation or singles genuinely keen on finding romance while twenty and thirty somethings looking for casual sex will all migrate to dating apps. Tinder is, of course, the big one, but a host of other apps such as Are You Interested, Charm and Twoo are all vying for a slice of the pie. For the most part, these apps remove any vestiges of romance, with users able to chose or dismiss potential sexual partners based on their profile photos. Brutal, but efficient.

Futurology is of course an imprecise art, so it is possible that am wrong. Perhaps this year we’ll all give up sex in favour of scrap-booking or knitting; perhaps we’ll switch off the computers and leave the tablets and phones at home in an effort to put a little mystery and romance back into our lives; or perhaps all the coolest kids will decide that carrier pigeons are the only acceptable way to send erotic messages – who knows? Whatever happens I hope that you have a wonderful, pleasurable and sexually satisfying 2014.