Future sex: gizmos, robots - Article from Reuters.com

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When America's top sex researchers gathered recently to discuss the next decade in their field, some envisioned a future in which artificial sex partners could cater to every fantasy.

"What is very likely to be present before 2016 would be a multi-sensual experience of virtual sex," said Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington.

"There is a possibility of developing erotic materials for yourself that would allow you to create a partner of certain dimensions and qualities, the partner saying certain things in that interaction, certain things happening in that interaction."

A field dubbed "teledildonics" already allows people at two remote computers to manipulate electronic devices such as a vibrator at the other end for sexual purposes.

"People who use it are just blown away," said Steve Rhodes, president of Sinulate Entertainment, which has sold thousands of Internet-connected sex devices over the past three years. "This is not something that just the lunatic fringe does."

"The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company."

Gina Lynn, who writes the "Sex Drive" column for Wired magazine, says she has used and enjoyed the Sinulator and says there is no reason to fear the technology.

"People are still really afraid of...any sort of combination of sex and technology and of the Internet," she said. "What people are missing here is the point, which is the human connection that we are facilitating through the technology."

"No one who is even inventing this stuff wants or even thinks that technology could ever replace human connection or sex."

Annie Sprinkle, a former adult film actress, prostitute and author of "Spectacular Sex," said teledildonics are a logical outgrowth of improvements in pleasure devices.

"Now people use vibrators like mad and rightly so; the technology of sex toys has vastly improved," she said. "The more options the better; I mean it can never replace body to body."

"Some people will love it more than anything else and others won't be into it."


What do you think? We already use battery operated toys for pleasure, so why not move on to the full thing right? Wrong?


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