The future of…

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The future of sex

Jan 2001

Sex is probably the biggest driver of new technology. In spite of its being essentially free, we still spend lots on it. It is a huge technology driver. It has been said that the main reason Betamax was beaten by VHS in spite of inferior quality was because VHS didn’t try to censor the type of films that could be released in that format, so porn films were only available on VHS. Sex based services on the internet also attract the highest revenues, and led the way in electronic cash and pioneered credit card purchasing across the net.

One of the most critical stages of any relationship is the first meeting. When we see lots of potential partners at a party, it is anything but obvious to most of us which ones are most compatible. Now, you can have various aspects of your personality and preferences encoded in a badge that automatically talks to all the other badges in the vicinity. Personality matching programs do the matchmaking. If someone there is a good match, you will both be alerted, saving hours of time chatting up the wrong person. This technology is already available in primitive form at some night-clubs.

Cybersex has been much hyped and the reality allegedly doesn’t live up to expectations. The term was coined decades ago along with ‘teledildonics’ and the two have fuelled imagination ever since. There are already conferences on the subject and many articles and TV programs have been produced on it. However, most just focus on current technology such as VR and crude sex suits. For a field which is usually so rich in fantasy, there has been precious little imagination so far. Sex suits only allow one person at one end to physically interact in simple ways with one other at the far end.

It is likely that telecommunications has already played a strong part in increasing sexual diversity. In ancient times, people came in male or female, with mutations resulting in a very few hermaphrodites and androgynes. Operations were limited to making eunuchs. More recently, hormone and surgical treatments created some other variants, and allowed a degree of conversion between genders. However, with the arrival of mass communication, awareness of the opportunities, and the realisation that they are not alone in their desires has probably caused a lot of people to want to change their physical state or to accept their psychological state as valid. Human gender identity is not simple any more. Perhaps it never was. Perhaps now it is simply more open. There are now many varieties other than straight male and female. With all the permutations of birth sex, hormone treatment, surgery and implants, and gender attributes seemingly independently combined, as well as all the psychosexual variants of these, there are literally dozens of variants. In a sexual interaction, any of these may wish to interact with any of the others, with hundreds of possibilities, some of which have more or less than two human participants, and others which involve non-human parties such as machines.

People have experimented with verbal cybersex for many years, in discussion groups and shared spaces such as MUDs and MOOs. Many pretend to be the opposite sex while in these domains, some or all of the time. Some do this for fun, others to avoid hassle or harassment. Others try hard to avoid anyone figuring out what sex they are. Some take on different roles at different times, apparently without suffering any psychological problems. AI entities known as bots also inhabit these areas and many can make a reasonable pretence of being human, chatting up people and vice versa. Since most are fairly easy to spot, they usually just catch out new users. Some people also pretend to be ‘bots’ so they can watch or interact with participants without arising suspicion. So we already see quite complex gender interactions, with heterosexual, homosexual, neutral, bisexual, asexual, the androgynous, the synthetic, the bot, the uncertain and the unknown, all happily interacting with each other. With each of these pretending to be other than what they are, or changing between genders dynamically, relationships in cyberspace can be very complex indeed. People or programs can appear how they wish and can disguise their true identity or characteristics in many ways.

As technology permits more graphics, simpler man machine interfaces, and more artificial intelligence, we can expect the area to develop into horrendously complex relationships. On the internet, no-one knows you are a dog, or a robot, whether you are 6 or 60, fat or slim, ugly or attractive. A person’s cyberspace avatar can have any desired appearance and behaviour, or can mimic the originator's actions in real time with a different image. Some time after 2010, we will have direct retinal projection via active contact lenses that are able to produce computer generated overlays on what we see in the real world. Even if your partner's physical appearance is not quite up to your hopes, it could be digitally enhanced or completely replaced with something closer to your dreams. No paper bag needed.

To further complicate things, around 2010 - 2015 there will be external links to the human sensory system, with possibilities of new senses or new ways of stimulating existing senses in different ways. Still further, the bodies mechanisms for sexual response are beginning to be understood, with the possibility of direct stimulation by manipulating nerve signals, chemically or electronically. Even paralytic people are in principle capable of achieving orgasms by stimulating such nerves. Even the pleasure centre in the brain, the septal area, could be addressed directly, requiring no other stimulation at all to produce ecstasy. Woody Allen’s Orgasmatron is perhaps a real possibility in a decade or so. Nature has equipped us with sexual organs, but with direct sensory stimulation into the brain, we could design and build a new range of sexual body add-ons.

If we combine all these technological possibilities, not only is direct physical contact not necessary, but we see that there need be no conventional sexual activity at all to produce a pleasurable sexual response. Any stimulation that does exist may use conventional sex organs, or any of the synthetic nodes. This gives complete flexibility in sexual rituals, and complete flexibility regarding mapping of activity onto both meaning and response. Combining this with cyberspace, we could have ridiculous relationships and sexual practices - imagine sending an orgasm by e-mail. Participants may be of any kind, including machines or software entities, and there may be any number of ‘genders’ involved in a given sexual interaction, each with a given role. Flexibility is absolute in such a world.

This may seem trivial, but there is a key factor which stops it from being so. Psychosexual response is not fixed, but is to a point learned. The existence of wide range of fetishes shows how much people’s sexual response can be affected by conditioning rather than genetics. It is reasonable to assume therefore that some people will be affected by such conditioning when participating in cybersex, with its huge range of varieties. A few people may learn to have a real response to some computer programs or totally artificial characters, or to activities which in the real world would have no sexual effect whatsoever What starts off as just a whim of experimentation on the net may become a key part of an individuals sexual preferences or behaviour. Cyberspace activity feeds back into mental space here in just the same way as in other areas. Fortunately, without direct nervous system links yet, much of the problem will be delayed for some time, and the problems experienced in the short term may be much simpler, if just as real. One consolation for all the psychological problems that may result from cybersex is that at least it is ‘safe’ in the AIDS sense.

However, in spite of this flexibility, it is likely that most interactions will be ‘conventional’, in the sense that most people will want to ascertain the true characteristics (male or female, old or young, appearance etc) of the partner, and then the network is then just a simple link between two machines. Cyberspace may offer a pleasant virtual environment in which to interact, or customise the look and feel of either party. The partners can then ‘play’ with each other at will. Cyberspace also allows time shifting, and for recording and storage of information. This will permit dial in services where a ‘session’ may be recorded for use by many callers, who all want to play with the same person. A large degree of interactivity could be provided to make it lifelike. Celebrity programs for orgasmatrons may be a thriving business in a few decades.

The fact that sexual interaction across the network can be safe and novel, with none of the strings and conditions associated with real life might make it very popular when the technology catches up. There will be real life problems though. Already, some marriages have broken up due to cyber-affairs, and society doesn’t really have rules or conventions yet for network based relationships. Just what is a healthy reaction of a woman who finds her husband has been chatting up a computer program for the last month? The oft quoted marriage rule of ‘look but don’t touch’ will need redefining.