Virtual Sex
Everything you've been afraid to ask about sex in cyberspace
By Rob Baedeker
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By
Sheldon Marks, MD
I was having sex with a Dutch girl when my wife walked in. "What do you
think about this?" I asked.
"Um," she said. "It's a little weird."
The Dutch girl wasn't real. Well, not really real? She was an avatar
in Second Life, the online, 3D, digital world developed by San Francisco
company Linden Labs. But there was a real person on a computer somewhere in the
world making her avatar have sex with my avatar by clicking a pink ball on the
ground. I don't know where the real user was located, but our virtual meeting
space within Second Life was called "The Netherlands." Or maybe "she" was
really a he, controlling a female avatar. Impossible to say for
sure.
If it's not clear already, "virtual sex" can be a little complicated.
Virtual sex, teledildonics, and real life
"It's not sex but it is sex," says Regina Lynn, author of The Sexual
Revolution 2.0 and a columnist on sex and technology for Wired.com. "I
don't like the phrase 'virtual sex,'" Lynn says, "because it trivializes the
experience. There are many ways to share sex with people in virtual spaces, and
you still have to communicate to the other person what you like and don't like.
It's such a mental and emotional experience. That's part of what turns people
on."
From adult video games to instant messaging and chat rooms to web cams to
online interactive worlds to Internet-enabled sex toys, the means for enjoying
erotic experience via a remote connection seem to be multiplying faster than
you can say "teledildonics."
For the uninitiated, teledildonics (or cyberdildonics) refers to sex toys
that can be controlled with a computer. The "Sinulator," for example, produced
by Sinulate Entertainment in Sunnyvale, California, is a wireless vibrator that
connects to any computer with an Internet hookup and a Windows operating
system.
The Sinulator's counterpart is the "Interactive Fleshlight," a penis sleeve
for men that transmits in-and-out action into vibrations for the Sinulator on
the other end. "Just install the software," says Sinulate's web site, "plug in
your Interactive Fleshlight, and pick a partner!"
Technology and long-distance sex
Kyle Machulis, operator of slashdong.org, a Web site about the combination
of sex and technology and a self-described "tinkerer/hacker/pioneer/visionary
in the realm of sex technology," is a major proponent of open-source
teledildonics. But, he says, the real-world functionality of computer-enabled
sex toys hasn't really caught up with its potential. "There are some cool ideas
that just don't work in implementation," he says. Still, says Machulis,
teledildonics are "changing long-distance relationships for the better,"
allowing couples to "finally be physical over the wire." And, he argues, we
"haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg" in the field of virtual sex
toys.
Allowing separated couples to stay in touch, almost literally, is only one
of the many positive aspects that virtual-sex advocates see in the refinement
of - and increasingly widespread access to - cyber-sex technologies. "One of
the huge benefits is safety," says Brenda Brathwaite, a veteran video game
developer (whose credits include Playboy: The Mansion) and author of
Sex in Video Games. In addition to STD-free interactions, Brathwaite
says virtual worlds offer users the ability to explore sexuality in an
anonymous environment. "There's no safer place to meet," she says, "than in a
virtual world."
The Internet can also be a boon for busy adults, Brathwaite says, allowing
people to have social and romantic encounters online that they simply don't
have time for in conventional space. "For a busy single mom or dad whose life
is packed with activity," she says, "at the end of the day virtual worlds can
allow them to socialize."
Sex therapy and sex education via computer
Brathwaite, who is also a professor at Savannah College of Art and Design,
says cybersex holds tremendous potential for education on sexual health topics
for youth and at-risk populations as well as untapped potential for sex therapy
for couples. "You could walk a couple through a facilitated session," she says,
"while they are in the privacy of their own bedroom."
Cory Silverberg, a sexual health educator and founding member of Come As You
Are, an education-based sex store in Toronto, says, "What's good about cybersex
is that it allows people to conceive of new possibilities," whether that means
a disabled person gaining greater access to the sexual sphere or someone
"fulfilling their fetish fantasies beyond anything that we could have
imagined."
