Virtual reality porn and the future of loneliness

http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/11/virtual-reality-porn-and-the-future-of-loneliness/

by Devolver • 11 years ago

34 47 11 years ago

dkopi• 11 years ago

The whole "porn = loneliness" equation is really getting old. People with sex lives watch porn. People in relationships watch porn. Females watch porn. Couples watch porn together. Couples make porn together.

Masturbation is natural, normal and healthy, and it's about time we stop the false "watches porn = lonely loser" equation.

angersock2• 11 years ago

Quite right!

Now if only we could accept as a society that sex is natural, normal, and healthy, and that it is a standard part of healthy functioning relationships.

Porn wouldn't be half as popular, I believe, were creep-shaming and the entire romantic-industrial complex not so pervasive.

monk_e_boy• 11 years ago

How about couples in a monogamous relationship - is that natural? (genuine question) Are we moving to a more fluid type of relationship - is VR sex closer to cheating?

Sexual images that are illegal would still be illegal in VR?

rosser2• 11 years ago

You're forgetting the (admittedly, somewhat uncountable) number of people who are substituting porn and masturbation for sexual relationships with real, live human beings.

Yes, people in relationships, with sex lives watch porn. Good for them. They aren't the ones we should be concerned about; they aren't the ones whose behavior is (or risks becoming) maladptive.

I think you're drawing a false identity here — between people who use porn to supplement their sex lives, and people for whom porn is their sex life — and treating the valuable and well-warranted concern for the latter as criticism of the whole.

ams6110• 11 years ago

As someone else asked above, who is "we?" And why is it any business of "ours" whether someone decides that relationships (in the romantic/sexual sense) with other people are something he/she wants?

derpderpdrep• 11 years ago

Loneliness is like a gaping wound, anything you try to fill it with just seems to make it hurt more.

Masturbation is fine, but that longing for real human connection, that is something that I don't think is replaceable by any of these forms. Even conversations spread across strangers, it just feels like trying to fit together a jigsaw puzzle with the wrong pieces.

minthd5• 11 years ago

I don't know. It's like we're running a giant experiment on everybody, using powerful digital technologies , without even a safe process for estimating and controlling the risks and optimizing for positives.

And we do this without even achieving a scientific consensus on regular pornography and it's impact - without even understanding the results of the previous technology, if any. Maybe we should understand that before?

leaveyou• 11 years ago

There are lots of "we" in your sentences. Who is this "we" and when was the last time when you noticed scientific consensus on any highly subjective topics like sexuality ?

phn2• 11 years ago

Life itself is a giant experiment for which no-one really knows the answer to.

I am pretty much for being open and accepting of our own humanity (desires, flaws, quirks), without tabooing the fuck out of everything and trying to control what other individuals think and do with themselves. Education, information, critical thinking and a sharp change of culture into acceptance is what I think we need, not a "safe process".

wyager• 11 years ago

Not knowing the consequences of something is an insufficient reason not to do it. You're invoking a form of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance (Namely, that it hasn't been proven safe, so should be presumed unsafe.)

anon3_2• 11 years ago

Someone needs to make "Tropes vs Men" series.

anon3_2• 11 years ago

To anyone who didn't get the context (I can't edit the above post) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropes_vs._Women_in_Video_Game...

MichaelCrawford• 11 years ago

You have absolutely no idea.

While not dead certain I speculate that we could reverse global warming by powering off all the child pornography servers.

http://www.warplife.com/jonathan-swift/books/software-proble...

I regard Microsoft's Bing Image search as the most-egregious offender.

Clark County Washington Deputy C. Bull suggested I notify the FBI. "The FBI obviously knows about it," I replied. "There must be some reason they don't enforce the law. I have some theories but really I do not know."

My essay is a very rough draft but far enough along that you can see where I am going with it.

lmm• 11 years ago

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=73799908&postcoun... is perhaps relevant. (Japan a couple of years ahead as always?)

BadassFractal• 11 years ago

On one hand I'm ok with more and more dudes being taken out of the game because they're too busy fapping to increasingly more realistic pornography. At the same time, it's not obvious that the kind of men that are happy to fully migrate their sexual needs to VR porn weren't already out of the dating pool in the first place. They likely were already consuming regular porn as surrogate for their sexual lives.

On the other hand, I realize that women aren't going to sit still, and they're probably going to have to adapt to this new world, meaning they'll possibly follow along and slowly dating might become mostly virtual.

digi_owl2• 11 years ago

That depends on them being interest at all.

As an Norwegian i came upon an article a year or two ago, based on book by a social scientist that had found that the Norwegian family was changing.

As the female part of the population has gained more equal economic terms, a pattern had emerged where a single "stud" man was being passed around from woman to woman. Once she found herself pregnant he was shown the door.

leoc• 11 years ago

It’s not difficult to imagine a future where a cohort of the male population — especially those who have trouble connecting with members of their preferred sex — sits at home many nights with the Oculus Rift strapped to their heads, living out their sexual fantasies in VR, having their psychology further shaped and distorted by the persistent absence of connection with real life people.  Regardless, the future of porn is here, and it is fucking intense.

There's already a hit song about basically this. From 1979. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4Z6smOrZw Also related: this film from 1973 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld .

thisjepisje2• 11 years ago

Let me add this song from 1969. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic

comrh• 11 years ago

Also the "cyber club" that gives patrons access to any fantasy from Minority Report.

jimhefferon2• 11 years ago

I teach in a college. our challenges are four: pot, porn, poker, and playstation. This combines porn and playstation. I fear they will next find a way to bring in pot. That'll be a problem.

anigbrowl• 11 years ago

Surely anyone who is wasting time on porn and/or Playstation is capable of smoking pot at the same time. I'm not sure why you think this would require some sort of tie-in at the production end.

minthd5• 11 years ago

One thing that's still imperfect with VR is getting strong presence , consistently. But pot greatly helps with that, at least according to some guys from reddit.

scintill76• 11 years ago

Poker/gambling is a common impediment in education? Where, if I may ask? I would have guessed the others, but I'm surprised by this one.

Ygg2• 11 years ago

I think it's a self correcting problem. The people that enjoy the VR to exclusion of regular human contact, will remove those people from the gene pool.

Sure, you might end with a different next generation that has the fear of VR built into them, or the entire human race will die, out, but its nothing to concern yourself with.

lozf• 11 years ago

And another song, also from 1979 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm00l5N8Jao

I Love You Miss Robot, Electronic tease... programmed just to please. etc.

thisjepisje2• 11 years ago

"This new technology is totally gonna make everyone lonely and messed up!"

Devolver• 11 years ago

Definitely not what I was saying.

amelius• 11 years ago

My favorite explanation for the Fermi paradox [1]: we're not seeing any alien life because they have figured out a way to entertain themselves which is far more appealing than searching for ET life forms.

Anyway, before embarking on regular VR sessions with pr0n, see this video first [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

[2] http://www.ted.com/talks/zimchallenge

peddamat• 11 years ago

Relevant SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20131122.png

Taek• 11 years ago

Our culture (at least in America) is poorly equipped to deal with the sexual freedoms that technology is increasingly granting. Porn is definitely a problem and a source of loneliness for many, but just like video games, its not the technology itself that is the problem.

polarix2• 11 years ago

I presume you don't intend to suggest that the freedom is the problem? I would propose we attempt to fix the stifling antisexuality of everyday social life, rather than the newfound capacity to meet bodily desires individually.

polarix2• 11 years ago

Well!

For most people (the asexual population and the abstaining Japanese youth notwithstanding), sex with another person, especially in the context of meaningful intimacy, is a source of joy.
Watching porn by yourself all the time, although physically stimulating, is spiritually the opposite of this.

Participating in autosexual intercourse can absolutely be both meaningful and a powerful source of joy. It consists in the appreciation of one's own body, mind, and spirit as a full and complete flowering of the universe. Consensual sensory experiences allow that being to approach its own devotion fully.

On a less metaphysical note, this is really a marvelous denouement to the sexual brinksmanship that's infested society over the past few millenia.

From an individual perspective, I love having sex with myself. When partners I find attractive want to share, so much the better. It's not as much fun trying to convince them to, though, that part pretty much sucks, and this provides the best BATNA ever in that negotiation.

Fjolsvith• 11 years ago

"As Mike Kovalsky said at the end of our interview, “We really believe that virtual reality will drive the relationships between humans in the next years.”"

More like _divide_ the relationships between humans.