People have been prosecuted and punished for their sexual preferences for many years in the past, but nowadays, sex becoming less of a taboo, at least in modern Western society. As always, there’s a lot of money to be made in adult entertainment, and the industry has been responsible for pushing forward many technological innovations over the years. That is still the case, and we’ve covered quite a few of those stories here on Tech Trends, from VR Porn to live camming avatars and Sex Robots, to an app that lets you pay with your penis. Which begs the question: What are some of the latest sexy tech trends? Let’s dive down the rabbit hole, shall we?

Sex robots can hold a conversation, moan during sex, and even reject you if it turns you on
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Sex dolls

Forget about those creepy inflatable dolls you could see in the sex shops ten years ago. Right now, you can order a realistic sex doll with removable parts. More than that, you can create one according to your preferences – manufacturers give freedom of choice when it comes to the materials, sizes of genitals, the color of hair, and facial expression.

You can get a customized sex doll with removable parts if you so wish
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Sex robots are also on sale – they can hold a conversation, moan during sexual intercourse, and even reject you if it turns you on. No wonder, there are so many stories in the media covering loving relationships between men and their dolls. Female bloggers have also started sharing the details of their experience with silicone men.

More and more people want to try how it feels with a doll that looks just like a human. At this point, technosexuals can spend a night with a sex doll of their dreams in… brothels. You can find ‘silicone bordello’ in Canada, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, France, Finland, Austria, and the United States.

Female bloggers have also started sharing the details of their experience with silicone men
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#Instasexy

Being invisible is one of the worse nightmares of this century; fame is associated with wealth, success, and happiness. Whether you want to be a successful musician, hairstylist, or broker, you need to get out there and announce to the Internet world that you exist. The best way to do so is to create your Instagram business profile. However, there are a lot of people who want to be famous without offering any products; they want to be followed for their image only.

Posting your own nude pictures is the fastest way to draw the attention of Instagram users. Also, in modern times, showing off your body parts or acting sexy is considered beautiful. You can blame Hollywood stars and Victoria secret models for creating this new concept of beauty.

There is no need to beg your girlfriend to send you nude pictures or go to the pornographic websites. Instagram, one of the most popular social media in the world, is full of softcore pornography. You will see there not only professional models; there are also pictures of your fitness trainer, high school teacher, bank workers, and your best friends. For better of worse, it’s the kind of stuff you probably won’t be able to unsee.

technosexuals can spend a night with a sex doll of their dreams in… brothels. You can find ‘silicone bordello’ in Canada, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, France, Finland, Austria, and the United States
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Gender-neutral sex toys

According to estimates, the adult toy market will reach 35 billion dollars USD by 2023. Vibrators are now more accessible than ever. Thirty years ago, it was unusual to have one, but times have changed – nowadays, around 64 % of women (aged 17- 32) in the United States use vibrators on a regular basis. Sex toy companies don’t want to limit themselves to female customers only, so every year, marketers invent new toys to satisfy men as well, such as prostate toys, penis rings, and pumps.

The sex toy industry requires a lot of creativity. The gender-neutral sex toy is one of the outcomes of productive days in the American sex toy company. The main idea of the toy is that ‘pleasure knows no gender.’ The invention called ‘Transformer’ can be used by a couple and for solo playing (we certainly review them often enough here on Tech Trends).

Around 64 % of women (aged 17- 32) in the United States use vibrators on a regular basis
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Vibrating condoms

People are constantly looking for new sensations, and the sex toy market tries to satisfy their customers’ needs and improve sexual compatibility.

Marketers have been trying to convince people that condoms can not only be used for protection but also for increasing pleasure during sex. At the moment you can find glow-in-dark, flavored, warming, mint, textured, and vibrating condoms.

Vibrating condoms have a special ring that can change the whole experience
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Vibrating condoms have a special ring that can change the whole experience. The ring goes around the penis; it creates the vibrating effect that can last for 20 minutes. Despite this feature, the condom itself is disposable.

Pornography websites receive more traffic than Twitter, Amazon, and Netflix combined
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Rule 34

Rule 34 is an internet meme that appeared in 2003. It states that ‘if something exists, there is a pornography of it.’ Sixteen years ago, Rule 34 was a joke, but nowadays it is the reality. According to HuffPost, pornography websites receive more traffic than Twitter, Amazon, and Netflix combined.

Rule 34 is an internet meme that appeared in 2003. It states that ‘if something exists, there is a pornography of it
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Pornography has always been popular, but the current scale of porn production is insane. The latest statistics show that Pornhub gets more than 1.000 views per second; a new porn movie is produced every 39 minutes. The industry is looking for new faces all the time, so porn actors’ careers don’t last longer than one year. At the moment, no source can track the number of active porn actors, but one thing is clear – the industry is getting bigger. It is quite possible that one day you will find a porn video of someone you know.

Pornhub gets more than 1.000 views per second
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HIV Sex Roulette

To keep your sex life exciting, you need to be open to trying new things. Some people tried it all – different partners, positions, places, sex toys, orgies, etc. That’s how sex roulette was created. Basically, it is an orgy where one person is HIV positive. Psychologists explain that high adrenaline can help get intense orgasms. The idea of HIV sex roulette had originated in Spain. At the moment, there is no information on the extent of the problem. Hopefully, it won’t become a trend among adventure seekers, but it shows how with any basic human compulsion, the dark side is never far away.

Free the nipple

Free the nipple movement encourages equality and freedom of sexual expression. The global campaign was inspired by the movie with the same name. Women want to have equal rights as men; they don’t understand why girls can’t go topless in public just like men. To get the main point of the movement across, male and female campaigners strip off their tops every year in different countries of the world. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Jimmy Kimmel, Simon Holtznagel and Kendall Jenner endorsed the protest. Nowadays, men and women around the world post their topless pictures on social media to support the movement.

Free the nipple movement encourages equality and freedom of sexual expression
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Modern people are open to different experiments in bed; they are not afraid to explore own bodies and express their sexuality. No wonder, the sex industry is growing rapidly. At this point, it is difficult to predict the future of sex; there is only one thing that seems clear – everything will be possible, and some things we can’t even imagine will likely soon become reality. Virtual or otherwise.

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Sex in a Digital Age appeared first on Tech Trends.

The idea of making out with a hologram might seem like science fiction, but some companies are coming close

PrimaVR has released a virtual heart beat feature for its holograms
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PrimaVR has been working with adult hologram videos since 2015, and earlier this year released the first version of their haptic holographic video player. It enabled users to feel that haptic feedback through vibrations delivered by virtual reality controllers, and the videos also reacted to the user’s touch; pushing against the hologram actress’ body displaced the virtual soft tissue, while a gentle slap resulted in what they described as a “visually pleasant jiggle.” The company has since been making improvements and adding new features to the platform, such as a “virtual heart beat” that can be felt when the user holds theVR controller against the hologram actor.

While 360 video restricts the viewer's POV, Holograms gives you more freedom to look around
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The main difference between this holographic platform and the type of 360 videos that are becoming rather pervasive in VR porn for example, is that 360 tends to restrict viewers to one PoV (Point of View) while holograms allow your head to move around much more freely, explains Anton Bailey, a PrimaVR spokesperson

We love to focus on experimenting with crazy VR tech
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Like the introduction of smells into the virtual experience, such features might seem a bit on the gimmicky side, but it all adds to the immersive nature of the VR experience, while also helping to push the boundaries of the technology and envisage what might be possible in future, says Bailey. “We love to focus on experimenting with crazy VR tech and be the first to introduce new features in adult VR entertainment.” Such features play a crucial role in increasing the levels of responsiveness and interaction within VR experiences, which not only makes them more fun, but also more engaging. Otherwise we risk what’s sometimes called the “Swayze effect” – which refers to the passive feeling a user can get of just floating through a video.

Such features might seem a bit on the gimmicky side, but it all adds to the immersive nature of the VR experience
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Bailey concedes that most, if not all, of the current Internet-connected teledildonic devices are indeed rather gimmicky and not very widely used.

“Even though odors can trigger strong memories and create an emotional response, smell cartridges and olfactory output will probably have lesser importance for a majority of people. VR will need to be adopted by the masses before a VR compatible teledildonic peripheral, a ‘VR Fleshlight,’ can become a hit,” he said.

Bringing your body into the scene

In the earlier demo, PrimaVR introduced the possibility for users to bring their own body into the hologram video by using the Leap Motion device. The team has since enhanced this feature by enabling those users to also alter their avatars’ skin color, accommodating a wider range of ethnicities so they can experience a closer representation of their own body in virtual reality and/or enhance roleplaying possibilities.

The possibility of modifying your avatar’s look and sound adds another layer of emotional protection alongside physical distance, which enables more adventurous experimentation
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The next step, however, is to make those representations more realistic and seamless, which is why the platform is also working on updating the tech to increase the resolution and video frame rate by the end of the summer.

This type of technology, according to Bailey, brings with it real possibilities for improving people’s sex lives.
“The possibility of modifying your avatar’s look and sound adds another layer of emotional protection alongside physical distance, which enables more adventurous experimentation,” he explained.

He also pointed to the sheer quantity and variety of cybersex in early VR platforms like Second Life as an indicator of how adult content will be crucial in driving wider adoption of the technology:

“Facebook is betting heavily on social VR, and telepresence is surely one of the more important applications of VR. Together with teledildonics, it opens up new possibilities for cybersex, whether conducted by complete strangers or couples in a long distance relationship.”

Bailey speculates that in a more distant future, where people will spend more time in online virtual worlds, VR technology will allow people to experiment with different genders and identities in a social context.

“Perhaps some of the experimentation performed in the safety of a virtual world can carry over into the real world. Whether this will lead to a more loose self-identification is a good question. At the very least VR technology opens a door for increasing social harmony by allowing people to experience life from other people’s point of view,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Future Of Sex

More Than a Feeling: How Haptic Holograms Can Improve Your Sex Life by @alicebonasio https://t.co/wOHqy8Vmcz

— FutureofSex (@FutureofSex) June 29, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Haptic Holograms that Spice Up Your Sex Life appeared first on Tech Trends.

BaDoinkVR is giving out 10,000 free sex toys for women wanting to explore their bodies and enjoy VR in a whole new way

And yes, before you ask, I did get one of those toys for myself. Here at Tech Trends we’re very strict in our policy of not recommending anything we’re not willing to try ourselves!

What Women Want is the newest instalment in BaDoinkVR’s Virtual Sexology series which – as the name suggests, is designed specifically with the female user in mind.

The idea is to use Virtual Reality tools to provide a hands-on approach to female sexual empowerment
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This is a virtual reality experience for sex education and therapy that aims bridge the gap between education and entertainment and help women enhance sexual pleasure and performance, both solo and with their partners.

The idea, explains Dinorah Hernandez, Director at BaDoinkVR, was to provide a much more hands-on approach to discovering female sexual empowerment:

“We’re striving to appeal to a large demographic of women that have been widely ignored by the adult industry, as we recognized that women tend to have different a mindset compared to men when it comes to adult VR,” she explained

Not only is the experience itself free to download, but BaDoinkVR is also giving away free companion sex toys to the first 10,000 women who request them on the site. The experience was designed “by women and for women,” with input from experts in the field such as AASECT certified sex therapist Dr. Holly Richmond, PhD, who helped to develop the content and exercises featured.

This is a virtual reality experience for sex education and therapy
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Dr. Richmond is a somatic psychologist who works with women, men and couples on relationship and sexuality issues. She uses somatic (body-based) principles to help uncover subconscious issues that contribute to clients’ primary concerns. Her treatment specialties include low and absent libido, desire discrepancies in couples, compulsivity issues with sex and pornography, recovery from sexual assault and abuse, alternative sexual lifestyles, and those working or who have worked in the adult industry.

“In my practice as a somatic psychologist and certified sex therapist, I place equal importance on the body and the mind. With sex, this is of utmost importance and VR gives us an even more direct channel to somatic manifestations of pleasure and sexual wellness,” says Dr. Richmond. “Virtual Sexology is a progressive concept that offers a wide-variety of positive sexual health applications in an informative and entertaining way,”. “Women’s desire and arousal are unique to men’s and extremely varied, so our approach with this endeavour was to explore not only what women want, but also how they want it.”

BaDoinkVR’s Virtual Sexology II promises to leverage those techniques to dive deep into the feminine process of arousal and desire, aided by a “suite of next-generation sex toys that aim to augment sexual activity and help women discover their pleasure zones.”

Now, since I do get pitched a lot of cutting-edge sex tech products, I’m very spoilt where it comes to sex toys. Which means that in all fairness I must point out that the Trinity Peanut Bullet Vibe one-touch control model offered is certainly not on the same league as the beautifully designed and tactile products from, say Dame or Miss on the Go. But, hey, it does the job, and gift horses and all that… As BaDoink says, “the motor may be small, but it packs enough to satisfy.”

Dr. Richmond uses somatic (body-based) principles to help uncover subconscious issues that contribute to clients' primary concerns
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What’s next for sex?

“I got involved with this project because I am working on a book about the future of sex, or more specifically, asking the question, ‘What’s next for sex?’” Dr. Richmond explains. “A large portion of the book will investigate VR porn and its positive clinical applications for sexual health. Of course I found BaDoink when I was researching industry leaders and reached out to them. After reviewing Virtual Sexology I, I was very curious about how the overall idea (combining education and entertainment) could translate for women’s sexual health in particular.”

It would be great if we could bring female pleasure out of the shadows
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“It would be great if we could bring female desire and pleasure out of the shadows, give it some light and offer solutions. Virtual Sexology II was written from a place of deep commitment to my clients, as well as wanting to help women in general get in touch with what they want, what they like, what they need. This is an exceptionally immersive way to help women conceptualize and feel good about their desire, and have the practical, hands-on tools to get it,” added Richmond.

Originally published on Future of Sex

VR Sex Therapy Series for Women Aims to Educate and Spark Their Unique Desires by @alicebonasio https://t.co/nl4XHxFaCP #VR

— FutureofSex (@FutureofSex) June 17, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Is A Virtual Sexology Experience What Women Really Want? appeared first on Tech Trends.

Pornography has been instrumental in spurring the adoption of new technologies. As anybody with an understanding of human nature will attest to, if you want people to spend their time and money on something, you need to give them a reason, and sex is always going to be one of the most compelling reasons out there.

Since the Adult Industry is less constrained by societal norms, it is perhaps more free to innovate
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Another reason why the adult industry has proven such a driver of new technologies could also be that it exists on the margins of social acceptability in the first place. They are, therefore, perhaps less constrained by the norms, rules and conventions which tend slow down innovation. In other words, they are less adverse to risk-taking and generally tend to experiment more – which often means being the first to produce embrace new media such as VR.

“Whatever your feelings about it, adult VR is a major driving force for bringing more users into the VR ecosystem. Literally millions of people buy their first VR headset in part because they want to try that VR porn they’ve been hearing about,” says Daniel Peterson Founder and CEO VRPorn. “It’s like the early days of the Internet. Porn was a killer app, and it helped interest grow quicker. Even today, a huge % of internet activity is related to porn, and some of the largest websites are adult. I think the primary way that this drives the growth of the ecosystem is getting more and more people involved. Once they have figured out how to experience VR porn, they will be better positioned to try everything else that VR offers. And obviously VR is much bigger than just porn.”

Whatever your feelings about it, adult VR is a major driving force for bringing more users into the ecosystem
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“The real tipping point is resolving the chicken-and-egg problem caused by a lack of content. Adult always finds its way into the front of the line with new technologies, and it already has limitless content available. Adult entertainment will motivate customers to acquire VR headsets,” adds Jean Claude Artonne CEO of Terpon, who is looking at ways of straddling the divide between mainstream and adult by providing practical solutions to VR’s technical problems in a vertical related to adult interests. “Each vertical has its own role to play, as adult content and mainstream content are actually two sides of the same coin.”

But once we get there, what types of VR Adult experiences can we expect to have, and which are the main roadblocks to getting us there? We asked some key industry players for their insight.

Intimacy

At its best, VR is more than immersive, it’s intimate, says Artonne.

“I travel often as part of my career, and being able to call my wife at home via our VR webcam prototypes makes all the difference. I’m in different countries around the world, and yet my wife and I are never more than one room apart virtually.”

Adult always finds its way into the front of the line with new technologies, and it already has limitless content available
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“Couples have always tried to find ways to make relationships work when they are apart,” says Peterson. “It used to be love letters, now it’s video calls. Many people enjoy using these media for more erotic encounters as well. Phone sex has been a thing for as long as there’s been phones. Yes, couples can get much more adventurous. There are professional adult VR videos shot from both perspectives and synchronized, so you and your partner can experience a fantasy of being someone else, and also of being with someone else,” he adds.

At its best, VR is more than immersive, it’s intimate
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“Adult VR content allows individuals and couples to enjoy another way to interact and live out a fantasy they may not try in real life. These fantasies might include group activities or something even more intimate. This demand will drive new technologies and platforms that support these types of interactions,” says Bradley Phillips Managing Director WankzVR.

The very design and nature of current VR HMDs presents a blocker to such intimacy at the moment, however, since social interaction where you cannot see each other’s faces is challenging to say the least.

“In the short term this means one person can watch and the other person will perform,” says Kiiroo CTO Maurice op de Beek. “There are some technologies like overlaying of the face, but that is in its infancy. Another road would be that couples would both wear VR goggles and they would see a digital representation of each other. The social aspect will be a killer app for our industry, but the technology is not there yet.”

Privacy

A big part of adult related content is anonymous users who never want to register on any website, nor give any payment information. An added hurdle with watching that content in VR is that you need to buy a specific device to watch that content and that transaction and setting it up online often requires providing personal information. For Artonne, however, that actually presents an opportunity:

“Our answer is to have a clear barrier between adult sites and our mainstream platform that can provide a more attractive environment for customers to purchase these kinds of goods without connecting that purchase directly to any specific usage intent,” he explains.

Peterson agrees that whoever arrives at the solution that makes consumers most comfortable will probably come out on top in that space.

“VR technology can potentially record everything you say, do, and see. Proper respect for a user’s privacy needs to be built into VR tech from the ground up. And this is especially true for adult VR tech. The metaverse will come, but it will have privacy protocols acceptable enough that people will want to use it. And if it doesn’t, the consumers will simply join the metaverse protocol that does, and that one will win,” he says.

Multi-sensory experiences

We’re in the early age of VR and it’s like Internet in 1995 where everyone was still finding out what the technology will do.

“In the next few years, you will see more gimmicks coming and every one has its value,” Maurice op de Beek from Kiiroo. “The moment that the best technologies come together in one product is the moment that customers will no longer see it as gimmick, but as something essential in their lives.”

A VR experience that impacts all of your senses at once and in harmony to deliver a perfect simulation is probably a long way off though, according to Phillips.

“We have a lot to do on the road map before reaching our goal of integrating connectivity with toys, because VR requires immediacy based on quantifiable data, and with toys that means measuring a physical and emotional state several times per seconds to allow haptic devices to act as proxies for our own appendages. The technology is coming quickly but it isn’t quite here yet,” says Artonne.

According to Phillips, Adult VR could actually be the first to bridge the uncanny valley.

“Eventually VR and AI will allow us to have virtual experiences every bit as real as any we have now in our daily lives, whether that means flying a fighter plane from your couch or having sex with an entire squad of cheerleaders during the Super Bowl, it’s really something each consumer will decide for themselves,” concludes Artonne.

Adult VR could actually be the first to bridge the uncanny valley
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“Much of the offerings available today … are basically gimmicks, but there is so much more potential,” Peterson said. “I believe that AR and MR will have some great adult applications. For example, imagine having the person of your dreams sitting next to you on your home sofa as you watch Netflix and chill together, and interacting with you in increasingly realistic ways as the technology inevitably improves over time.”

First published on UploadVR

We all know pornography is prevalent, but how soon until #VR porn is mainstream? https://t.co/vL3t2KDfX7 pic.twitter.com/yFfzH3j7X2

— Upload (@UploadVR) May 27, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post How The Adult Industry is Helping VR Go Mainstream appeared first on Tech Trends.

Tech is supposed to be hip, but where it comes to sex, it’s surprisingly square. It’s one woman’s mission to change all that, and spare us no blushes.

“The three biggest tech disruption opportunities today are cannabis, Bitcoin and Sex.” But while money is flowing steadily into the first two – to the extent that VCs and start-ups in those sectors routinely lobby for regulatory change– Cindy Gallop tells me that the Sex Tech space which she pioneered remains taboo.

Sex Tech remains taboo
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We live in a supposedly liberal and forward-thinking age, yet where it comes to sex, repressed prudishness still rules supreme, and this makes investors nervous. So where apps like Yo and Wakey – which can safely be described as pointless – attract million-dollar investments, a platform to socialize sex with over 400 thousand engaged users and a plethora of monetization opportunities is something that VC firms won’t touch with a proverbial barge pole.

Where it comes to sex, repressed prudishness still rules supreme
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Cindy’s Make Love Not Porn launch was one of the most popular TED Talks in history, and not just because it included no fewer than 3 mentions of coming on one’s face. Over 1.6 million people have watched it since 2009, but in spite of near-universal enthusiasm for the concept, she has so far been bootstrapping the platform with only her own savings and support from one Angel investor.

MLNP has to constantly fight against blockers such as banks refusing them business accounts and PayPal not processing their payments. “My team and I fight a battle every day because every little piece of infrastructure that other start-ups take for granted, we can’t, as the small print says no adult content. So I realized very early on that I would have to pave my own way if I want to scale and grow this into the billion dollar venture I know it can be.”

I realized early on that I would have to pave my own way to scale this into a billion dollar venture
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Even with all the obstacles and no development resources, the bare-bones platform already monetizes content, regularly making four-figure payouts to its ‘stars’. There’s huge demand for expansion in areas such as educational content, fiction and commercial partnerships, but growth remains paralysed by lack of investment.

It’s infuriating, according to Gallop, “because it’s never about what the person you’re talking to thinks. It’s about the fear of what other people will think.” Time and again she’s had enthusiastic VCs approach her saying how much they loved the idea and saw its commercial potential, but felt unable to take it to their firms.

It’s about the fear of what other people will think
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Make Love Not Porn operates on a revenue sharing model, which means users get 50% of the “rental fee” of $5 per video. “That’s the diametric opposite of how the porn industry operates,” Gallop points out. “Whether you’re a newbie or the world’s biggest porn star, you only ever get paid by the scene, and that maxes out at about $2000. These people never see a penny from the vast revenue their videos generate, but I believe the business model of the future is that shared values plus shared action equals shared profit.”

Quite apart from the huge revenue streams that could be generated through content – both social/entertainment and educational, Gallop makes an exceedingly convincing case for the market potential of commercial partnerships, advertising and product placement. Hands down, it’s the most entertaining pitch I’ve ever heard, but quite apart from that, it’s a rock solid argument made by someone who, not to put too fine a point on it, really knows her shit. Gallop’s impressive resume includes decades of experience in the advertising industry, most recently as President of Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

Photo by Matthew Williams

She puts to me that, in spite of all the existing taboos and limitations, the current size of the sex toys and accessories market is worth an estimated $1B, and that’s without even going into content-connected teledildonics or the burgeoning field of VR, with all the possibilities that brings. If she succeeds in building MLNP into the platform she envisages, however, “we’re talking Trillions.” She assures me before launching into a typically not SFW story that drives home the point:

“A few months back LELO sent me this special edition black and gold TIANI couple’s massager,” she recalls. “So I open the box, look at this beautiful object, and I find myself thinking: how the fuck do you use this thing?”

 “So I think to myself: there’ll be instructions inside. But all I find is this one-pager that tells you how to charge it. Nothing about what goes where.”

Not one to give up easily, Gallop then turned to that universal source of enlightenment for the befuddled – YouTube – where she did find a video about the TIANI: “But because this is YouTube, what I’m presented with, is a video of what I call ‘Stepford Woman’, by which I mean a completely sanitised, whiter-than-white person holding the device and telling you how to use it. And I’m listening to her and going ‘what? So you put that inside and then the guy puts in his cock as well? How the fuck does that work?’ needless to say, my couple’s massager has never been used with any of my lovers. You don’t want to risk killing the mood with something going wrong.”

Bearing in mind that Gallop is a strong, confident, openly sexual woman who’s a huge fan of sex toys and own a whole bunch of them, what hope do the rest of us have of navigating through that particular minefield.

“It’s simply impossible to overstate the negative impact that our inability to talk honestly about sex has on the ability of every sex toy manufacturer out there to shift their product,” she agrees. “ But because our videos on MLNP are so reassuring in all sorts of ways – we celebrate normal bodies, normal hair, real penis sizes, real-world emotions – we also help to demystify and take the embarrassment factor away, so there’s a huge opportunity for product demonstration and communication.”

Last summer they piloted a collaboration with Refinery 29 to road test 5 bestselling sex toys on the MLNP community. Volunteers were picked from a diverse range of ethnicities, sexual orientation, singles, couples, and asked to video themselves using the product for the first time, with all the accidents, near-misses and laughs left in. It was the ultimate antidote to the Stepfordian YouTube experience that proved such a turn-off for Gallop.

Photo by ioulex

“That was a world first, people trying out sex toys on camera for the first time, and we got a brilliant response.” She recalls one woman who wrote to tell her that watching the user-generated demonstration made her feel comfortable to buy and use the toy where she never would have dared to before.

That was a world first, people trying out sex toys on camera
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But if you think that this potential for “demonstration and communication” stops at sex toys, think again. “There will be a specific area of the site where you can sell any perfectly ordinary household good or product as long as you integrate it, entertainingly, in a real-world sex scenario. The chair they’re using, the necklace she’s wearing, the clothes they’re taking off, the beer he’s drinking. For brands brave enough to do this the viral engagement possibilities are enormous.”

Sex is an area where research and data are badly needed
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As the platform scales there is also huge potential for data to be developed into additional revenue streams, aggregating real world, real time human sexual behaviour information in unprecedented ways. “Sex is an area where research and data are badly needed, yet it’s the most data-free area of research going. It’s also the one area where you’ll find the widest possible gap between what people say and what they actually do.”

“When my angel investor asked me several years ago what our exit strategy was, I said to him that it didn’t yet exist; we were going to create it. Because when we achieve our mission of socializing sex, 10 years from now company X will buy us for a shit-ton of money who wouldn’t even dream of it now.”

It might seem far-fetched to think about a company like Facebook eventually sharing curated social sex videos. This is, after all, a platform that routinely takes down pictures of women breastfeeding their babies. But things can change very rapidly in the social media world. Think about how far the goalposts of what is considered acceptable or ‘normal’ content have already shifted. We might have become rather jaded to it these days, but even your average person from the early 90s would probably be weirded out by most of the videos up on YouTube.

Your average person from the 90s would be weirded out by most videos on YouTube.
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MLNP does feel like something that really does – excuse the pun – fill a gap. If Gallop does manage to pull it off, she could very well – and this is a rare occasion where it’s possible to say this without the Silicon Valley sarcasm– ‘make the world a better place’.

Until we start talking about sex , we’re all quite literally fucked
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Cindy says she’s in the Steve Jobs business of reality distortion. “When you have a truly world changing start-up you have to change the world to fit it, not the other way around.” Because, she concludes, until we actually start talking about sex and socializing it in a healthy way, we’re all quite literally fucked, in the wrong way.

Photo by Kevin Abosch

Ballsy investors are welcome to email cindy@makelovenotporn.com

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

Featured Photo by Julian Hanford

The post Why We Need The Balls to Invest in Sex Tech appeared first on Tech Trends.

The adult industry often pushes the boundaries of new technologies and drives up mass market adoption. VR is no different.

The adult industry has always been an early adopter of digital technologies
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Swiss-based maker of Virtual Reality and Haptic Devices Terpon announced that it has just secured a seven-figure investment – led by Taiwanese private investors and a Silicon Valley veteran – as they prepare to launch a new line of high-resolution 3D-VR Cameras.

The funding will go towards mass-producing those 3D-VR cameras, as well as marketing to support their sizeable ambitions of becoming a household name in virtual reality webcam hardware worldwide.

“The adult industry has always been an early adopter of digital technologies, with many companies cutting their teeth in the space, launching innovative technologies that ultimately breakthrough into the mainstream market – and virtual reality is no different,” says Jean-Claude Artonne, CEO, Terpon.

While mainstream users are increasingly dabbling in VR, adult entertainment consumers are rather more enthusiastic. Terpon’s strategy is betting that this type of usage will in fact serve to bridge that gap between early adopters and mainstream, similar to what happened with VHS and DVDs in the past.

Read the full article on futureofsex.net

Terpon Bets on Adult Live Camming to Move into Mainstream VR by FoS writer @AliceBonasio https://t.co/THjjHQrnbV #VR

— FutureofSex (@FutureofSex) February 23, 2017

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Virtual Reality for Grown Ups appeared first on Tech Trends.

There’s no denying the huge buzz around VR Porn at the moment, as most industry pundits seem to agree that 2017 will see a lot more people experiencing adult content in the virtual world. Inevitably, this heightened interest is also spawning a whole variety of hardware to facilitate and enhance those experiences. These gadgets and gizmos range from the intriguing to downright amusing: The Tesla Suit promises to fully immerse you within a VR environment while masturbating devices such as the Ona-hole manages to be simultaneously scary and hilarious. Then you have talking vibrators, and the OhRoma, which looks a bit like a WW2 gas mask and promises to take immersion to the next level by pumping out smells like “panties” or “body odor” – if you’re into that sort of thing.

The interest around VR porn is fuelling demand for connected devices that enhance those types of experience
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But this goes far beyond the obvious novelty factor, says Toon Timmermans, Co-founder of teledildonics company KIIROO. He believes that the technology has the real potential to improve people’s sex lives, even helping them to overcome their intimacy issues in some instances.

Teledildonics can help people who lack the ability to be physically intimate
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Kiiroo Co-Founder Toon Timmermans

 

“There are some people who lack the ability to be physically intimate; due to distance, disability etc. Adding teledildonics and Virtual Reality gives them an outlet to explore what had never been possible until now,” he says. We see several positive implications: Improved sexual health and immunity, lower blood pressure, pain and stress relief and improved sleep are just a few of the aspects of our lives that are improved. We become happier and thus, the psychological implications become more positive.”

“VR has already proved its ability to enable trance like meditative states through its enhanced visual and sensory inputs,” agrees Ghislaine Boddington – Creative director at body>data>space and a reader in Digital Immersion at the University of Greenwich in London – who has been researching “body technologies” for over 20 years. She believes that sense-enhancing and body connection technologies will converge rapidly across the next decade as various forms of haptics and biofeedback become commonplace. “Interchanges of breath, touch, feel, heartbeat, muscle/ blood motion and other data that the living body can transmit are already developed as individual tools. Bring these together and place them with our bodies into connected immersion spaces, and the potential is huge.”

For Teledildonics to take off, we need to embrace the idea of an enhanced orgasm
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For teledildonics to truly take off, she continues, it needs to incorporate features that will help us achieve what she calls the ” enhanced orgasm” – the potential for extended bodily pleasure that has been explored across the centuries by lovers in many civilisations.

Read the full article on UploadVR

How teledildonics will create more intimate virtual reality experiences. via @alicebonasio #VR https://t.co/e5DAFDnE4w pic.twitter.com/uJz0OL74bE

— Upload (@UploadVR) February 13, 2017

Ela Darling, Co-Founder of CAM4VR

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Coming Closer Through Teledildonics appeared first on Tech Trends.

There was huge and palpable excitement around the growth of VR Porn and Teledildonics last year, but where does it go from here?

When will teledildonics become more than a gimmick?
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With the world’s largest Adult Industry event – AVN Expo – happening in Las Vegas this week, it was a good chance to catch up with some of the major players in that space and find out what challenges and opportunities lie ahead for 2017.

Will teledidonics finally become more than a gimmick? What does VR Porn need to do to attract new audiences and become truly immersive? How will that change the way people consume that content and connect intimately to one another?

This year’s AVN Show – the world’s largest Adult Entertainment expo which took place in Las Vegas – focused a lot on VR, even adding two new dedicated categories (Best Virtual Reality Sex Scene and Best Virtual Reality Innovation/Site) to its 2017 industry awards. AVN’s CEO Tony Rios said in a recent interview that the response of the industry to VR has been phenomenal and that although the sector is still early in development, it is definitely here to stay. What remains to be seen, however, is how exactly monetization occurs going forward.

Will everybody be watching VR porn in years to come?
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When I first met Ian Paul – Chief Information Officer of Naughty America – in April 2016 they had just launched Randy’s Roadstop, their first Virtual Reality Adult entertainment series. At that time he said VR hype was justified, as it was growing faster than any format they had ever tracked, but has that trend continued?

Yes, says Paul, who claims they’ve seen a steady stream of new customers flocking to VR experiences throughout 2016.

“New revenue attributable to VR is up 350% year over year, and this year we now plan to offer integrated support for smart services toys from companies such as Kiiroo that offer haptic feedback in sync to the video.”

Incorporating teledildonics into VR is something that several other companies are also launching. CAM4VR Co-founder Ela Darling says her company – which offers live streaming VR sex cameras – is planning to add integration with Kiiroo as well as voice-to-voice capabilities that allow users to chat directly with performers, making the experience much more up-close and personal.

“I’m excited about the implications because it brings us one step closer (essentially the closest) to feeling the person on the other end without actually being in the same physical space – a heightened level of intimacy,” she explains, adding that this physical connection has powerful psychological implications to how users experience adult content in VR.

Several companies are incorporating teledildonics into VR
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“This connection to the person on the other end – knowing you are controlling or someone is controlling your device and what you are feeling- is a powerful psychological experience that users will start to embrace as part of the expected VR interaction,” she believes.

These interactions include not only haptic feedback, but have started to incorporate other – more unexpected – senses: Webcam platform CamSoda has experimented with various new technologies including 3D Holograms recently, but it turned some heads with their launch of a feature called OhRoma, which incorporates odors through a sensory mask. According to CamSoda President Daron Lundeen, it takes the virtual reality experience to the next level by delivering smells such as “aphrodisiacs,” “body odor,” “panties,” or “private parts” via cartridges mounted inside a mask.

And while it’s probably safe to say that this type of experience might not appeal to everybody, John McCoy, CEO of Intimuse says that teledildonics such as the products his company are currently developing already impact profits for adult sites: “Vibra-tactile toys (basically vibrators that move via an app rather than a closed feedback loop) are making a bunch of tokens change hands on the cam sites now, and the ladies like them as performers because they are easy – there is no special hardware needed on the customers’ side to trigger a basic experience. However, it’s easy to see how people will become bored with the current landscape of experiences and thirst for something more realistic, so the market is catching up to us, and I see the two spaces converging,” he predicts.

The adult industry is undergoing a seismic shift as we transition away from the traditional towards a more immersive experience that is delivering a heightened level of intimacy unlike anything before
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Fabian Grey, CEO of virtual reality live cam site AliceX believes that teledildonics is looking at a longer development roadmap than VR, however: “I think it will take a couple of years, until we see a wider distribution of toys,” he says. WankzVR Managing Director Bradley Phillips agrees, warning against expectations of seeing the various innovations needed in the adult experience arena to all come at the same time:

“Each piece of the ultimate solo sexual experience that consumers dream about, is a major innovation in itself and shouldn’t be tied to the technological timeline of the other parts of the puzzle. VR’s most important goals for 2017 should not include “the ultimate simulated sexual experience” instead they need to be centered around driving the core technology forward which means better image quality, faster frame rates, better scaling, and improved depth of field.”

That also tallies with McCoy’s observations of the industry: “Right now, most US operators are focused on optimizing the customer experience with nearly flawless streaming and stable features,” he explains, adding that we should see something of a tipping point in about 18 months, where there are enough eyeballs in headsets and compelling content to generate measurable numbers and success.

Phillips stresses that the growth experienced so far has been remarkable, saying that 2016 brought an absolute explosion of adult VR content being produced: “At the beginning of last year, VR was still seen as a venture that some risk takers were investing in with the hopes that in a few years the marketplace would grow. By the end of the year, it was one of the most relevant types of content being produced for the industry, with successful VR brands already being some of the more recognizable, and profitable products in the pay site industry,” he says.

“The adult industry is undergoing a seismic shift as we transition away from the traditional towards a more immersive experience that is delivering a heightened level of intimacy unlike anything before,” said Claude Artonne, CEO of connected VR platform Terpon, who believes viewers will quickly get more used to being in the action themselves, experiencing everything first-hand. “This heightened experience will only continue to evolve and mimic real life interactions as more and more companies penetrate the space and introduce cutting-edge technology that defies boundaries.”

Artonne says this growth, which has seen significant increase in traffic numbers was further boosted by the flood of low-end Chinese headsets entering the market, with many more people using that type of device to experience VR for the first time: “As the technology continues to evolve, so too will the headsets as they improve in compatibility, aesthetics and overall functionality, which will only continue to drive adoption across the industry.”

He says that for that to happen at scale, however, a few crucial barriers must still be overcome, most importantly the functionality of mobile headsets, which impacts on their ability to deliver more immersive content.

The biggest trend I see over the next year with respect to adult content shot in VR, is the return of the quality porno movie
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That content, however, is already showing some promise, and AliceX CEO Grey believes the biggest trend in Adult VR this year will be segmentation, with productions increasingly catering for various niches.

WankzVR, for example, recently launched a host of experiences targeted specifically at women which – unusually for the industry – featured a female point of view, and Phillips believes that VR will help drive up the quality of Adult entertainment across the board.

“The biggest trend I see over the next year with respect to adult content shot in VR, is the return of the quality porno movie,” he says. “Content that actually has a story line, a script, a production crew and a cast. Not just some guy with a camera shooting a couple banging on a couch.”

So while fully immersive virtual sex might not be here just yet, it looks like we got a whole lot closer, and with the amount of money and interest at play, we’re likely to see a lot more interesting – and some downright wacky – stuff continuing to pop up as the technology develops.

Article originally published on UploadVR

Get ready for more immersive sex in virtual reality this year. via @alicebonasio @avnawards #VR #AVN https://t.co/OdnsAHv4H7 pic.twitter.com/8BM8hPv7Uz

— Upload (@UploadVR) January 21, 2017

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post What’s Coming for the VR Adult Industry? appeared first on Tech Trends.

VR has experienced huge growth in 2016, and VR Porn is no exception. Yet much of what the adult entertainment industry came up with so far constituted of adapting or upgrading the same old formats, and that has meant catering almost exclusively to the male gaze.

#VR porn is big business, but most of it is still done with a male audience in mind
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In this article for Future of Sex I look at how one company is looking to change that by deliberately aiming their content at the female market.

There’s little doubt that 2016 was, in many ways, “year 1” for virtual reality, with the medium experiencing huge growth across all areas, including VR porn. Yet much of what we’ve seen coming from the adult entertainment industry has been some form of adaptation or technical upgrading of the same old formats, which predictably meant catering to the dominant male gaze.

Yet even the most established industry players were quick to recognize the enormous possibilities that VR content offered to do something different. When I interviewed the CIO of Naughty America, Ian Paul, in San Francisco last April, he showed me a demo they were working on which featured a female point of view. We had a fascinating discussion about how strange—and enlightening—it was for men to experience sex from a woman’s perspective.

WankzVR promises to pursue a balance of content that is attractive to women, focusing on their desires and concentrating on the more intimate and mutually satisfying side of adult entertainment
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And having spoken to a large number of stakeholders in the adult industry over the past year, they all seem to agree that targeting the female market is something they want to do with VR porn. As usual, however, the commercial allure of targeting low-hanging fruit (i.e. the male audience) takes precedence. That was the case with Naughty America [NSFW], which didn’t release the demo I experienced commercially, opting to focus on a traditional male perspective instead.

Changing perspective

That’s something that Dutch company WankzVR [NSFW] is keen to change. They say they are determined to break free from the status quo by launching a “first of its kind” collection of VR porn content specifically targeted at a female audience. The Amsterdam-based company has been exploring the use of 3D multimedia technology—including stereoscopic high-resolution capture and binaural sound recording—to create “full 360” experiences for the adult entertainment market since 2015, and they see this as a key area for potential growth.

“We have a large female user base and we regularly obtain feedback from them about what they want to see from our content. The industry has generally neglected scenes shot from the female perspective, but we strive to be trendsetters so we’re shaking things up a bit,” said Managing Director Bradley Phillips.

But what does “female porn” actually look like? Many people seem to think that it’s all about breathless romance and curtains fluttering in the breeze, but from the look of the videos on the WankzVR website (which, according to them were produced with “just the ladies in mind”), it looks pretty much like “regular” VR porn, except that you see everything from the perspective of a female performer. The idea behind this FemalePOV is, as they put it, is for “women consumers to experience the wildly immersive wonders of virtual reality sex as seen through their eyes.”

The use of the first-person in the descriptions helps set the scene for the full immersion experience that you get in VR
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There are, however, a few more subtle differences. The scenes do tend to be longer (between 15 and 18 minutes) so as to leave room for “foreplay and sensual build-up.” And while I’m not quite sure that—as they claim—this “trumps the actual intercourse,” these elements are certainly something that many women tend to appreciate.

The scenes do tend to be longer (between 15 and 18 minutes) so as to leave room for foreplay and sensual build-up
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The presentation of the site also comes across as being quite female-friendly, with slick, SFW images and tongue-in-cheek descriptions featuring social media-like reviews next to each one. In The Pool Boy, for example, you’re told:

The use of the first-person in the descriptions also helps set the scene for the full immersion experience that you get in VR. There is also a heightened emphasis on “passion” and storytelling. One user testimonial on their website enthuses that:

“Every scene feels really fresh, I never know what’s going to happen next and it makes it much more exciting.”

The content can be viewed on a variety of VR headsets, including Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, and Google Cardboard, and is available completely free—at least for now. We know that women do watch pornography. In fact, WankzVR said that they have been “inundated with requests” from women for them to include content featuring a female POV—but very few tend to pay for it.

This is most likely due to the “friction” caused by the purchasing process rather than the cost itself. So it makes sense to build the audience and let them experience and get to like the product first before attempting to monetize that sizeable, yet elusive market.

The content can be viewed on a variety of VR headsets, including Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, and Google Cardboard, and is available completely free
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Moving forward, the company promises to “continue its pursuit to find a balance of content that is attractive to women, focusing on their desires and delivering content which concentrates on the more “intimate and mutually satisfying side of adult entertainment that is more in tune with the female perspective of sex.” Well, put your VR goggles on and watch this space…

WankzVR Targets the Ladies with #VRPorn from the Female Point of View by @alicebonasio https://t.co/VpJUO86Jps

— FutureofSex (@FutureofSex) January 9, 2017

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post VR Porn Through The Female Lens appeared first on Tech Trends.