A Female's View:
Sex In Virtual Reality
By Sherry Epley, Executive Editor

This article originally appeared in the May/June 1993 issue (#15, Vol. 3, No. 3) of CyberEdge Journal

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines sex as "the sexual urge or instinct as it manifests itself in behavior". Since this is absolutely no help in defining the possibilities of VR sex, here's my definition. Sex to me is an experience that involves intellectual and emotional pleasurable stimulation of as full a range of senses as possible.

SIGHT, SOUND, SMELL, TOUCH and TASTE—I want it all!—or as much as my body and mind can give me.

Do men and women feel differently about this, you bet! I can't count the number of times I've opened a new book on Virtual Reality or sat in the audience of a conference and been astounded, as yet another guy (its always a guy) asks how soon he can have sex with a computer. The reply from the speaker or author is always, "no comment", or "not yet" , but the question is asked again and again. People are obsessed with this concept. The media is so uncreative that they can't seem to talk or write about VR without connecting it to sex, drugs, violence and rock n' roll. Luckily, most of the scientists in VR labs seem to have missed the media boat, because they are concentrating on mundane things like new teaching methods for our kids and enabling the handicapped. I guess they just aren't hep!

No, I'm not at all afraid that a machine will replace me, I'm just amazed that some men want so little out of sex. And, I think there are much more important things happening in this young industry.

So, I thought that if I explored the subject a little more deeply and explained what we can all reasonably expect from VR in the way of sexual stimulation in the foreseeable future, perhaps we can put the subject to bed (as it were) and move on.

Sex in virtual reality today

Let's take a look at what VR can do to help get you off today. The senses of sight and sound are taken care of with great 3D, color graphics and the Convolvotron. All that's needed is a little imagination to create that perfect sexual fantasy world and even visual partners. Add a head mounted display and you're immersed in the visual stew, with your polygon baby cooing in your ear. God! If you're a really good hacker, you may devise unlimited combinations of body parts, in every color of the rainbow and as big as all outdoors. Throw in a little animation and AI, and the possible positions (unfettered by gravity) boggle the mind. Can you believe that some people have written that VR sex isn't possible because you wouldn't be able to feel the weight of the other person on top of you? Must have been those missionaries again.

AT LAST! AT LAST! Perfect SEX! Only limited by your time, money and creativity. But I can do the same thing while spacing out at my desk at work, and I don't even have to close my eyes, much less spend big bucks on a VR system. Face it guys, sex in cyberspace today is nothing but mental masturbation.

Touch, taste and smell

What about tomorrow. Let's think about touch. The sense of touch is essential, because that's when sex gets out of your head and fantasies, and involves your body. Here again, I could take care of that all by myself, but I would close my office door first. Still, it would be wild to have a sexual tactile exchange with a non corporeal entity. We could even experience totally new stimuli. That could be really sexy. BUT, we are just beginning to experiment with tactile and force feedback in virtual reality. Our erogenous zones are very sensitive, al least mine are. There's a thin line between a tickle and an abrasion, and it varies from person to person. The sense of touch is extremely complex because it includes our perceptions of temperature, weight, resistance, texture and motion. Naturally, there would be trade-offs for sexual gratification, like there is for everything else, but we are years away from even the most rudimentary experiments on the delicate sense of touch required for sexual pleasure.

The senses of smell and taste in VR are even more experimental and just as complex and difficult to master as the sense of touch. There are some very clever people in France who are working on an automated nose, perhaps for the perfume industry. But as far as I know, there are no current plans to incorporate the sense of smell in a head mount and I don't know of anyone who is doing any serious research on the sense of taste.

Action and reaction

What about the future? OK, so some time years hence, we've got the problems with sensual stimuli licked (pun intended). Lights! Camera! Action! Let's DO IT! Computer On! Miss Polygone is all warmed up, her pale green skin gleams in the neon blue light of 3 moons and a dozen comets, she smells like your favorite dog and this brings out the beast in you. You've been programming for 3 years and you finally got her hair to feel just like the girl that jilted you in the sixth grade (the one your mother never let you hear the end of). You've programmed her to do all the things your wife would never do. All the bugs are out, all the equipment is working. This is going to be the SEX OF A LIFETIME!

UH-OH! There's something wrong here; the earth is not moving, every nerve in your body is not tingling, you are not convulsing with the sweetest never-ending orgasm in the universe. But, it was all programmed—WHAT HAPPENED! What happened is that it was all programmed, the Stepford Wife of your dreams could do nothing unexpected or spontaneous or mysterious or surprising. Did you ever try to tickle yourself? Its the same thing.

Let's get real

The point I'm trying to make here is that human sexuality is extremely complex. It really is different strokes for different folks; the basics haven't changed much in thousands of years, and for very good reason. For the women that I know, sex with another human being is a deeply personal, intimate and satisfying experience. We are not in a big hurry to dump it all for programmed friction from a machine. I can only hope that the somewhat silent majority of men feel the same way.

At any rate, anything beyond crude sexual stimulation in cyberspace is a long way off and there are serious doubts that it could ever be very satisfying. The growth of Virtual Reality went through its drugs phase with Tim Leary, and started its sex and violence phase with Lawnmower Man. Could we get on to the rock n' roll phase, guys? I'm getting bored and the industry has better things to do and think about.

Reach Sherry Epley at sherry at advancesunlimited.com.

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