Virtual sex: the killer VR application
Coming to terms with the Sexual
Ghost in Virtual Space
Trudy Barber, London. February 1997
Introduction
"I think of people as pink-coloured collections of
sense-data."
Alan Turing 1
My first perception of an augmented reality was experienced whilst in hospital as a child of about 5 years old. I was a chronic asthmatic, and spent a considerable amount of time connected to machinery to help me breath. I viewed the world through the crumpled plastic of an oxygen tent, accompanied by a face mask. Inside my head I was separated from a harsh reality that I viewed with total suspicion from the plastic sterile interior of the doctors' prescription. The dissociation from reality was accompanied by a sensation akin to auto-erotic asphyxia2 as I struggled for life. The sensation of the 'loss of self' and the imminent threat of seizing the last breath whilst attached to equipment, imbedded itself in my subconscious. Through the unbreathable haze outside of the oxygen tent, the real world loomed large and fractured in a seemingly uninhabitable universe in which I was supposed to survive. I had combined and associated an out of body experience through medical equipment into a form of autoeroticism.
This was the beginning of my interest in perception whose sensation was other than real. Due to my ill health I would spend most of my time drawing. This developed into a passion in which I could also escape. The drawing ability eventually lead me into art school3 where I also became intensely involved with film making. I eventually entered work in the media as an assistant film editor, and eventually going on to radio, having my own radio program. I became involved with imagery, sight and sound. But the drawing capability would not leave me alone, and I eventually enrolled back into art school4 where I started my drawing in earnest.
As a catharsis to my early experience, I started to draw 'asthmatic' drawings. Taking the unconscious inspiration from my hospital days, I started to draw and paint strong images of myself, bound and struggling, as trying to escape from my suffocated and encapsulating body. Drawing from machinery as humans5 and cadaver studies as biological technology 6, my work became a collection of bizarre images, performance and mechanistic collections. These images disturbed many people. Tutors gave me a separate studio. People were frightened to come into my black studio space, lit by candles, and covered in pieces of wire, and electronic devices. Then a great situation arose: people started to deface my work. They objected to it so much, that the defacers thought I was a 'man,' painting pictures 'against women.' Many were shocked. I felt that if I could create pictures that people could walk into and actually move them around, then I could achieve a certain impact with interactive paintings.
I had collected mountains of pictures of robotic devices, people
with prosthetics, operations, famous old robots and rubber dressed
figures dressed in masks and swinging in suspension. The sexually
bound mechanistic cyborg was how I saw myself...until I came across
a picture of virtual reality. The vision of a person looking through
the HMD, entering another computerized world. I came face to face
with my true self for the first time. I could finally confront
the mechanistic and separated sexuality that imprinted itself
in my sense of being, and begun to work within those perimeters.
I wanted to see the development of virtual sex because that was
how I existed; that was my life's' perception. It was time for
my self and work to take on a transformation. Like a butterfly
I emerged out of a psychological cocoon, and merged myself with
a creative underground culture in which sexuality was the experiment.
Transfiguring identity within a sea of fantasy scenarios where
multiple sexual personalities were dissociated from real life.
Exposure
The creative environment was the 'Fetish Scene.'7
This subculture is totally bound up in sexuality, experimentation,
the sensual body, fantasy and fun; retaining a total outlook of
excitement, sociability and character. There is a clear separation
from real time existence within the fetish world. There are Bank
managers dressed as naughty nurses, or Members of Parliament,8
in all encapsulating shiny body suits, passionately involved with
their partners, or just expressing their joi de vivre with their
preferred fetish.
The fetish scene was a place where I could show my work. The clubs are the central feature of the social activity. Clubs such as 'Whiplash,' 'The Torture Garden,' and 'Submission' sprang up throughout London.9 This was an ideal sampling ground for my concept of Virtual Sex. To my delight this subculture took up my ideology with open arms.
At two of the major events on the 'scene' calendar, I managed to try out my first very simple virtual world. I even managed to persuade a Company called Virtual S, to construct the world for me. The events were 'The Skin Two Rubber Ball' and the 'Sex Maniacs Ball' both held in 1992.10
The world that I had devised was a very basic one. The object
of the environment was to perform a simple task: To position a
huge condom over a large virtual penis. The VR was amusing, if
a little silly, but the project managed to raise a considerable
amount of money for AIDS charities and debate concerning virtual
sex. At the 'Sex Maniacs Ball' the VR installation was set up
next to a 'live sex peepshow.' My installation had more people
queuing for the experience than the live real-time sex performance.
This astonished me. I started designing sex suits, which appeared
on national TV. I started to become known for my ideas. I staged
a 'Virtual happening' at my college exhibiting my VR installation
along with brain machines. A large variety of younger 'scene'
enthusiasts arrived for the experience. They were mostly from
the 'Torture Garden' club. The London 'Cybersex' subculture was
born. The Torture Garden held cybersex parties with party goers
wearing their own invented 'sex-suits' with heavy fetishistic
overtones, playing with computers and discussing the possibility
of sex with machines.11 The concept
of virtual sex is now rippling through the fetish subculture.
Possibilities
On seeing the passionate interest in my work, I started
out on my long trail of research. I met up with two Germans. Stahl
Stenslie and Kirk Woolford who had invented a truly interactive
sex suit that connected with visuals of body representation on
screen.12 We wanted to work together.
Prejudice and sexual fear put paid to their project and my ideas.
They stopped working with machine sex altogether. I started to
look at the Internet, how couples meet, marry and divorce on the
information superhighway. I regularly receive detailed and personal
stories of sexual fantasy enactment, described by using textual
language as the silk sheets of interaction. The personal potential
within this subject is enormous.
I was next approached by the Institute of Psychiatry in London to try to produce a project for research.13 Sexual fantasy, and orgasmic retraining for paedophiles was one idea. The use of the penile plethysmograph whilst observing a visual stimulus is a common method of deviation measurement.14 By using the plethysmograph whilst experiencing a virtual sexual stimulus, the virtual world would subsequently adapt slowly for orgasmic retraining. This would be a far more effective method for conditioning, without using photographs of real children. Forensically this would be ideal when used in a court case of child abuse. But when I mentioned displaying test results in a three dimensional manner also within VR, my research was lost. The overlapping of boundaries, from science to art, and the representation of data in a novel form was too intricate an idea for stayed academic establishments.
The disabled were another group who came to me asking for virtual sex.15 Quadriplegics with no sensation from the neck down, were tired of being taken to prostitutes for some kind of sexual experience. They are desperate for help and information of some sort. With this kind of problem I thought about syneasthesia, where senses overlap. This is a mental condition which many artists have. It is also known as sighted hearing. I happen to get this phenomenon.16 I hear what I see. In a Virtual Reality the disabled could perceive a visual representation of orgasm, with sight and sound activated with their movement of the breath. Surely an out of body perception of the visual orgasm would give some euphoric relief for those that cannot achieve any form of sexual release. I have seen and met with those whose physical challenges does not preclude them from sexual feelings and an attraction to members of the opposite or the same sex. They are human after all. For some, the thought of the disabled having sex is somehow distasteful, but it is an area where virtual reality could bring a catharsis of sexual interaction for some.
Of course there is the obvious challenge for Virtual sex: that of the exclusion of AIDS related dangers through mechanistic sexual intercourse. The thought of real time sexual memory also comes into its own in virtual sex. The idea of 'replaying' your favourite scene over and over again is special, particularly to specific fetishists. With this concept I am looking at the development of the internal 'memory chip' that is being researched at British Telecom just outside London.17 Also by taking the aesthetics of virtual reality as anamorphism,18 I am examining computer space in an analogous sense. By accelerating someone's sexual personae in virtual space will we be further along the line of research towards the loss of self? Will this also affect the suspension of disbelief when in a virtual environment? When one's personality decelerates back into real time, will this also affect abilities to react sexually within real-time existence? By accelerating senses within virtual space, will we be able to achieve a point of syneasthesia that will in turn disclose a truly immersive environment that in itself would be revealed to us as 'real'.
Virtual sex can be used in many other ways: In learning languages for example. Again by using a form of syneasthesia words and language learning can be transformed with gender properties represented in a semiotic form; colour and shape attributed to words and their meanings. Because we all have sex at some time in our lives whether successful or not, it is the great communicator between us all. It breaks cultural barriers. It creates societies and communities. By using sexuality, Virtual worlds can begin a foundation of research which will get to the very core of presence of the self, and then be able to manipulate that presence.
The sex drive and the rush to virtuality run hand in hand. The development of technology is driven by an urgency similar to the sex drive. With technology we are continuously re-inventing ourselves.... An act of procreation: exactly the same as the sex drive. Without naughty videos: would we all have the home video system? The home movie camera: The couple at home video their 'Saturday night' fun. The car: a place in which many a young life has been conceived. The computer: access to sexual information on a global scale. For virtual reality to get into the homes of everybody, it needs to be sexy.
The design of HMDs and the nature of the real-time environment in which virtual interactions take place should have a sensual feel to them. For example, the rubberist VR hardware could be sleek, black and shiny. For women, the design could be naughty, throbbing and fun. If more women are to use virtual space, then gender ideas should be incorporated into the design of virtual worlds and hardware.
What about wearing a data suit or the HMD? people want to look
cool in this hardware. The general public will not use virtual
reality if it is not racy or 'sexy' to wear. The feeling of a
cumbersome headset no matter how wonderfully designed, can imply
subconsciously the heavy flaccid phallus. VR needs to be erect,
sleek, and easy to get into, as you enter through the vaginal
tunnel into virtual space. Because we, as humans, have invented
virtual reality with human intentions, then as a creation of sexual
beings, virtual reality is bound to have sexual connotations.
If these connotations are used in a subtle manner, subconsciously
more people will wish to use VR.. The core of sexuality in Virtual
Reality should be used as an advantage, not a hindrance. I have
seen the 'virtual kitchen design' to help me as a woman in my
home...oh what I would not give to design my own personal virtual
sex slave to show me around my virtual kitchen. This would allow
me more time to interact within the environment. I would probably
spend more money on my new kitchen, and even spend more time in
the real one too! As we all know, sex sells products.
The Dilemma
In my current research I am looking at the 'fetish
scene,' how it is considered, perceived and marketed. The social
and sexual implications of this subculture are generally misunderstood.
So, in order to create a working model for the future development
of computer sex related products and experiences; whether in Virtual
Reality or by using the Internet and standard PCs, I need to assess
the development and inclinations of the real-time sub-culture.
Unfortunately, with religious backlash, censorship and legislation,
the acceptance of virtual sexuality has come into some problems.
In the UK, consenting SM'ers are taken to court, clubs and homes
are raided, and there is an air of hysteria with the 'Internet
being the by word for pornography.'19
Virtual Sex could get into the 'wrong hands' fairly easily. England lives in a sexual hypocrisy. Whilst advocating 'family values,'(whatever that means) the British Government is renowned for its fetishistic activity. By introducing moral panic tactics, using media and other underhand methods, the 'powers that be' ensure that the public do not have the right to privacy, even in their own homes. Virtual sex needs to be treated with great care. All the industry would need is one computer geek to die of autoerotic electrocution in his garage to send a moral kickback rippling throughout the workforce. Virtual sex needs researching by those companies with firm convictions that could produce social outcomes that will benefit the health and safety of Virtual Reality.
Currently, through laws in England, the computer pornography bill
is already trying to anticipate Virtual Sex in order to clamp
down hard on its' use.20 Guide lines
for the use of sexually oriented environments would need developing
by the industry, if Virtual Sex is to be taken seriously. By showing
that the makers of virtual worlds can understand and anticipate
such use of their systems would help to educate and clarify the
banal and offensive questions from those who wish to deny us our
freedom of creativity. There is already a dungaree wielding group
of 'cyberfeminists,' who suggest that virtual reality is simply
toys for the boys.21 Opposition on
sexual grounds to the development of VR can inhibit and impede
formal research on gender and freedom issues within virtual space.
The Virtual Reality Industry needs to reassure the general public
that fantastical sexual scenarios (such as in the film The Lawnmower
Man for example) will not in reality turn users into rabid dogs
or sexual molesters. The Image of virtual reality is of scientific
eccentric boffin types, long haired and flare wearing techno-hippies
and 'anoraks'. Some of which are considered as sad lonely men
who spend all their time on-line, or in VR game systems, and have
the sexual attraction of a peanut. There is even a beer commercial
on TV in the UK that suggests that VR is 'going out of fashion'.
This gives the impression that VR is sexually unattractive, unfashionable
and is ripe for sexual deviation, hyped press exaggeration and
exploitation. This will give those who process legislation the
reason for clamping down on any stimulating recombinant body representation
and virtual environment development. So what should be done about
it?
The Sexual Ghost in Virtual Space
The sexual ghost has always been within the machine.
Alan Turing, known as the father of the modern computer, was haunted
by the ghost of homosexuality in his work. Eventually, it killed
him. Sexuality became the poison in his apple as the secrecy of
his work, and his inability to reconcile his sexual nature with
his passion for computers, slowly gave way to governmental pressure
and social etiquette. How many computer workers have a few 'naughty'
files hidden away on their computer systems? How many creators
have doodled with the possibility of developing their favourite
sexual partner, and hidden them within their gifs or jpeg files?
I know many people who, on the 'turning on' of their computer
screens, view the attractive picture of 'Scully' from the X Files
television series popping up, all smiles and allure, wearing a
rubber catsuit. Every body does it. This is the nature of the
ghost. Sexuality is within all of us, but nobody wants to talk
about it, just in case they become victimized, in case they let
some of their true nature slip.
In order to cast out the Sexual Ghost in Virtual Space VR research and development should take on the prospect of a sexual future. To come face to face with the ghost, dispel the fear and work with the specter. VR is for bodies. Virtual Space is for the mind and projected body. The link of the mind to the body is through orgasm and sensual communication. Without touching someone else, we are totally alone. I would like to take a sexual scenario, interact within it, take on a new body form, become ambisextrous in my multigendered disposition and revel in the fact that I am alive. Without sexuality no one would be around to design virtual worlds. Surely we should respect that part of our bodily nature and transform it with imagination into the telepresence of our physical anamorphic acceleration.
To use experimentation with body image, and anticipation of the problems with sexual representation, will be an asset for the design of virtual hardware and software. Even if the work is unsuccessful, research will have pre-empted the first strike against the 'ability to deprave and corrupt' scenarios so envisaged by the public. With the Sexual Ghost, virtual reality can be one step ahead of the rumours and can quash any future proposed legislation with experience and researched argument. The censorship of creativity condemns choice. By fearing the virtual ghost, that choice is already self censored. Creatives like myself are denied a voice before we even start. Virtual Sex has the potential to be cathartic. It can create further insights for new environments for subject matter far removed from body suits and fantasies. It creates questions, debate and brings in the human emotional and physical development of many years of civilization. If the body is to be left behind in the non digitized world, how will sexuality survive? As the mind cruises through its virtual space, how will it respond to psychophysiolocal responses? Arousal is an essential part of virtual experience.
Personally I hope in the future, that issues raised through sexuality will
become a fundamental approach to the use of technology. That I may one day flirt
with a virtual lover, seek solace in a telepresent caress because I want to,
and have the freedom to access the equipment to do so. By coming to terms with
the sexual ghost in virtual space, sex can be entertaining and fun. I look forward
to the day when I can lie back and feel the release of a virtual syneasthetic
sexual experience, and feel glad that I have had the freedom to do so. Sex is
far from the killing application of virtual reality. It is the virtual colour
palette from which many worlds could be made. There lies only one burning question.
How will we create that all important first virtual post coital cigarette, and
who is going to light it?
References
1 Andrews Hodges: 'Alan Turing. The Enigma of Intelligence.' Counterpoint
Press. London. 1983. Page 137.
2 'Autoerotic or sexual asphyxia is the deliberate reduction of oxygen to the
brain - temporary suffocation. It is rumoured to enhance orgasm, but no research
has verified this effect.' Ed. Debra Kent. The Kinsey Institute New Report on
Sex. Penguin Books. 1991. Page 154.
3 Salisbury College of Art Southampton Road, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
1977 -1979.
4 Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Southampton Row, London WC1B
4AP England. 1990-1993. BA (Hon's) Fine Art.
5 Artist in Residence for National Power. Electricity generating company. One
woman show. October 1989.
6 Southampton University Morphology Department. England. (University Collection)
1990.
7 For detailed information about the British 'Fetish Scene' see Skin Two Magazine.
Time Woodward Publishing London. http://www.skintwo.co.uk Also Rituals of Love,
Photographed by Housk Rendall and written by anthropologist Ted Polhemus, Picador
Books, London 1994.
8 Persons with high powered jobs are renowned for their fetishistic activities,
and notorious private lives. Steven Milligan, Member of Parliament for Eastleigh,
was found dead of auto-erotic asphyxia at his home in London in February 1994.
9 These clubs are held on a regular basis with strict membership rules and regulations.
10 The Skin Two Rubber Ball is a fetish event run by Tim Woodward of Skin2 Magazine.
It is held every year in order to raise money for good causes, such as AIDS
and Leukemia research. The Sex Maniacs' Ball is to raise money for the Leydig
Trust Charity, run by Tuppy Owens, which helps the disabled to find partners,
and have access to a social life.
11 The Torture Garden run by 'Alan and David' have since produced the TG Cybersex
Video, directed by Salvatore Martinez Mulligan, produced by TG and Dub-TV, 1994.
Also a book is available about the subculture called Torture Garden. From Body
shocks to cybersex. A Photographic archive of the new flesh. David Wood. Creation
Books. 1996.
12 The interactive sex-suit and computer screen was designed by Stenslie and
Woolford at the Cologne Academy of Arts in 1993. The installation was called
Cyber SM and involved a demonstration of bodily interaction between Paris and
Cologne. A body image was selected on screen, and was then sent from one country
to the other. By activating a mouse on the screen body, the real-time body was
vibrated.
13 This project was proposed under the supervision of Dr. Glenn Wilson, Reader
in Sexual Psychology, the Institute of Psychiatry in London.
14 The Penile Plethysmograph is an elastic device placed around the base of
the penis to measure states of arousal.
15 Mik Scarlet, broadcaster, cyberpunk, musician, fetishist and paraplegic stated
the interest displayed by audiences of his regular TV and Radio programs.
16 'Sensory information from one modality evokes sensation in another, for example,
colours associated with tastes.' The Mind of a Mnemonist. Luria A.R. Basic Books
New York. 1968.
17 The Soul Catcher. British Telecom Research Center near Ipswich north of London,
are researching the possibilities of producing a human memory chip. 'BT's artificial
life research team says it hopes to record the electrical pulses that pass down
our nervous system - -for example from the eye to the brain - onto memory chips.'
Andrews Brown. The Independent Newspaper. Essay. July 19th. 1996.
18 Arthur Kroker: 'Anamorphosis worked a more complex double game: a fantastic
distortion of perspective, and the disappearance of representation into the
non-space of illusion. . . . In the anamorphic space of virtual reality, we
become the non-space of the perverted image.' Data Trash. New World Perspectives,
Montreal, Canada 1994. Pages 48-50.
19 Stated on BBC Lunchtime News by MP Jack Straw. Summer 1996.
20 Home Affairs Committee. First Report. Computer Pornography. 'D Conclusion.
Section 42. We have been told of developments such as interactive computerized
pornography and eventually Virtual Reality, which will result in pornography
which has a much greater tendency to deprave and corrupt, and on a much wider
scale.' Page xv. House of Commons. 9th. February 1994.
21 Sadie Plant: 'Like women, all technologies have to be camouflaged as toys
for the boys, and virtual reality is itself an alien in disguise.' Film, Cyberpunk
and Cyberfeminism. Birmingham University. 1992.
Trudy Barber
Central St.Martins College of Art and Design
Department of Industrial Design
Southampton Row
London WC1B 4AP
UK
trudy@trustu.dungeon.com
Intellectual and content copyright © 1997 Trudy
Barber. All rights reserved.
VR images by Spacexploration Ltd.