Virtual reality sex

This has been foreshadowed for a long time. When Jaron Lanier was interveiwed by CoEvolution Quarterly, one of the questions they asked was "what would it take for virtual sex?". If you don't remember, Jaron Lanier was the inventor of virtual reality, the 3D goggles and body suit required to enter a 3D virtual world. His answer? It would require a data connection capable of transferring 2 gigabits per second of data.

So, today we have High Joy at http://www.highjoy.com/

This is a "dating" site where the main gimmick is the ability to remotely control other peoples sex toys.

It has the typical "community" features for a dating site, though a bit stripped down. Namely, you can search for people, and there are chatrooms and message boards. Part of the experience is live video connections via webcam.

But, like I said, the unique experience is the remotely controlled sex toys. See here: http://www.highjoyproducts.com/

At their online store they have sex toys for both sexes. They can be connected to a computer, and run software that allows control of what the sex toys do. They vibrate and wiggle and whatnot, based on what the computer software tells it to do. Those commands come over the Internet from whomever they "partner" with on the highjoy web site.

What's going on? Jaron Lanier said this would take 2 gigabytes per second of bandwidth!

What's going on is a limited version of what Jaron had talked about. In this case you've got a video feed of your partner plus the extra little bit of data to squirt sex toy commands back and forth. That's easily handled with todays broadband Internet connections.

The full potential of virtual sex is to have a full body suit and VR goggles. The body suit would include the sex toy as part of the suit. With that kind of setup, it would be more directly interactive and you would be able to feel your partners "touch" (sort of) via the body suit.

All this just makes me wonder "what's the point?"

Do they think that all there is to making partnership with people is sex? That the whole point of dating is just to have sex?

Okay, sex is important. But what do you do with your partner in the other 99% of the time you're living with each other? Practically there's a lot more to partnership than sexual compatibility.

Next, can you really fall in love with someone whom you've never met in person? If you meet someone through this, and fall in love with them, are you falling in love with that person, or with the software? That is, in the relationship you have an intermediary. The intermediary is the software that's conveying the communication between the two of you. If you experience falling in love in this situation, are you falling in love with the intermediary? In this case the software? Maybe your partner is a jerk in real life, but the software hides the jerkiness?

Hey people, there's a real world out there. Enjoy it!

Single, white with dildo Thanks to developments in the field of "teledildonics," quick and easy cybersex is becoming an option for anyone with a mouse. Could Internet-enabled sex toys soon become must-haves for online daters? (By Anna Jane Grossman, Aug. 29, 2005, salon.com)

VIRTUAL REALITY: THE REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY OF COMPUTER-GENERATED ARTIFICIAL WORLDS-AND HOW IT

Man dies after online game marathon

Sigh, what are people finding in the virtual world of games that they cannot find in real life?

Man dies after online game marathon (Tuesday, August 9, 2005)

This man, identified as Lee, had quit his job so he could spend more time playing video games. Quit his job, to play more video games.

Then he went to the "cyber cafe" and planted himself there for a multi-day marathon. For three days he left the game only to go to the toilet or take naps.

After he failed to return home, Lee's mother asked his former colleagues to find him. When they reached the cafe, Lee said he would finish the game and then go home, the paper reported.

He died a few minutes later, it said.

South Korea, one of the most wired countries in the world, has a large and highly developed game industry.