Fantasy vs. Reality

On January 21, at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration, millions watched as pop music star Beyoncé belted out our national anthem, accompanied by a live orchestra. But what we saw and what we heard were not the same thing. As it turns out, the pop star’s voice and the orchestra were mostly muted, with a studio version of the anthem pumped out to cover any potential imperfections in the live performance. A few days later, at a press conference for the Super Bowl – at which Beyoncé was the halftime entertainment – she said, when asked about her “performance” at the inauguration, that she is a perfectionist and she wanted to sound her best, especially at an event as important as that one. She’d not had time to fully rehearse with the orchestra, she’d not had time for a proper sound check, and the weather (30 degrees) was not great for her voice. Thus, she opted to “sing along” with her prerecorded track.

I have written extensively about the intersection of technology and sexual addiction, examining the topic in blogs here and here, and in the upcoming book (Summer 2013) “Closer Together, Further Apart: The Effects of Digital Technology on Sex, Relationships, and Intimacy.” Because of that, I was hoping to take a time out from all the “sexnology” writing, but the recently concluded International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas has pushed me toward this all-too-familiar topic yet again.

By most accounts, this year’s CES was a bit of a snooze-fest. Several major players (Apple and Google among them) stayed away entirely, though plenty of smaller vendors were busy hawking Apple and Google related devices. The general consensus seems to be that this year’s CES fell short of past years in terms of completely new technologies to see, enjoy, and make plans to buy. Instead, vendors presented a lot of enhancements and tweaks to existing technology.

A Bold New World

Once upon a time, “lonely hearts” advertisements could be found hidden in the back pages of aspiring underground magazines and local city newspapers. To search for a mate, you placed a printed ad that provided a few salient (but never overtly salacious) bits of information about yourself, along with a brief statement about what you were seeking in a potential partner. If you could afford the extra money and were brave enough, you might even have a friend take a 35mm photo of your face to place alongside your words. The publications that carried these ads typically charged by the letter or word and the ads were expensive, so you had to be succinct and clear. To respond to someone else’s ad, you simply sent an “I’m interested” letter to that individual’s designated P.O. box and included the number of your own so they could write you back. This P.O. Box technique was used to ensure that neither party could directly contact the other prematurely. If each person liked the written responses he or she was receiving, after a few letters back and forth (something that could take a month or more), there might be a mutual decision to make that initial phone call to set up a first meeting in real time.

What is Virtual Sex?

The idea of “virtual sex” has long been a science fiction staple. One very funny cinematic example (well-known to most baby boomers) is the 1973 film, “Sleeper”, starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, a comedy about life in the distant future. One of the movie’s great fantasy inventions is the Orgasmatron, a telephone booth-like contraption that helps users become sexually aroused by stimulating their brains in an intensely sexual way. (Click on HERE for some entertaining clips).

Allen actually confirmed the scientific feasibility of this idea with both Isaac Asimov and sci-fi writer Ben Bova prior to making the film, so it’s not surprising to learn there actually is a real orgasmatron (discovered serendipitously in trials for a potential spinal cord stimulator). The device apparently works rather well, but it costs quite a bit of money and requires the surgical insertion of electrodes near the spine. Needless to say, it is not widely used for pleasurable purposes.

There are, however, numerous less intrusive and more affordable “sexnologies” that can be utilized to erotically simulate and stimulate.

Tech-Connect: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

For many of us, digital information gathering and online interaction have become integrated into our daily routine from the first multitasking moments. We check email, tweet and text, update Facebook, and simultaneously peruse “newspapers” from all over the globe, all while draining the morning coffee. And we do all of this on faster, more sophisticated, more portable and affordable electronic devices than ever before.

This incredible array of sophisticated interconnectivity provides endless new opportunities to support our very traditional human needs for community and social interaction. Innovations like Facebook, with over 500 million users, and Twitter, with over 300 million users, offer real-time interactions with an increasingly wider and more diverse group of people.

Friends and family who may have been too distant for regular contact just a few years ago can now be intimately folded into our lives. For partners, spouses and families separated for long periods of time by work or military service, the tech-connect boom is a godsend. Couples are now able to bond long-distance in real time, share a growing child’s latest milestone, and even engage in visual intimacy via the webcams now routinely incorporated into computers and smart-phones.

Those not yet in a committed relationship can put technology to good use when home or traveling via e-dating—establishing and growing budding relationships with a decreasing focus on who lives where. We make friends, we share and grow from our experiences, we celebrate, and we commiserate—one world, a growing interactive community.

One downside of the tech-connect boom is that whenever human access to intensely pleasurable and arousing substances, like cocaine and crystal meth, previously rare treats, like refined sugar and sweets (now on sale at every gas station), or experiences, like gambling and sex, is increased, the potential for impulsivity, compulsivity, and addiction rears its ugly head.

Tech-Connect

These days, virtually everyone owns a computer, smart-phone, or mobile device. Digital interaction is an integral part of our everyday routine. We check emails and texts, update our Facebook page, fire off a tweet or two, and then finish our morning coffee. Digital interconnectivity provides endless new opportunities to support our very human need for community and social interaction.

Innovations like Facebook, with over 500 million users, and Twitter, with over 300 million users, now allow real-time interactions with an increasingly wider and more diverse group of people. Best of all, friends and family too distant for regular contact just a few years ago can now be intimately folded into our lives. We make friends, we share our experiences, we celebrate, and we commiserate – one world, a growing interactive community.

For partners, spouses, and families separated for long periods of time by work or military service, the tech-connect boom is a godsend. Couples, children, and parents are now able to bond long-distance in real time, sharing a growing child’s latest milestone, and even engaging in visual intimacy via the webcams now routinely incorporated into computers and smart-phones.

And those not yet in a committed relationship can put technology to good use when home or traveling via e-dating, establishing and growing budding relationships with less of a focus on who lives where.

No Strings Attached

It’s likely that even before humans had permanent dwellings or owned property, men and women were seeking out anonymous sexual hook-ups – no strings attached (NSA) encounters to get off, get out, and get on with their day.

Until recently, gay men sought such encounters in public parks, restrooms and bathhouses, while straight men found them in singles bars, strip clubs, swingers clubs and brothels. Today, the Internet, social media, and the related proliferation of sex-locater smart-phone apps have rapidly, drastically, and permanently altered the anonymous sex landscape. And considering humanity’s spotty track record with impulsive and addictive pleasure seeking, the horizon is darkening in relation to sexual addiction, sexual compulsivity, anonymous infidelity and disease transmission as people mindlessly, albeit briefly, place their health and intimate lives in the hands of complete strangers.

Today’s geo-located, readily accessible anonymous sexual encounters, while intoxicating play for some, are already taking their toll on others, leading them into health, career, and relationship crises.

Today’s omnipresent fear that one’s personal identifying data (e.g., social security number or credit card information) may be vulnerable to hackers and identity theft has pushed millions of subscribers into the arms of “identity theft protection” companies like LifeLock.

But is anyone really paying attention to what will happen when the sexually explicit language and photos that are sent via the latest “friend finder” smart-phone app or sex website get hacked or otherwise exploited?

When “joining” sites like Ashley Madison or downloading apps like Blendr, participants are offered some measure of comfort via a click-it guarantee that personal information will be securely maintained. But somehow it seems off the radar to the same professionals and/or married individuals, who would never send their social security number online via an unsecured site, that when you sext and arrange app-based sexual hook-ups, every word and pic sent via these apps also resides in a far-away server. And that information lives there for a whole lot longer than the instant it takes to sext a potential hook-up.

There is never a dull moment in the sex-nology industry. If you don’t like what you see (or feel), just wait a few months and someone will invent a gadget or program to suit your every sexual taste and desire.

In addition to their sex-partner-seeking, geo-location abilities, smart phones are among the latest gadgets revolutionizing the rapidly evolving world of virtual sexuality. Just as video sales in the 80s, cable and satellite TV in the 90s, and Internet growth over the past decade have been in part fueled by porn, the sex industry is now actively involved in smart phone-based virtual sex!

Electronic hardware and software companies are also working together to evolve virtual male sex toys, some of which were shown at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. Without doubt there is a highly charged technological race toward making virtual sex more like the real deal – then finding the best way to market, sell and profit from what can be considered an entirely new world of “personal products.”

With a porn industry beleaguered by decreasing website viewership, declining sales and membership, QR codes may be the next step for the high-tech, for-profit sex biz. Over the past few years pornographers have been stuck on the side-lines watching their formerly high profit margins dip substantially related to waves of bad press – “unsafe sex in the porn industry,” the rise of social media related sexual hook-ups, not to mention free sex (friend finder) GPS locator apps on smart phones.

If that weren’t bad enough for the poor porn folks and their investors, there appears to be a rise in the numbers of plain folks seeking online “fame” and “fortune” by putting it all out there for everyone to see for free … or for a small fee. And much as reality shows have taken over television, increasingly people seem to prefer watching “non-professionals” having sex to the alternative.

In other words, as a the result of newer technologies, endless free porn, increasingly laisse-faire sexual attitudes among the under-30 set and instantaneous GPS located access to sexual partners, the declining porn pay-for porn and sex biz is itching to find something ‘new’ to capture desperately needed consumer dollars.

Enter a pattern we’ve seen time and again. Swiftly following the arrival of some widely accepted new technology the sex industry jumps right in seeking increased attention and profit. The same thing is just beginning to happen with the latest bit of consciousness-permeating technology – QR codes. And with new sites like QRgirls.com already live it’s a pretty good bet there’s a lot more on the way.