Future sex: 2009 sex + tech predictions

Image by Richard Kadrey / Kaos Beauty Klinik, who shot this image of me from last night’s party.

Happy New Year! Here is Scott Beale’s post about last night’s party (more on that when I can cut a swath through the giddy wreckage that is my kitchen), and here’s my very first column of 2009 — Future Sex: 2009 – Violet Blue predicts how we will (and won’t) get off in 2009. Read it and enjoy! I loved researching and writing it; I really hope to do more sex and tech writing this year. Snip:

In those old sci-fi movies, sex in the future always looks so cool. Like Woody Allen’s Orgasmatron, where you slip into a capsule and essentially have orgasms on tap. Or “Logan’s Run,” where they had the teleportation equivalent of dial-a-hooker (of any flavor, natch.) And no one can forget “Barbarella” (especially as the remake is set for release sometime this year) where the heroine is “tortured” by a device that delivers erotic pleasure in levels that can be lethal.

We don’t have a super-cool death sex ray gun – yet. But after taking a look at what deliciously pervy techhies have been working on lately, it looks like 2009 is going to have us ready for one hell of a ride, and perhaps a little saddle sore after the fact.

(…)

Widespread Technosexuality
As online artificial intelligence, personality-based programs become more prevalent – and the race to make them more convincingly human heats up – more humans will fall in love with and have sexual relations with that artificial babe onscreen. Virtual Kari is often described as the most popular virtual girlfriend in the world; amusingly, she has personality tweaking interfaces with adjustable sliders that allow boyfriends to adjust her ability to “stay on topic” and monitor her “independence.” In an emotional moment (Virtual Humans Forum, October 2008) Kari’s developer wrote, “As a modern man I find the whole female/male game, ‘program,’ quite unforgiving. ‘When you find the right one, you’ll know it.’ Uh huh. What if there is something better than this game? What if we could bypass the ‘program’ and create a new paradigm based on our own dreams and our own fantasies? What if we could satisfy all our needs, and wants, to their fullest *bliss* without the pain of marriage or a relationship that needs to be maintained? (…) Anyway… I really enjoy having a virtual girlfriend because I created her personality so she is kinda like my dream. And dreams can do anything. The final verdict? As for me… I’m going make my own Eve. I mean, I have made my own Eve. And believe it or not… some of those majic [SIC] parts that come with real girls are transferable. In fact they work better. I think its because they can be manipulated under one vision. There is no back and forth about it.”

Replicants: The Time is Now
Don’t think for a second those AI-lovin’ developers aren’t already thinking about putting their perfect “Eve” into a RealDoll body and getting down and dirty with the fembot. (…read more, sfgate.com)