The (Near) Future of Sex?

 
Imagine a world where people couldn't masturbate.

I'm talking about men and women here, remember, because women do it, too, whether they are as forward about it or not.

So, in this fantastical world that may only be two years in our future, imagine that, for whatever reason, there is now no masturbation in our genetic coding. Anything other than vaginal/anal/oral intercourse is not going to get the job done no matter how hard you try, so there is no reason to ever think it could happen.

The behavioral changes resulting from this slight reinterpretation (or evolutionary progression/regression depending on your point of view) of the human being would be stunning.

Viz:

- There would be a lot more sex happening. Women could not defer to their hand or vibrator, men could not defer to their hand or Pocket Pussy TM. Both sexes, for various reasons, would be more inclined to actual interpersonal interaction of the sexual variety, which is a truly undebatable result of this restriction, if you ask me.

- A lot more straight guys would be involved in gay sex--since they might get an undeniable urge at some point, be unable or unwilling to pick up a woman for a quickie, and would be unable to masturbate, remember--although my guess is that most straight crossovers would be in the "Only Blow Jobs, Thanks" category, and might even pay extra for some program that fakes men into women with digital wigs and whatnot (most helpful when paired with squinting), since it will happen often enough over a lifetime, let's be honest.

- A digital solution to the "I Can't Masturbate So What Do I Do" problem would emerge almost overnight, since computer geeks are out there and we all know the necessary technology exists at this moment for a virtual sex program.

A virtual sex program? What? Is this some kind of Strange Days meets laser tag meets sexting meets yeah-right-like-that-will-ever-exist bullshit?

Well...it actually could exist, it could be called "Pandora's Box," and hear me out:

A man puts some kind of sensor-equipped sleeve over his penis that is connected to his computer and a woman connects her specially-designed vibrator to her computer, they connect over the internet, and they're off.

Every thrust and clench is made digital, transmitted over the internet, and felt in near-real-time. Piggyback this onto a program like iChat or gChat, and tell me you don't have a near-sex experience with somebody--sound, sight, and sexual sensation.

Some of the long-term effects of this revolutionary leap would be as follow:

- Women will have more sex. Every time a woman would ordinarily reach for her vibrator or rely on her fingers, she would have the option of contacting some male friend of hers, ex-boyfriend of hers, or a total stranger for a virtual-sex session instead. Do you actually think she wouldn't? Disease-free, semi-private (he's not in your home, in your bed, there in the morning, etc), almost-not-really-cheating-since-it-isn't-real, etc...you have to admit this would be an extremely attractive option if a girl could do this instead of whatever she does now.

- Men will have more sex. Every time a man wants to masturbate, he would instead have the option of contacting a female friend, ex-girlfriend, or stranger for a little semi-illicit virtual sex session instead of being alone. He would know exactly who to call, and one of them would eventually say yes. In a pinch, he could always call a guy he knows and play make-believe.

- Cheating as we know it will splinter into a million shades of gray. Is it cheating to use this program? Is it more like cheating if it's an ex-significant-other instead of just a friend? Will fuck-friend finally be a term that makes it into the dictionary? Is it better to have a guy or girl virtually cheat than to actually cheat? Is virtually cheating okay, since it's safe and virtual? Will there be caps placed on the amount of virtual cheating, in order to maintain status quo in the relationship?

- Threesomes and foursomes will skyrocket in popularity once they can be accomplished virtually. Think about it--if it ever starts to feel weird, you just turn the unit off and do whatever you want to do. It pretty much sells itself to that enormous chunk of the population that is currently on the fence regarding group sex.

- Sure, some people will abuse this capability and go off the deep end, spending 20 hours a day with some digital-capture attachment on their dicks, trolling the internet looking for any possible willing partner, but that is to be expected. There are always freaks around who do what they're not supposed to do and skew the data. Your average consumer, meanwhile, would still benefit from this enormously, as it is something that will be a godsend whenever one member of the couple has to travel, whenever people date long-distance, whenever people are just too shy to get it done in person, or whenever people might otherwise go out and date-rape or rape somebody, etc.

- Whoa, yeah--I pulled out the rape card. If people couldn't masturbate, there would be more rapes. That, I feel, is a tragic but inarguable point. Many of the potential-rapists out there today would jump off the fence and start getting into trouble once we removed masturbation as an alternative. But if we come back to the real world for a second, where masturbators are plentiful, and then add this revolutionary new program (Pandora's Box) into the mix, then what we have here is a virtual way to reduce incidences of rape. If some guy could get lucky with a random acquaintance or prank call a girl in the phonebook who's willing to virtually fuck him because she's bored or just horny or whatever, he is less likely to go out there and actually rape a girl. It may not drastically reduce the number of rapes, but if it even reduced that number by one it would be worth it.

Now, whether or not we ultimately get into a David-Foster-Wallacean situation--where people purchase realistic-looking digital representations of themselves that are way hotter than they should be or of a different sex or whatever (from freelancers at Pixar?)--let's just remember that while this potential development is fascinating from a philosophical/pyschological standpoint and full of further economic opportunity, it is also pretty much irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

The fact of the matter is that people who want to wear masks will be attracted to this, as will people who have no need for masks but won't ask too many questions for fear of the answers. When virtual sex becomes fairly commonplace, asking a partner whether their digital representation is real would be like asking your girlfriend today if her eyelashes are real--you won't even bother cuz you could never be sure you're getting a straight answer, so what's the point?

The gay men of today (who have iPhones) have Grindr...what will the gay AND straight people (who have iPhones and/or computers) have tomorrow?

The gays led us to all the trendy loft districts, all the trendy fashion updates...why not to all the trendy means of sexual gratification?

Why not jump into the endgame right away? I know we can do it and it'll be a beautiful slow-build with a seemingly infinite lifespan, add-ons, apps, accessories, avatars, additional sensory receptors...

Have I sold you on this yet? If not, then I don't think you are thinking clearly and I want you to forget you ever read this. If so, let's talk investment stake and get this thing off the ground, hit up Sean Parker for some extra money, etc.

_

What is 'real?'

Yet again, I swear I wrote about this before, but I can't seem to find the article anywhere.
So here it is now:

At some point toward the end of this past Project Runway season (that's how I gauge time, by the way), four of my friends all got together at a friend's house to watch a couple recorded episodes. Once they were over, the host suggested we watch another program he had recorded, but not seen yet, called "Guys and Dolls."

It was a very serious, if often funny, documentary about four men who own what are called Real Dolls--poseable sex dolls made in California that cost between $6500 and $10,000. These dolls not only have mouths--they have tongues! Real hair, huge breasts, the ability to hold a lifelike body temperature if submerged in warm water for a while...

The things these four men say, the women they date, the trip into their psyches...this documentary is priceless.


As a man with a sex drive stuck in sixth gear, it is hard to watch this movie and not feel some kind of shared guilt for what these four creepy men feel they need to do to fulfill their sexual urges. I mean, they're men. They get horny. They want to fuck and they don't want to be bothered with pleasantries, don't want to be stalled by refusals, don't want to have to settle for ugly fat women, don't want to resort to questionable prostitutes.

Don't get me wrong--there is a gaping, bottomless crevasse between me and these guys, since I would never allow myself to stoop so low as to have sex with a doll (unless it would somehow save the world or the life of a loved one; I would make that sacrifice). But I understand that not everybody has the standards/drive that I have and, more importantly, I understand where they're coming from. I understand their need to quench those urges, how frustrating it would be if you could never get a woman. I mean, imagine if you were 30 years old and you had never had sex. You've been bursting at the seams since you were 13 years old, but no woman ever even looks at you. Or maybe a couple women do, but they weigh 400 pounds and smell like Cracker Barrel Spreadable Cheese and probably have herpes from some skeezy, truck drivin' Johnny Herpeseed. What would you do?

Some guys would lower their standards and tie one on with the toothless fatties. Some guys would become serial rapists. Some guys would join eHarmony and find a boring Yang for their Yin. Some guys would save up for 11 months out of the year and spend the month of December in Bangkok sex clubs. Some guys would decide they either need to buy a sex doll or cut their balls off and, with that in mind, I think these fellas chose the more harmless of the two options.

In addition to the sex, however, there is an even creepier need being fulfilled by these dolls--companionship. Not all the featured customers, but at least two that I can remember, actually treat these dolls as if they are real women. They take them to the park, they have pictures of themselves together, they act as if the dolls have feelings. They change their faces--literally.


These dolls come with removable, interchangeable faces--sleeping face, awake face, happy face, fuck-me-in-the-face face, etc. They put make-up on them, brush their hair...like I said--it's creepy. But I can't look away.

My favorite thing about this documentary, as far as stylistic choices go, is that the breasts and vaginas of the Real Dolls were blurred out in every shot. Blurred out! But they're not even real!?!

I wonder if this was in the original BBC broadcast, or merely a function of it playing on American television. Either way, the interesting thing about this is that the blurry patches lend a touch of humanity to the already fairly-lifelike dolls. It is as if the director wanted to protect their feelings, to spare them the embarrassment of having their naughty bits on display for all to see.

Interested in watching it?

Unbelievably, I just found the entire 46-minute BBC program available online, for free.
You need to watch it. Trust me--it is riveting. And I guarantee you will watch it at least until the point where my friends and I all almost threw up and turned it off. But we made it pretty damn far along.

In fact, I'm gonna try again right now. I can't stop myself!!!

Keep Lying to Yourself...

I read an article online today about a 33 year-old guy named Trung Le, who lives in Ontario, Canada, with his parents. Weird, right?

Hold on tight--it gets weirder.

This guy has spent $25,000 building a robot--female, of course--that has a vocabulary of 13,000 words and can tell you the weather. Her name is Aiko.


According to her creator--who, oddly, has no girlfriend--Aiko is NOT designed for sex, although her body was fashioned out of a fully-anatomically-correct, state-of-the-art Japanese sex doll.

When asked what exaclty she was designed for, Trung's answer was pretty weak:

"Le sees possible applications within homes for the elderly, inside hospitals or the military, working reception or providing airport security. He also sees her as a research tool for developing fully-sensing limb replacements for people who've had an amputation."

Yeah, right. Sounds conveniently vague to me...

Here are the questions I would ask Trung Le if given the chance:

1. Why is your robot a woman?
2. Why did she have to have hair?
3. Why does a robot not designed for sex need pliable breasts and a lifelike vagina?
4. How does dressing her up like an intergalactic space stewardess and banging her senseless in your parents' basement help the elderly?


For the full article, click here

For the wikipedia entry about Project Aiko, click here

_

The Blow-Up Doll

I am aware of the recent advances in sex-doll technology, for some reason. I'm certainly not a customer, but I do recall reading an article some years ago about some sort of 'lifelike doll' that cost several thousand dollars--Howard Stern bought one, as research for his show I presume. Other prominent men were also listed as clients.

Come to think of it--it makes no sense as to why 'prominent men' would be publicly outed for buying several-thousand-dollar life-like sex dolls, since they can usually afford to hide that sort of information, and would usually want to, but something about the attitude of the article made it seem like buying one of these was something to brag about, a grand and macho joke, and so I stand by the fact that my memory is correct.

Perhaps it was in Playboy or something, where every man seems to brag about things he would ordinarily not want the world to know. They must have very persuasive interviewers (36-24-36?), or maybe they practiced the same methods as reality shows these days--run the cameras/tape recorder, get your subject(s) drunk, gain their confidence, convince them to say things they regret the next morning, then edit out all the boring stuff later.

"No, don't worry--women don't read this magazine. Neither do most men, for that matter, and trust me--the men who DO actually read the articles will find your candid attitude about the whole affair very macho and admirable. And they won't tell anyone about it. Or, at least, nobody they tell will believe them. So, please, once more, speak into the microphone..."

Regardless, that article from my vague and distant past is not the topic of discussion. What I want you to think about right now is this--the guy who invented the very first, super low-tech, cheap, smelly, plastic, ridiculously-un-life-like, blow-up 'female' doll. Not the new-fangled doll that is warm and soft and pliable and 'lifelike,' complete with 'usable' orifi, maybe even with real hair, etc. The first one. The one with neither a bell nor a whistle.

Sick, right? Not that the new ones are not sick, but you must admit the sickness quotient is exponentially increased when you think about the early-adopting pioneers. Some lonely (I would assume) man sitting in his basement, in a soiled wife-beater and jeans, drunk on rye, decided that what he needed, to tide himself over until Sophia Loren finished her messy divorce and his conscience would allow him to make an official pass at her outside of a bar on Hollywood Boulevard at closing time, was an inflated piece of plastic roughly the size and shape of a woman. That he could fuck.

The truth of the matter is, though, that it was most likely invented by a man who the average person thought respectable, intelligent, and successful--at least, that's usually the way it is with serial killers, prostitute-solicitors, gamblers, murderers, embezzlers, corrupt officials, and pedophiles. The inventor was probably a senator, or a leader of industry, or a titan of Wall Street tired of call girls giving him lip when he smacked them, or, at the very least, a doctor, dentist, lawyer, what-have-you. I mean, think about it--whoever it was, they had to go through quite a process to get from A-B:

1. Think of the idea
2. Plan out the idea in his head
3. Draw up the plans
4. Come to terms with the fact that he seriously wants to go through with this
5. Contact potential manufacturers
6. Send them drawings
7. Receive quotes
8. Decide that the outrageous cost of beginning production is worth it
9. Empty bank account / take out a loan ("...and what was that for again, sir?")
10. Eagerly await delivery of first sample product, hope wife doesn't get the mail that day
11. Approve sample product ("Yes. THIS is what men want to fuck when luck fails them at the singles bar! I am not alone! I'll be rich!")
12. Authorize production
13. Contact dirty men in charge of sex-toy stores
14. Convince dirty men to stock his product
15. Drive down to the docks to accept delivery from Chinese manufacturer
16. Load goods into truck
17. Drive away, knowing what is inside back of truck
18. Realize payload of sex dolls only exists because you dreamed it up, you ordered it, you paid for it
19. Deliver product to stores off of rural highways and behind Capitol Buildings
20. Rub hands together and wait for money to pour into secret bank account, to be spent on illicit holidays for him and his plastic mistress
21. Kill himself when his doll leaves him for another man

Now, that sort of lengthy, somewhat-mentally-taxing process typically deters your general lay-about; but a man with a fire under his pants, like a senator shall we say, why he relishes this sort of task, especially since it was be conducted in secret, in his study or rec room, away from the prying eyes of his annoying, life-like wife. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed playing God/Frankenstein and getting away with it. He enjoyed bringing happiness to lonely men all over the world, and making money in the bargain.

Sadly, the creepy questions keep coming:
Who saw the first advertisement, who saw the first sample product in the store, who saw one at their friend/colleague's house--and thought they needed one? Who saw the initial model and said to themselves, "Ha! I could make a better plastic woman than that piece of shit!" and then did? How have we ended up living in a world where a lifeless plastic woman costs more than a top-shelf, 18-year-old, disease-free, Harvard-educated prostitute?

You're gonna have to finish this one. I don't have the heart. The answers are too frightening. And, I mean, shit, what do I know--maybe it was invented by a woman. A cunning woman who knew there were sketchy-ass men out there who would pay for it. And she laughed her way to the bank.

And now here we are.


Hold the phone--turn your brain back on--I just went browsing for a funny blow-up doll photo to add to this entry and stumbled upon this.

It was the second link that came up on Google; the first one I clicked on; the last one I will ever click on. All I have to say is, "OFF THE FARM?!?!"