Technology-Dependent Sex and Future Sex

We think of sex as active, as something we DO or something that is done to us. But with the advent of sophisticated communications technology, most of the sex in 21^st century people’s sex-lives is happening via their gadgets, and most of what they do is fundamentally masturbatory (or exhibitionistic) by nature and technological limits.

Technology has triggered a tidal wave of rapid sexual evolutions on the Internet. In 2013, you can meet someone, hang out with them, see pictures of their pets or their ride, tell them the crazy sex stuff you’ve done, and jerk off together without every sharing a single germ (or real name). And then you can do it all over again with someone else a few clicks later. You don’t even have to leave your house to be a world-class exhibitionist. You can post your penis as a profile picture.

Our increasingly technology-dependent sex culture is already producing people who think and feel very differently about sex than any previous generation in history. Sexting, sexy emails, sexy voicemails, chat-rooms, sexy phone pics and instagrams, webcams, Skype, dating sites, fetish sites, swing sites, live-cam sites, amateur porn sites and the profusion of sexually explicit viral videos are creating dramatic shifts in how adults communicate about sex and ultimately think about sex too.

As technology continues to astound, our ability to engage with long-distance partners will grow increasingly immediate and personal. In the past 30 years, we’ve gone from 300 baud modems and email delivery times of 2 to 3 days, to live video chat-rooms and instant text. Twenty years ago, uploading an explicit data file to UseNet took longer than it takes today to hook up on Craig’s List.

Future sex, if it can be predicted at all, will likely include the possibility for people to experience remote partnered stimuli and three-dimensional simulations. Computer scientists and engineers have been tinkering with “technodildonics” and other remote-controlled sexual stimuli as long as there’s been an Internet. It’s inevitable someone will succeed and when they do, the market for those future technologies will be adults who already cannot imagine having a relationship without text and video.