Skateboarding Into the Singularity #4–Hypersex, Fembots and New Genders
I’ve been pondering sex the last couple of days. I do know that there are those of you in the audience, of course, that are saying right now, “A couple days? I thought it was your way of life?”
Be that as it may, let me get a show of hands: “Is there anyone out there who still isn’t convinced that without the influx of money from porn, they wouldn’t be reading this on the web right now?”
Oh, you–the guy in the white shirt in the back row who came here to read about polygamy. Tell you what, I’ve got this lovely ‘65 Les Paul guitar for you for only $3000. If you don’t want that, I’ve got a unicorn hair for only $2000–make you live forever, it will.
Let’s talk about masturbation, “hooking up” virtually and all kinds of wonderful non-procreative sex for a while. We’re in the middle of a technological and societal revolution, and before we know it, it’s going to change the way that men and women relate to each other forever.
What started me on this particular round of pondering was this article from C/Net News about a new virtual sex device for men that uses a computer and DVD with an additional track to run the machine. While viewers have been using computers to provide themselves with textual and visual stimulation at least since the start of USENET, (which last time I checked still had 464 different newsgroups in the alt.sex.* category,) this is the first time that I have seen a commercial device set up to provide a true “cybersex” experience for men. I find it fascinating that this is a traditional garage start-up tech company.
The Sinulator, for women is a few years older, and has an interface for the sending end that looks a lot like a racing control for a Playstation 3. It has a small but fervent following in the Webcam community. The revolution for women, on the other hand, is not only in technology, but in distribution and acquistion, as well. I’ll get to that in a little bit.
At the moment, there is a legal battle going on over in Second Life over the theft of some software that allows the avatars of the virtual space to, well, “do it.” It is possible that this theft could cost the designer thousands of dollars in business if the pirated software was distributed widely.
So, in my pondering, I’ve ended up with some questions that I’d like to put out to the readership for discussion:
How is the popularity and easy availability of sex toys for women changing how they relate to each other and to men?
Pure Romance is a $60 million business based in Ohio that has, with its 15,000 consultants nationwide, changed the way in which women buy and use sex toys. Operated similarly to Tupperware parties, the consultants bring demo models of the latest developments in stimulating devices to the homes of customers for all-women parties. While the sale of sex toys is still illegal in a number of states (Texas and Alabama being the most-often mentioned cases,) the parties have spread in popularity among groups of women ranging from the Hollywood A-List to the girls in the trailer-park behind the diner in small-town America.
The consultants don’t just provide toys, lotions and scents, though. They also provide a pro-sex attitude that some of the women at the parties have never experienced before. Women in their sixties have been able to ask questions that have been puzzling them for decades about their sexuality. Young women, just out of their teens, are finding out that they’re not the first generation to discover sex and that their grandmothers have done things that would give them the gosh-willies.
The kind of gender power-structure that has been present in America since the first sexual revolution of the 20th Century in the 1920s has been that women have power because they possess the sex for which men are willing to provide material goods and security in exchange. Only in the 1960s, when female-controlled contraception appeared, were the stakes lowered enough for women to begin to truly examine the necessity for their pleasure as well.
This new, empowering distribution of the means of pleasure now uncouples men from the process completely. There are many, many customers of Pure Romance who are married. In many cases, their husbands are consulted during the ordering process, so they are certain to get something out of the whole process. However, the emphasis is on maximizing the pleasure for the women involved and that decision rests solely in the hands of those women.
Will superior cybersex for men lower the amount of power women hold over men?
There is, of course, the other side of the coin. Men, in many cases, tolerate behavior from women that would get another man slugged at worst or shunned at best simply because they are desperate for the sex that the women could possibly provide. In the worst possible cases, men (particularly naive ones) actually marry completely incompatible women simply because of that sex. Often these women are discarded for a younger model when their beauty and sex-appeal begin to fade and the man has become successful enough to extend the age range of his attractiveness.
Right now, however, there’s a competitor for that younger woman. There are a growing number of men who are being termed “porn addicts,” since they are seen as neglecting their wives, who are pining away in the bedroom, for the glowing screen in the den and no-strings sex with a webcam girl or downloaded movie.
I don’t think it’s an addiction, whatsoever. What it is is a case where the sex with the machine is superior to the sex in the bedroom for the man. This kind of “addiction” seems to be very prevalent in those parts of our culture where men have been coerced into marriage in order to get sex in the first place–fundamentalists have been shown to be so prone that some churches are taking part in the “elephant in the pew” movement this month to combat this “perversion.” It can best be summed up by the phrase, “the fucking he’s getting is not worth the fucking he’s getting.”
What I feel will take place, as virtual sex gets better and better, is that women and men will be forced into a situation where they will have to negotiate their relationships, for the first time in human history, without the dichotomy of power that has existed up to now. It is possible that when couples (or more, can’t forget us poly people) get together in the future, it will be more likely that it will be out of mutual respect and love, rather than fleeting sexual desire.
Is cyberphilia an indication of a new gender?
As the available technology of virtual sex advances, there are going to be those individuals who consistently prefer the stimulation of the cyber-world over that of the squishy, smelly, troublesome real world. We will need to move beyond thinking of these individuals as obsessed, addicted (keeping in mind that the Victorian concept of hysteria is that of a woman who had the ability to become sexually stimulated) or lacking the ability to interact with other human beings.
Instead, we can think of a new gender that is primarily attracted to machines–a technosexual, so to speak. It is interesting to think of the potential intersection of this new gender with the growing number of individuals who would be, at the same time, adopting wearable or permanent hardware. Would it be possible that the most attractive thing about the young woman at the bar would be the 24/7 earpiece that she is wearing or the under-the-skin computer processor that was surgically implanted? What would sex be like between two individuals with VR glasses and stim suits that do not touch at all, but still hump like rabbits two or three times per day?
What’s the next step beyond these?
This new change is the third big change in sexuality that I’ve seen in my lifetime. I was born into the artificially repressed world of the 1950s, with the unnatural nuclear families born of the suburbs and superhighways. When the Pill, feminism and gay rights arrived in the 1960s, I watched a hedonistic society spiral to a point where having sex was approximately equivalent to playing tennis–good exercise after which you took a shower. The Plague Years in the early 1980s put an end to that, with many of us in the more avant-garde circles losing up to ten percent of our friends.
Now, we’re on a platform powered by the cheap availablity of both cyber and bio-tech. Will people be able to choose new genders at will in a generation? Will they be able to switch back the next night? What about folks like Furries with an orientation that’s biologically possible to create, but completely out of the ordinary? And the biggest question of all…
What would a society be like in which everyone had as much sex as they wanted and needed every day?
Tom
Disclaimer: One of my wives currently sells Pure Romance products and I have written for their consultants’ magazine. While I do enjoy the products that she sells, this article in no way is an advertisement or endorsement of her business.
Comment by John Bambenek on 12 August 2007 at 8:32 pm:
I think this takes a very narrow view of sex. I’m sorry, I just don’t buy that people 50 years ago looked at sex as power politics or an economic exchange. If that were so, there would simply be no romantic literature out there. Treating it in the future as if it is trading a commodity is a narrow view of it. Hell, if you want to take the economic point of view, marriage is an economic loser… all risk, no benefit you can’t get elsewhere. Perhaps there is economy of scale with polys, but I doubt it.
There is a term for people who simply choose cybersex over the real thing… extinct. Natural selection will emphasize those that want to breed over those that don’t.
Sure, people can do IVF, but lets face it, if you can’t handle a relationship with someone old enough to negotiate with, are you really going to be the type who wants a kid who you can’t negotiate with? Doubtful.
But I think you could arguable say that people who choose fantasy or a “virtual reality” or whatever euphemism you want to call it are pathological under the current definitions. Fantasy is always “more appealing” than reality because you just don’t get shit you want the way you want it in the real world. People are made to relate to one another, and if there are those who simply shun real relationships to stick their genitals into their PC, I think we can call that a pathology.
Comment by tet on 12 August 2007 at 9:06 pm:
Actually, I figured that the other name for feminism was extinction, but perhaps I am a bit hasty there.
John, if human bodies are no longer needed for procreation, which I fully expect within one or two generations, then sex takes on a whole ‘nother status. Virtuality no longer breeds (so to speak) extinction.
I mean, seriously, gay sex doesn’t lead to procreation and, unless I am mistaken, gay people haven’t ended up as extinct yet. By your standards, it could also be considered a pathology, since it often involves (for men anyway) neither romance nor reproduction. Are you sure you really want to imply that?
While romantic love has been a subject of literature and philosophical speculation, you’ll also notice that prior to about the middle of the 20th century it was often coupled with either tragedy or the unattainable.
Look at one of the most famous works of Western literature–Romeo and Juliet, for a prime example of the doom caused by romantic love. This is typical of the literature for most of human existence.
As far as I can ascertain from history, for the most part marriage had little or nothing to do with love–it was, by and large, an economic decision, blessed by the church and negotiated, more often than not, by the parents of the intended. Male-female relationships were nothing but power and economics.
I hold that you lack historical perspective, John.
Tom
Comment by Elderwife on 12 August 2007 at 9:28 pm:
In response to your comments about men not needing to marry women just to get sex. Actually, one of the things I talk about during my Pure Romance parties is that having a sex toy frees a woman from having to be in a bad relationship just to get good sex. There are many women who couple with men (either by marriage or not)who abuse them emotionally and/or physically. These are women who have enough economic resources to support themselves, are not lonely or needy, have high self-esteem, but want and need good sex. When they meet a man (or in the case of lesbians or bi’s, a woman) who can fulfill their sexual needs, they stay with that person even if it means heartache and pain.
But if she has a sex toy or two (or three, or four, etc.)that can keep her sexually satisfied, she can abstain from having sex with a potential partner until they get to know each other better and find out if they are “right” for each other. For most couples, once they start sexual intercourse they stop social intercourse, and the relationship stays at the point it was when they started having sex instead of progressing to its full potential, or dying a natural death.
Of course, there are couples who have sex early and often (as if they were voting in Chicago), and still establish and maintain healthy relationships with their partners, but I believe this is the exception rather than the rule.
Comment by Anonymous on 13 August 2007 at 2:55 pm:
Quote: “… women have power because they possess the sex for which men are willing to provide material goods and security in exchange.”
I never got the sense that the bargain, such as it was, could be driven merely by sex. Some men seem to find it more cost-effective, in terms of money or time or even in the emotional sense, to simply purchase sex. So do some women, though the means chosen to do so up till recently were a bit different.
Look at what men got from the housewife: Sex partner. Babymomma. Therapist. Housekeeper. Social planner. Chef and dining companion. Financial planner. Social escort. Add “second wage earner” to that and divvy up a couple of the tasks, and you’ve got a more modern picture.
Those looking for partnership, rather than satiety, make different concessions.
Elderwife– The sex in abusive relationships is SO very exciting. Very hard to break that habit, so your points are well-taken.
Syl
Comment by benevolent dictator on 16 August 2007 at 2:15 pm:
There is no change in sex, just different delivery mechanisms. Instead of pottery and mosaics we have laptops and webpages. The access to sex and self satisfaction is assistance has increased, but the basics remain the same…it’s not rocket science. All the social aspects attached to it sex come from religion, politics and economics–witness the current brouhaha over same gender “marriage”.
Comment by tet on 16 August 2007 at 9:23 pm:
Got a good point. I’m still not convinced that those little fertility statues weren’t the Neolithic versions of Playboy centerfolds.
‘Nother example of new tech being used for porn, I guess.
Tom
Comment by John Bambenek on 18 August 2007 at 8:21 pm:
I suppose you could call it a lack of historical perspective, but I know what the “historical perspective” teachers, I’m just not buying.
Sure, the royals and the well-to-do bartered their daughters away for political and economic deals, sure. But basing our understanding of the entire medieval society’s view on sex and marriage based on the behaviors of the elite (which are almost exclusively the only things every really documented historically), is a bit like looking to Hollywood to get an accurate picture of American society in any sense. Do you really think our culture in general has a sense of morality that looks like anything seen in Hollywood? But who do you see on TV all the time? Only the elite get documented in history books… and they aren’t necessarily representative.
Sure, procreation can be seperated from sex now basically. Maybe it’d be even more common in a decade or so. My point is why would anyone do it? If you have to escape reality to have a relationship as opposed to a flesh and blood person you can negotiate with, why in the world would you want a child that you simply can’t negotiate with until a few years before they become teens…. and that doesn’t last long because… well they become teens.
As far as homosexuality is concerned, that assumes that you accept 100% of all homosexuals are so from conception, a premise I don’t accept because I’ve known a few (not all) that have become gay because of environmental considerations or who have ceased to be gay for whatever reason. Maybe some people are born gay, some certainly have environmental pressures that move them that way. That said, the born-gay/choose-gay debate is rather stupid because it doesn’t really matter in the end.
I’ve read somewhere (and this is probably Kinsey’s garbage) that 10% of all humans are homosexual. I fail to see with all the problems in a pre-technological society that a species with 10% predisposed not to breed from the word go would have come this far. I don’t think the question is as simply as it’s been made to sound.