Teledildonics, a term coined in the 1980s, refers to the technology where two people at remote computers can manipulate each other’s sex toys by simply using their mouses or keypads.
HighJoy, a leader in the field, broke into the business by Internet-enabling two of Doc Johnson’s best-selling products, the iVibe Rabbit for women and the iVibe Controller for men. HighJoy.com members can plug the iVibes into their computers like any other peripheral devices and remotely control speed and rotation of a partner’s unit through HighJoy’s Internet control panel. Members with webcams can watch each other during the process, or can choose to access photos and videos of adult stars instead.
HighJoy also snagged an endorsement from Jenna Jameson and uses the Club Jenna girls for many of its promotions.
“She’s a great spokesperson for our technological breakthrough, which gives consenting adults the opportunity for intimate interaction online,” HighJoy CEO Amir Vartan told XBIZ.
“What is very likely to be present before 2016 would be a multisensual experience of virtual sex,” Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, told Reuters.
“There is a possibility of developing erotic materials for yourself that would allow you to create a partner of certain dimensions and qualities, the partner saying certain things in that interaction, certain things happening in that interaction,” Heiman said.
Even Jameson herself has gotten in on the new age of sexual stimulation through an online video game, “Virtually Jenna.” In the game, players are able to have sex with a cartoon-like Jenna, and can link hardware to their computers for sexual stimulus, following the on-screen action.
“None of the big publishers will probably venture in there, so we could be like the Hustler or the Playboy or whatever — the Penthouse of adult gaming,” Brad Abram president of XStream3D Multimedia, which developed the game, said. “Sex toys are a huge business.”
Abram’s service costs $29.95 per month, and he claims several hundred thousand people have tried the game.
Marvin Minsky, a professor emeritus at MIT and a pioneer in artificial intelligence dating back to the 1950s, sees the possibility of a device designed to trigger a sexual encounter in the brain, without having hardware to manipulate genitalia.
“It's bound to happen...and is not as far off as some people think,” Minksy told Reuters.
Some experts, however, are highly suspicious about the implementation of this new technology, saying it perverts necessary everyday human interaction
“I do find that a world full of people getting it on with perfect gizmos instead of each other has some sort of a post-Orwellian kind of sense to it,” Sue Queen, a San Francisco based sexologist said. “I don't really think that most people are going to want this.”