LOS ANGELES — Blurring the lines between mainstream and adult media, a recent symposium at Social Media Week Hamburg titled "VR Porn and the Intimacy of the Future" explored how immersive technology promises a transformative experience for consumers.
Hamburg News reported on the event that featured panelists Frank Steinicke, professor for Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Hamburg; adult performer Lullu Gun; Reality Lovers’ producer René Pour; Nerd Industries’ Managing Director Marit Jäger; and Tom Mudra, the lead brand and product designer at Amorelie, a Berlin-based sex toy retailer.
Panel organizer Simon Graff of nextReality.Hamburg kicked off the session by noting that while sex-for-sale is the world’s oldest profession, “with the advent of photography, money could be earned from pornography.”
Citing the adult industry’s reputation for innovation, Graff predicts that consumers will increasingly embrace adult-oriented digital content “because the porn sector has always worked hard to improve its user experience.”
Part of developing better user experiences is improving the sense of immersion, which high-quality VR excels at, producing not only visual arousal, but binaural audio excitement and actual physical reactions.
Steinicke cited clinical research into phobias as evidence that virtual technologies can provide extremely realistic experiences for users.
“If users in the virtual world have a spider placed on their hands, they start to sweat and their hearts beat faster,” Steinicke said. “At least when they can’t stand spiders.”
More important than spiders for the future of VR is the role that better storytelling in this new medium could play, with the panel tackling this trending topic along with the ethical aspects of VR porn and its possible role in infidelity.
“It can be a kind of cheating without actually being cheating,” Jäger told the audience. “As monogamy often breaks down, technology may offer a new approach.”
VR doesn’t have to chip away at relationships, however, with the technology suited to building them up; such as bringing long-distance lovers, spouses on military deployment or otherwise away for work, closer together — or couples recording younger versions of themselves for future playback, such as on their anniversary.
“With VR sex, we are in fact right at the beginning,” Pour said. “We’re going to see plenty of developments aimed at greater interactivity.”
Find the complete Hamburg News story here.
