It's an average week night. Behind closed doors in his office, a young executive dons a lightweight spandex suit, straps on a pair of goggles and gloves, and sits back. With the push of a button, Cindy Crawford, or perhaps Naomi Campbell, attends to his every sexual whim.
Welcome to the world of teledildonics, one of the most revolutionary and sophisticated forms of sexual recreation the world has ever seen. A high-tech blend of virtual reality (VR) and real-life caresses, teledildonics promises to be more than the ultimate sexual experience, delivered electronically. It aims to change the world, or at least the way we look at it
o Without the constraints of the physical world, teledildonics allows such extraordinary acts as sexual play with gender shifting--people can experience what it's like to be the opposite sex by experimenting mentally, rather than physically or surgically.
o Further blurring the already fuzzy line between fantasy and reality, and perhaps creating a new class of schizophrenics, teledildonics also allows users to try on different personalities, perversions, and physical appearances--just for the thrill of it.
o Because virtual reality incorporates seeing, hearing, and touching, we are forced to develop new concepts of reality and of consciousness.
While the virtual antics of Ralph Fiennes and Angela Basserr in the recent film Strange Days may have seemed like products of the screenwriter's overworked imagination, the unstoppable progress of modern technology is making accessible, easy-to-use virtual reality a, well, reality. VR products are beginning to enter the marketplace, and development of virtual equipment has been stepped up by ambitious entrepreneurs. No longer can skeptics write off VR as wishful thinking, more appropriate fodder for science fiction writers than academics.
The name itself is a contradiction. Virtual means something imagined, ephemeral, while reality is concrete and highly definable. However, current technology is shifting the definitions of these two words, forcing a reevaluation of the human experience.
One of the distinguishing features of VR is that it completely captures the user, tricks him or her, you might say, through complete sensory immersion, into believing that an unreal world is in fact reality. Unlike television or theater, which attempt to suspend the viewer's disbelief through methods grounded in reality, VR assaults sensory perceptions, destroying the barriers between fantasy and the conscious perception of it. In layman's terms, one cannot tell the difference.
And if one cannot tell the difference, then who is to say which reality is more "real"? At this point the fantasy isn't a virtual one anymore, but an alternate one.
Videogame giant Nintendo was quick to realize the potential of VR, recently introducing a shoot-'em-up game system called Virtual Boy. More sophisticated equipment is available from a number of mail-order and high-end technology outlets, for anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000.
Of course, where there is the selling of fantasy, the fiercely competitive selling of sex can not be far behind. Teledildonics, in the simplest terms, is like a video game, for mature audiences only. Two people (at any remove from each other) are recommended, although one person can play with the computer as partner.
Both participants need a full complement of VR equipment--bodysuit, gloves, goggles--which is then connected to a computer system. It, in turn, creates and makes possible the virtual world and the audio, visual, and tactile sensations that the users feel. The VR equipment is programmed to transmit a real-life stimulus in reaction to a virtual action.
Peering through miniature screens inside their goggles, both partners find themselves in a virtual environment of their own choosing or creation (anything from simple colors to complicated landscapes is possible), and see virtual representations of each other. Participants receive sensations whenever and wherever their partners (real or imagined) touch them (actually, their virtual representation), courtesy of the bodysuit, which is constructed with a layer of electronic connectors.
As Cindy undresses the young executive, he strokes her body and feels its shape under his fingers. As his real-world excitement builds (heavy breathing is permitted but not yet transmitted), he caresses (the virtual representation of) his partner wherever he wants, and receives an actual sensation in return through the bodysuit.
The current state of technology is such that there is little tact yet in tactile. The sensations are still rudimentary-closer to mild electrical shocks than caresses. As technology improves, of course, sensations will become more refined: a kiss will linger, a slap will sting. Absent the capacity to realistically mimic sensory experience, teledildonics is nothing more than a terribly expensive, high-tech, X-rated videotape. And the sexual experience is just an advanced form of masturbation.
More than any other medium, teledildonics promises to truly put beauty into the eye of the beholder. Before starting, partners can choose and customize their bodies, leaving physical appearance completely up to their imagination.
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