Two New Pieces For FutureOfSex!

Okay, I've said it before - but it's always worth repeating: I am having a serious kick writing for the great folks at Future Of Sex.  In fact, two brand new pieces of mine just went live there.

Check out these teasers below:

Retrofuturist Sex: How the Past Thought We’d Be Loving in the Future

How did people in the 70s and 80s think we’d be having sex today?

We’ve always been fascinated by what could be: looking at the present and thinking, “If this keeps up what’s tomorrow going to be like?” And, naturally, more than a few people have gazed off toward the horizon and thought to themselves, “If sex is like it is now, what could it be like in a few years… or a few hundred years?”

Lots of folks love to see what the past thought the future would become, otherwise known as Retrofuturism. The great Matt Novak at PaleoFuture has done great legwork compiling not just what people tried to predict for technology and society, but also for sex.

So we at Future of Sex thought it could be fun to look at some of these past projections and see which ones were wildly wrong—or even close to being right.

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Crowdfunding for VR Sex Game Controller Relaunched After Overwhelming Demand

A case of sex tech that isn’t just popular, but surprisingly so.

Crowdfunding, as anyone who has experience in it will say, often attracts more failure than success. In fact, The Crowdfunding Centre has reported that, depending on the platform, failure rates can be as high as 89%.

But in the case of virtual reality game controller VirtuaDolls, an unexpected and high demand for the sex device forced its developer, William Spracklin of Eos Creative Group, to pause his Indiegogo campaign so he could regroup.

VirtuaDolls is an interactive and artificial vagina. When coupled with the 3D-animated game Girls of Arcadia, the campaign page claims it will take immersion and adult gaming to a whole new level.

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Terrance Aldon Shaw Likes Skin Effect!

My head is spinning! Check out this great review the equally-great Terrance Aldon Shaw did for my science fiction erotica collection, Skin Effect!

The nine stories in this intriguing, highly-imaginative, occasionally maddening collection have a deeply personal feel to them. These are not easy, breezy reads: these stories require that readers take a journey—and the road is not always direct or level or smooth. A bit of effort is required, and sometimes, more than a single reading. But, in the end, the reader is richly rewarded with beauty and enlightenment. 

This isn’t ‘hard’ sci-fi or conventional genre erotica, but, indeed, something quite extraordinary: less Frankenstein’s monster genre hybrid than the precocious love child of an optimistic speculative fiction (Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov) and a mature, deeply self-aware literary sensualism. If it must be classified, then I would suggest a brand new subgenre: call it ‘techno-sexual.’ 

And what do we find in this brave, sometimes bewildering new world? Trans-humanism that does not—cannot—forget its humanity. Awesome technical capability with the aura of magic, though, in the end, it cannot assuage our deepest longings, our atavistic thirst for mystery. Hyper-connectedness that cannot sate our hunger to touch, and feel, and remember... 

The writing can be dense, knotty, sometimes overlong to a point where potential dramatic impact is diluted, the final ironic twists coming too little and just a bit too late to dazzle. Yet, the collection does have its share of truly amazing moments, inspired imagining, sparks of the ingenious. 'Prêt-à-Porter' tells a marvelous tale of a futuristic garment that—virtually miraculously—adjusts to the desires and moods of its wearer. 'The Bell House Invitation' brilliantly takes the ideas of collective consciousness and cyber-community to their logical—and, perhaps, a tad disturbing—extremes. 'The Potter’s Wheel' and '[Title Forgotten]' imagine worlds in which connectedness makes us omniscient yet utterly incapable of knowing our deepest selves. 

There is much to ponder and enjoy here. Enthusiastically recommended!

Two New Pieces For Future Of Sex!

I really do enjoy writing for Future Of Sex ... and, as proof of that, two new pieces of mine just went live there.

Here are some teasers (and links to the full articles):

4 Ways Tech Is Changing the Language of Love

How we talk about sex—now and in the future.

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” -Ludwig Wittgenstein

There’s always been an unspoken vocabulary of caresses, glances, and sounds, of course. But we’re in the 21st century now, and our technological options for expressing desire—over vast distances and across what used to be cultural barriers—has (to use a silly double-entendre) swelled incredibly.

We don’t just have new ways to correspond with each other but entirely new languages to play with. Lovers, or just playmates, can flirt, be titillating, or even directly stimulate each other speaking or typing a single word.

So, with a touch of irony, here’s a list of four ways that technology is changing the language of love and desire, but also how the nature of sexual communication is being totally reinvented.

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Creating Your Own Pleasuredome: Modular Building and Smart Home Technology

Custom designing an erotic home and playground.

Recently, we looked at some possible changes to how we all may be living and playing, at home or elsewhere.

Love hotels for when sex needs a bit more room than microhomes can offer, as well as virtual and augmented reality to give the illusion of space, are certainly intriguing ideas. But there are more innovations in interactive tech and flexible design that will alter our houses of the future

So what happens when we take the concepts of modular construction and smart home technology and do a bit of future-casting?

Let’s rev up our imaginations and try to picture our sensual, and sexual, residences of the next century.

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