March 29, 2012 • 35 mins
Imagine a future in which astronauts engage in virtual encounters with Earth-bound spouses. What sort of technology will make this possible? In this episode, Julie and Robert discuss computer-mitigated sexual experiences and linked dreaming.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
And in this episode, we need to have a little disclaimer.
First of all, Um, if you may have noticed, the
title of the episode is virtual sexuality and linked to Dreams.
(00:24):
I believe we're going to handle this topic in a
fairly clinical and fun manner. We're not dignified manner where
we hope we're a dignified podcast. We hope good jokes aside.
But I know we have a lot of younger listeners
out there, so you know, just for parents too maybe
listening along. So we just wanted to give you a
heads up. Yeah, we're gonna try to be delicate when
we talk about virtual sex today, but um, there may
(00:47):
be times that you went so just know that if
you don't want anything that you want your kid to hear,
then then sadly you may want to, um, I don't know,
listen and bleep out things. Yeah. Well, you know, just
just putting it out there. And I think the next
logical step would be to make the case for why
I discussed this at all, because some people might think,
well the virtual will say it's just that's it's kind
(01:09):
of silly, or it's just needless, right, or it's this
sort of side column, this side effect to technological advancement. Okay, well,
we we recently recorded a podcast on the Seven Deadly
Sins Lust, right, and we talked about the lust economy,
and we talked about how it is something that is
just um blooming in our in our current culture that
(01:30):
is so dependent on internet and other technologies, right, has
brought basically pouring to our door and in every single
way that it can, right, I mean, you know, we
were talking about the satyrs in the episode the over
sexed goat men of ancient Greeks that fown their ways
in some of the most marvelous artistic creations of the time.
If you've ever taken, especially if you've taken like a child,
(01:53):
like a niece nephew to an art museum, you're probably
even more aware of Oh, there's a lot of sexuality
in the in some of our greatest works of a Yeah,
I don't look too closely at the Greek pottery, right, right? Yeah?
Or do yeah, So all of our great artistic achievements,
sexuality and lust have been along for the ride, and
the same as is true of technology. Not only technology,
we just pretty much anything technological cultural artistic, because we
(02:16):
had poetry, and out of that rises pornography. We invented
the telephone, so suddenly, you know, two people can talk
across vast distances, but you can also have a call
into a sex hotline. Vulcanization responsible for so many rubber products,
including the modern condom. The list goes on. You you
name it. Virtually any kind of technology, especially you're going
to find and at least some attempts to turn it
into sex for war like those are seemed to be
(02:39):
our big interest, and uh, the sexual side tends to
be a little better for everybody. Well yeah, I mean,
I don't know that you could say that all the
language is predicated on sex. But if you say that
one of the things that humans are trying to drive
toward is is sexual coupling for one reason or another,
language is pretty important in communicating that, right, right, So
(03:00):
it makes sense that in this day and age, with
all that we have available to us in the ways
that we communicate with one another, that virtual sex would
show up on the scene. Uh, sooner or later and
really start to play a role in our relationships or
not our relationships. Right, So what is virtual sex? Right? Yeah,
(03:21):
looking at it, I tend to find it to fall
into two categories. Right. You have one form, which is
basically sexual communication with another person. This can be something
as simple as sexting, where individuals are sending text messages
that are merely sexy back and forth, sex chat rooms,
webcam aided cybersex situations where it's it's about one person
(03:41):
connecting with another and there may be varying levels of
illusion between them, some technological, some just due to a
lack of a full sensory experience. Yes, I can't solitary
sexual expert or connected via technology. And as we're looking
into the future too, of what what virtuals sexuality insists
in these situations, it's very much the idea of computer
(04:04):
mediated communication. So the computers are aiding us in an
attempt to communicate with one another, but it's a sexual
communication that is generally more of a like than any
emotional and or physical link. But then there's a second
type of virtual sex, and that would be sexual interaction
with a simulation, interacting with some sort of sexual video
game or some sort of a simulated experience. In other words,
(04:25):
the flesh and blood person is not there, but you're
trying to simulate that experience, right, You're interacting with a
with a fantasy or an idea. All right, So let's
talk about some of the technology behind this. Yes, I'm
talking about the haptic love glove right right, because we
have these five senses, right, and of course sound that's
a pretty easy one to get a hold of. We
(04:46):
have a fantastic ability to transmit sound on the internet.
Visuals that's pretty far along too. It has some ways
to go, but we have a wonderful webcam set up
around the world, and computer graphics are reaching the point
where a virtual setting is more and more possible. But
then how are you going to feel things? Right? And
this is where you get into haptic computer technology. And again,
this is something where it's not just people sitting around
(05:08):
saying I wonder if there's a way to feel up
a centaur in a video mandling like like it's it
goes beyond that because I think we've discussed the importance
of telecommunications and say surgery or robotic exploration. We want
to be able to manipulate a robotic arm on the
other side of the world that's maybe reaching around in
somebody's abdomen performing a delicate surgery, or manipulate that arm
(05:30):
on a space probe as it paused around on another planet.
Like we the more control we have, the better. And
that's where you get into some of this haptic technology,
which is how do I, by the aid of like
a glove or some sort of neural link, how am
I able to really get the sense of touching something
in a virtual setting? Right? So, I mean the foundation
(05:51):
for haptic technology is steeped in science, right, whether or
not it's medical, um space exploration, or military applications. Right,
So military is another one. I'm not gonna punch somebody
in a virtual environment, right, Yeah, that's but then it
falls into all these other non sexual categories to like
just pure entertainment, some sort of like video game experience
where you're not just pawing around with this dummy hand,
(06:13):
but you're actually able to reach out and grab things
and touch things and manipulate things that maybe even feel them.
That's another thing about touch and feel is that it's
a less understood since compared to things like site and
sound right, right, And you're right, it is far more nuanced,
and certainly with haptic technology that there could be improvements made.
And maybe this is actually going to be the impetus
(06:35):
for that, who knows. But I think it's interesting about
this is that haptic technology for the use of virtual
sex is just a testament to humans and their creativity. Right.
They're looking at this and saying, how else could we
use this? Um? And else could I make money on it? Yeah? Right, right,
our entrepreneurial spirits. But we talk about heptic technology, we
should probably just talk about what we mean by that. Right.
(06:57):
So let's say you have a pair of happy gloves.
You insert your hands in them, right, and these are
outfitted with data transmitters, and these gloves allow the user
to not control, but actually feel virtual items. And I
believe in your article about virtual sex, you have a
great photo of someone who's got their hands in one
(07:18):
of the gloves and they're trying to feel the skin
of I believe it's a dinosaur, right, virtual dinosaur. Yeah.
Another example, and I don't think this was in this
was maybe a different article, I think the Dirty robot
Jobs article. But there's this thing they have called the
haptic cow that aids veterinarians and venarians students specifically mainly
in the UK, in how to feel around inside of
a cow, because when you're checking on how a cow's
(07:41):
rear plumbing is working, and and you know, and you
don't really want to do it. You really don't want
to insert your own hand. No no, no, well, I
mean you're gonna have to insert your hand in the apparently,
like before this goes around, it's like the options were
pretty limited practice because the end just go out and
stick a arm and a cow every time. You need
(08:02):
to beginner training, but you need to know where everything is,
and like some of the descriptions are in across the
old way it was. It was kind of like the
you know the game at Halloween where you wear the
blindfold and you said, and you're touching reach other. Here
you're touching a bowl of eyeballs and brains, like you
were basically reaching into something and then you would feel
like a very vague approximation of this organ and then
(08:25):
this organ and then this organ. With a haptic technology,
the idea is, let's create a false cow rear that
you can you can reach your hand in and actually
have a haptic experience with the virtual inside, so you
can get a blueprint in your own brains. Said that
you you actually do it, you're you know what you're
looking for. Plus it seems a little more humane as well. Okay,
so that's that's the basis of haptic technology which is
(08:48):
being used with virtual sex. Right. We should obviously mentioned
so what you know. I don't think that we probably
need to spell it out, but if you have the
ability to digitize and transmit sense data, then you might
be able to feel what it would be like to
touch another human using these gloves, right, I say human
in the air quotes right right. It could be anything,
(09:09):
or it's or it's just a virtual simulation of some
ideal it would be something you created, like a human
like alien centaur, yeah whatever, the Fiji mermaid. And there
are actually some people who have already been tolling around
with the Connect, which is the movement based interface for
Xbox three sixty. Some people have you know, hacked that
(09:31):
and are using the technology for various applications. And there
are people who are working on sexual games where you
would use the Connect to say, reach out and touch
the Fiji mermaid. Yeah, isn't there something called I don't
know pronounces thricks th h r I that triple X. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a three D sex game. It is compatible with
(09:51):
Xbox Connect. So again, users can touch air quotes the
models in the game they're talking about. It's sort of
like Second Life. You can translate in anonymous online animated
six capades into virtual life with three D graphics and
customized fantasy avatars. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah, and
you also have something called again. When we when we
(10:13):
talk about some of these, it might seem like, oh, yes,
this is just the hug shirt. You're talking about Xbox
we're talking about sort of taking it to that degree.
So when we talk about this next thing, the hug shirt,
think about the possibilities in terms of sexually communicating data
to yourself. Yeah, this is an idea that comes to
us from the UK company. By the end of Cute Circuit.
It's alves that question like what do you want to
send somebody hug? And I think we mentioned this in
(10:33):
the Hug episode. So you want to hug somebody, but
you don't want to actually physically touch them, or you
cannot physically touch them, How can you send that hug
to them in a way that's not just like an
XO XO on a text. The answer is, what if
they had a garment that had the internal structure that
can deliver a hug, and then you could trigger that
hug and also to some degree control the type of hug,
(10:55):
the degree of the hug remotely via bluetoothe Well, and
then what if you turn that hug shirt into a
unitard and which just sounds sexy all over, and then
you had the censors strategically placed in areas that might
stimulate a sexual reaction, right, I'm just taking into the yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously,
(11:17):
I mean the hud shirt itself is like a really
like a great sweet thing too. But I'm you know,
making a dirty and I actually I think that there
may have been a listener who told us about the
hud shirt. Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's how we
that maybe that's what we didn't actually mention the hug
podcast and somebody said, hey, how can you not mention
the hug shirt? And uh and and true, it's it's fascinating.
Then there's a there's another area of technological tinkering that
(11:40):
is roughly referred to as tele built tonics, which that's subtle,
isn't it. Due to it flack and subtlely, we don't
even really have to go into it a lot other
than basically some sort of interface that plugs into your
computer that allows somebody elsewhere on the Worldwide Web to
stimulate you be at a you know, a some sort
of wearable item or you know some What I'm trying
(12:01):
to say is it's an accessory and plugs into your computer.
Somebody else activates that device, and it can stimulates somebody sexually.
So it's um, it's attempting to It's the hug shirt
on a different level. I'm struggling to you know, this
is just like becoming like the most awkward podcast ever.
I mean, we have discussed uh Stemen collecting robots, we've
(12:25):
talked about and then that and then that was art
and this this, this is bringing us to our knees,
so to speak. Oh my god, it's getting I can't okay,
it's um. I guess that's the thing is that that
the other things that you mentioned, like the klokobot is
an artistic creation, you know, sprom collecting robot, for all
its absurdity, has its roots and something medical and something
like tele del Donix is basically I mean, just by
(12:47):
the very name they're they're not even trying to to
sugarcoat it with with anything else. But it does fit
into this larger picture of how do we create a
full sensory experience in a virtual world? How could we
possibly fully communicate with somebody who's, say on the other
side of the world, or say it's traveling in space.
Like imagine a situation where a husband and wife are
separated safe for the better part of a year due
(13:08):
to conflicting working situations, or a situation where one of
the individuals is on an interplanetary journey. It's one thing
for them to be able to call and have a conversation,
but what if they could connect in a physical manner
and express their affection physically, Like this is the kind
of technology you'd need. Okay, well now see now that's
more romantic and nice. Yeah, yeah, okay, yes, this would
(13:30):
be the technology as as awkward or weird as it
may seem. And this is you know, the viewpoint from
this year, right Who knows what that's gonna look like
fifty It may be just as as normal as any
other sort of technology that we use. That being said,
I still feel like there's a rudimentary aspect to it, right,
(13:50):
because it's still fairly new, and I'm thinking about real
touch again. I am going to use a euphemism here
that I've used in the past. This is a device
that's made for man's frank and beans. Okay, okay. It
is a sort of haptic hot dog bun that the
frank and the beans or maybe just the front goes into.
Although not quite haptic, right because it's not quite uh
(14:12):
that advanced, But it connects to this device connects to
a computer, and it synchronizes in real time to online porn.
And it works in tandem too. I guess you could say,
the plot line of the of the porn point and
then we all left and the device warms itself up,
it lubricates, it pulls in a grips, so yes, and
in the future possibilities of of romantic connections, you know,
(14:37):
in the best intention ways. But this is this is
the hardware we have right now. Well, it's similar to
these from robot in terms of the technology, because that
had various manipulating devices inside its generating We're discussing like
we're basically talking about a computer interface sex toy for
for for men here, and it's very much a giggly
(14:58):
kind of taboo thing really in in the US to
a large extent elsewhere as well. Um. I was reading
something recently on a campaign in Japan to sort of
remove the stigma from such devices, particular as it pertains
to one particular brand of the device that they're trying
to market. But they made a good case for it,
like making the point that you know, you're you're having
(15:18):
this growing divide in Japan between the sexes, and you
have in any culture, you're gonna have individuals sort of
or outside of the norms of relationships, you know, and
they have they have needs, they have physical desires that
can't necessarily be met in their daily life. So to
what extent can technology helped them? And is that really
that weird or dirty things? Well, and that's a country
(15:40):
that really embraces technology wholeheartedly, so it makes sense. However,
I do think it's kind of interesting because it's a
very reserved culture. Yeah, but that maybe that's some of
the friction that's coming up there right, um, is that
if you're going to embrace it whole hardly you ought
to do so, and you know that is a younger
generation coming up to that's much more calm trouble with
(16:00):
the terms of that. One of the things that I
think is really interesting about this that's far more abstracted
is something called the orgasmatron, which we've talked about before.
And this is the idea that you don't even need, say,
some sort of weird, funky glove to slip your stuff into,
or some sort of fancy touch sensitive pants or porn
to look at, right, basically you circumvent all of that, right, Yeah. Yeah.
(16:21):
Dr Stewart malloy again we've talked about him before, but
he was working on a device to alleviate chronic pain
when he realized that it was sexually stimulating his female
patients and again, lo and behold, whoa this application could
be used for something else. He nicknamed it the orgasmatron. Barbaralla, Yeah, yeah,
we should mention that Jane Fonda starring as Barbara Ella.
(16:43):
And the device is actually a small box with two
small wires that like an epidural run under the skin
and attached to the spinal cord, and it sends an
electrical pulse through nerves from the spinal cord, which relays
the message to the part of the brain that processes
orgasmic sensations, and Jennets tell you like, hey, it's a
go time. You don't even really need to think in
(17:03):
order to have an orgasm with this device. You just
pressed the button and uh, that is going to be
going at the low, low cost of twelve. By the way,
it's interesting though, because subsequent experimentation city is done with
this device, they've been able to stir orgasms in women
that had severe blocks to achieving it otherwise. Right, Yeah, yeah,
that's true. Women who had never been able to achieve
(17:26):
an orgasm before, we're able to achieve it with this.
So I mean, there you go. That's but you can
see advertisement for it, right, But you can see where
it really opens the door for the possibilities of sexual
communication in a virtual sense in the media and far future.
The idea that it wouldn't even you wouldn't even have
some sort of weird body glove you have to slip into.
It could be something that is is connecting correctly into
(17:49):
your brains, into your your your nervous system. But we
should probably mention some of the other sense, real quick
and well, spend a lot of time with these that
we we we really talked about smell printable odors in
in a previous episode and a lot of those same
technologies apply here. Means by which you could print a smell.
You could use a certain palette of of basic smells
and use those to build specific smells. So and again
(18:12):
that's in an attempt to build this virtual uh sexual
reality for someone, right, so you could create more of
a I guess um, a background for your sexual experience
by uploading some smells and in the course a smell
that's a huge influence on the way we taste things.
There have been some virtual reality studies goun to the
(18:32):
creation of of devices that would allow you to say,
taste of food that you're chewing and sort of feel
chewing food to a certain degree, which obviously would have
an impact on attempts to create a you know, a
virtual sexual environment as well. Likewise, you have the kiss transmitter,
another product of Japanese innovation. I think I described before
as being like a joystick that goes in your mouth
(18:52):
and then you can sort of move it around to
transmit a kiss through the Internet. It's current incarnation. It's
you know, it's it's pretty crude design wise, it's pretty basic.
But that's what it's like when you're blazing new trails.
That's right, making that with the joystick. But yeah, I
mean this again, this is stuff that's cutting edge right now,
but it seems rudimentary. One thing that also really wildly
about to all this is the the idea of cross
(19:12):
moodal attention effects, which is the idea that okay, think
back to, Like if you can think back to, say,
you know, your first kiss or something or something of
a sensual nature, or or even it doesn't have to
be central, just something of a memorable nature. You may
really remember what the first kiss felt like. You may
really remember what the smell of the other individual's hair
(19:33):
something of that nature. But you might not remember what
the you know, the couch felt like, you know, or
what was playing on the TV or you know that
kind of thing, because this is the sense data that's
just not important to you at that moment. Right But
like our brains don't really work and full on three
six h D, some things are going to get all
of our attention. Some things are gonna get a little
bit of our attention, and some things are gonna get
(19:54):
none of our attention. So you don't have to worry
about having to create this like totally full on three
e D super high graphics virtual environment. Instead, you focus
on the areas that are being focused on the parts
that are important to the experience, and so you don't
have to worry about every every aspect of this simulated
sense environment really cranking up to eleven. Okay, so this
(20:15):
is what you're talking about your article. The researchers at
the University of York's Audio Laboratory working to toward this
cross modal sort of situation where you have some things
that are amped up in some things that are amped down.
And to that end, they are considering a mouthpiece to
simulate different textures against the tongue in mouth. Yes, this
(20:35):
is this whatever for two yeah, yeah, yeah, And this
is the thing that cracked me up. And I believe
you even put it in air quotes at some point
in the article. This is virtual food chewing research, right,
food chewing because you know, there's going to be a
huge opportunity for virtual restaurants in the future, right, because
everybody wants to virtually chew their food. So that's what
(20:57):
this application is that proposedly for right, which again is
kind of a wink wink, nudge and nudge. Obviously it's
going to be used for for other purposes in virtual effects. Well,
you know, I make fun of it, but then I
have to think on two counts. One it would be
kind of nice, I guess, you know, if you want
to experience like some horrible fatty food or or some
sort of environmentally unsustainable food in the future, or say
(21:19):
in the if we're looking, you know, at a future
in which some of our our current foods have ceased
to be around, Like what if we're looking at age
when bananas aren't a possibility anymore. Or maybe you're just
feeling dangerous and you want to like check out cannibalism
in a safe place, you'd be like a virtual That's
so that's an entirely separate can of warrants. But but
even like in something like the video game Skyrim, which
(21:40):
is the Elder Scrolls game, where you're in this big
sandbox virtual environment, there's food in there, and when you
eat the food, your character is healed, and it's largely
a game about like flowing dragons and killing trolls and whatnot,
and then and then I've been toiling with it a
little bit, but you still find yourself saying, hmm, I
wonder if my character should grab that grilled salmon, or
if should grab the bread, or there's like goat cheese.
(22:02):
And I found that I was having my character grab
more of the goat cheese than the other foods, even
though he's I get nothing out of eating it all, right,
So it was enhancing your experience, which is the idea
of it was enhancing my experience. So I'm just I'm
not sure exactly how that relates to the possible chewing
the food virtually in a game. Well, and who is
we've talked about nanotechnology and maybe there will be nano
(22:22):
nutrients that just that's right cause us to just quit
eating food altogether because we get everything delivered to us.
So maybe yeah, it's some sort of like you know,
yearning for yesteryear when you remember used to chew food, right,
because obviously that the huge pitfall to chewing your food
virtually is you're you're still nothing's going to wind up
in your belly. But but maybe that you have nano
(22:43):
it's down there that are taking care of it. I
don't know, alright, so we should probably take a break, yes,
but when we get back, we're going to talk about
travel Latch and what it has to do the travel
at yeah, the hotel motel, right, yes, and this is
the amazing stuff that's coming up. To stick with it.
What does it to do refrsual sex at all? Right,
(23:07):
we're back and uh, we're looking into the far future
of well supposedly of sleeping at a hotel courtesy of
Dr Ian Pearson in any report that was commissioned by
Travel Lodge of all people in June of two thousand
and eleven. Alr. Yeah, let's talk about the chops. This guy,
I mean, he's not just a futurologist. He has his
maths and physics graduate degree, and he's worked in numerous
(23:30):
branches of engineering, from aeronautics to cybernetics, sustainable transport to
electronic cosmetics. His inventions include text messaging okay, no, no
little feet there, right, and the active contact lens, which
we'll talk about in a moment. So this guy has chops, right,
he knows what he's talking about, and Travel Lodge commissioned
(23:51):
him to create a report of what the future of
sleep week wink, nudge, nudge, looks like yes. And I'll
be sure to put up a link to a PDF
of this so you can you can read it for
yourself on the blog post accompanying this, because there's some
Favos illustrations that go with it that and and work
safe fillustrations. Um, they actually are. And they kind of
(24:11):
even look like the illustrations you would find like the
back of the card on the airplane. It does look
like how to edge of the airplane. Yeah, it makes
it even better, yea. And because the thing is, this
guy didn't Pearson didn't set out to say I'm going
to write about the future of virtual sex or shared
sexy dreams, you know, or that kind of thing. Like
he's basically looking at, like, what, you know, given the
(24:33):
current state of technology and where technology seems to be going,
what conceivably is the state of technologically aided sleep in
the year twenty thirty, And this is just the guy
to answer it because in the in the same way
that the authors of the nineties sixties paper on cyborgs
that we mentioned in the Werewolf Principle episode, the same
way those guys were like looking at the cybernetics and
(24:54):
really making some some seemingly crazy but but really big
predictions about where cybernetic could lead. Pearson is doing the
same thing, except with sleep and with virtual reality and
dream technology. And I mean it's phenomenal to read about
because he's not holding on to too much nostalgia about
where we are now. He's not a small dreamer. This
guy is a big dreamer and he's amazing well. And
(25:15):
I was even thinking too, that reminds you of already
de Gray. Uh, the biogerontologist whom we've talked about several times,
who is interested in extending life and thinks that we
can do so on many different levels if we can
catch disease before it really sort of blooms and takes
over our bodies, and and saying like these are practical
(25:36):
things that we can actually do because we've got the technology.
The same sort of thing here with Pearson and saying,
here's the technology that we have developed, let's see what
it looks like in a travel lodge setting. Some of
it has to do with, say, the way the TVs work,
you know, why you can like you know, pull up
maps in your room. Uh. This stuff is is related
to like, what do you want your room to look like?
Can you push a button and make it look like
your your bedroom at home? Yeah. For instance, I've got
(25:58):
one that's supposed to be for the ladies, and it's
a year that would show you what you're after would
look like after you put on your makeup, so you
it uploads, I guess a photo of yourself with makeup on,
so that when you're applying your makeup, you know what
the after is gonna look like. So someone's a little
bit silly, but it's basically just a showcase for technology. Wow.
I love that. What happens if if someone else looks
(26:18):
into it, what happens if you have a dog or
a cat with you? I don't know what happens like
I do. If you upload like Dolly Parton, does it
just go again? Like can't compute? Like that's you know,
that's what I could se If I were Dolly Partoner,
I probably would want to do that because that's a
lot of makeup And I love Dollie. That's no slide
against her. That was just a great hoist. And then
(26:39):
in other areas it gets it's a little more in
a line with what we're talking about in this podcast.
For instance, there's the auto massage distress pillows, yes, which
are pretty great, and the illustrations to go with it
also paint the picture of couples that have this distance
between them, a geographical distance. So one is in a
hotel room of one is in the bedded home. How
can we bring these two together? Yeah? Okay, so let
(27:00):
me give you a quick overview. I mean he's basically
saying that people and will talk more specifically about it,
but people will be able to wear lenses to change
the way their partner looks while making love without their knowledge, right,
So they being not only do they changing their parents
without their knowledge, right, clients will be able to being
their virtual partners into bed while making love remotely, okay.
(27:20):
And hotel sheets and sleepware are being designed with special
fibers that produce sensory responses allowing clients to feel you know,
air quotes the sensations of sex like this is the
ultimate and sexy pajamas. These are technologically intensified sexual pajamas. Yeah.
I mean, on one level, it's like augmented love making. Right,
So if you actually have another human with you, um,
(27:43):
you could use these active contact lens to change the
way that they appear to you, right, which again this
borders on like how much of this is weird and
how much of this are we already doing to some degree, right,
because they're a variety of different ways that people can
person in themselves, uh for sexual activity that is augmenting
(28:04):
the reality right the really far future end of the spectrum.
He even talked about couples being able to benefit from
the ability to link their nervous systems via active skin
electronics during the lovemaking, so that you would be able
to feel what the other individual is feeling at the
same time you're feeling what you're feeling. That's an enhancement,
that is that is quite an enhancement. I feel like
(28:24):
I've I've read probably some some Richard K. Morrigan that
involves some of that, but like on that far into
the spectrum, using some of this very technology that we're
talking about, the ability to actually go beyond the flesh
and connect more directly with the nervous system in the
brain as far as central pleasure goes. And also to
just to to talk a little bit more about those
active lenses we're talking about delivering high quality three D
(28:44):
images directly onto the rtna um and you can I
mean they they're worn under the eyelids, right, because you
can do this while you're even sleeping, which is kind
of crazy. Ye, active contact lenses that they would have electronics, sensors,
and communication capabilities all embedded in lends itself. This is
something that, like a lot of this technology, it would
have a lot of applications, virsuality, medicine, you name it,
(29:08):
but inevitably sexuality as well. Yeah, I mean, especially we're
talking about sleepwear that you know has fibers that can
create different sensations for you, and talking about massaging pillow.
I mean, you know, it's pretty much spelling out virtual
sex or enhanced sex for starters. Like active context of
this nature, they'd be able to detect when you're dreaming,
(29:31):
inform you that you're dreaming, and allow you to to
dream lucidly, also just to bring up the sheets to
That's something that could also interact with other media, so TV, radio,
web based media games. So again we've talked about the
ability to have sexual video games, so just imagine plugging
that up to you to your Xbox as well, and
(29:53):
participating in that way. But let's talk about dreams, because
that's this is where it gets really very odd and
I love the idea to travel. Lodge commissioned this guy
to help them what sleeping in a hotel room in
would consist of. His answer involves linked dreaming. The idea
that you know, conceivably in the hotel room itself, or
across distances with one member of a couple here remember
(30:14):
of the couple in another city, that they would be
able to share the same or very similar dream experience,
and that you could help to craft that dream experience. Right,
because you're also talking about manipulating this room to the
degree that you get certain smells that would evoke certain memories. Uh.
And you know you're you're clad in sleepwear that is
(30:35):
possibly stimulating your genitals, right, and you've you've got a
your lover beamed into your room, so which you can,
without their knowing, then change the way they look or
if they're there too, you can change the way that
they look. Um. So it stands to reason that you
could now plug into the dream landscape. And again it's
(30:56):
just at what point does it become augmented? UH sexual
experience as opposed to a sexual experience you're already having,
because dreams, already, given their nature, are virtual, right, Yeah,
But what I wonder about the dream and we, I mean,
we could get more into the technology that enables this,
like like does some degree is talking about just your
(31:18):
dreaming and you're listening to the same music and you're
aware that it's a dream, and there you know, some
some other sense. Uh, there's some other sense data thrown
in there as well. But and then in other cases
it's more of like a neural linkage kind of thing.
And he's talking about the ability to to play back dreams,
record dreams and all this. But I wonder, like you
hear people talk about lucid dreaming, and generally the you
(31:38):
don't hear people say And then I realized I was dreaming,
and I had a bunch of sex that they tend
to say. And then I realized I was dreaming and
I was a thousand feet tall and pushing over buildings. Right.
I realized I was dreaming, and the world fell away
and I was flying and I turned into light. All
my my problems were defeatable like this, like it tends
to the accounts I've heard of lucid dreaming tend to
(31:58):
be a lot bigger than sexuality. So I don't feel
like we'll know exactly what it will be like until
we're we're there, you know what exactly the frog since
persons a joint lucid dreaming situation would be like, yeah,
I mean, who knows you. I think that most of
these technologies will come to fruition. It's something like that
that is harder to understand and harder I think, to
(32:20):
manipulate to really be able to predict what you know,
whether or not we could be coupling with each other
intentionally in dreams. But you make a good point. There's
already this aspect of dreams called lucid dreaming which allows
the individual to do that. And you're also right that
and your typical like water cooler conversation people don't normally say, man,
that's lucid sex dream last night. Yeah. But that being
(32:43):
that being said, I mean a I love where this
guy's brain is going with this. But then be I mean,
maybe that would be even bigger than that, Like maybe
it would have some sort of sexual nature to it.
But imagine like a situation where two people in love
are sharing the same dream unbound by physics, feeling what
each other is feeling. I mean, it's it's beautiful, like
(33:05):
it's it's it's kind of like beautiful. But is it
the same sort of situation where you get looped into
those dopamine more texts of just chasing the dream of
the thing rather than dealing with the reality. We all
climb inside our little pleasure capsules and then we just
stay there. Yeah, you know, it's the little pleasure cocoons
that right, and you never see daylight again. It also
(33:27):
reminds me of Until the End of the World, Um
of Invendor's film from I think it's like the eighties
or early nineties, I can't remember. But it also like
it shows the characters absolutely tied to technology and the
past at the same time, because they're constantly revisiting their
dreams from another world because it's supposed to lot apocalyptic
will that they're in, and they keep going back to
their memories because they're getting charged from those. So I
(33:50):
wonder if it's the same sort of thing We're just
gonna all be hold up and he's tricked out travel
lodges again. It's factous to think about because it really
takes us right up to the edge of of what
we know about about about humanity and about technology, and
about about the experience of of being human right or
not being human right, divorcing ourselves from our humanness, the
(34:10):
animal part of ourselves, which would be the touch, the
actual you know, real touch, nothing real touch product. Right.
So there you go. That's a a little bit of
virtual sex wrapped in a little casement of awkwardness with
the little sprinkle of fleshy joy. That was bad. That
(34:32):
fleshy joy. I don't know what that is. It sounds
like a breakfast cereal some kind, doesn't it Again. If
you want to explore more about this and you want
to see that that's a really cool article from Dr
Ian Pearson, check out the blog entry that goes along
with this episode, and I will try to remember to
link to it, and if I forget and I don't
link to it, hassle me and I will link to
it for all intents of purposes. You can get in
touch with us and find us about what our latest
(34:53):
blog posts are about at Stuff to Blow Your Mind
on Facebook. We update everything there, and then you can
also find us on Twitter. Our handle is below the
mind and you can also send us your thoughts on
the future of virtual sex by sending us an email
at Blow the Mind at Discovery dot com. Be sure
(35:15):
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join the House Stuff Work staff as we explore the
most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
And in this episode, we need to have a little disclaimer.
First of all, Um, if you may have noticed, the
title of the episode is virtual sexuality and linked to Dreams.
(00:24):
I believe we're going to handle this topic in a
fairly clinical and fun manner. We're not dignified manner where
we hope we're a dignified podcast. We hope good jokes aside.
But I know we have a lot of younger listeners
out there, so you know, just for parents too maybe
listening along. So we just wanted to give you a
heads up. Yeah, we're gonna try to be delicate when
we talk about virtual sex today, but um, there may
(00:47):
be times that you went so just know that if
you don't want anything that you want your kid to hear,
then then sadly you may want to, um, I don't know,
listen and bleep out things. Yeah. Well, you know, just
just putting it out there. And I think the next
logical step would be to make the case for why
I discussed this at all, because some people might think,
well the virtual will say it's just that's it's kind
(01:09):
of silly, or it's just needless, right, or it's this
sort of side column, this side effect to technological advancement. Okay, well,
we we recently recorded a podcast on the Seven Deadly
Sins Lust, right, and we talked about the lust economy,
and we talked about how it is something that is
just um blooming in our in our current culture that
(01:30):
is so dependent on internet and other technologies, right, has
brought basically pouring to our door and in every single
way that it can, right, I mean, you know, we
were talking about the satyrs in the episode the over
sexed goat men of ancient Greeks that fown their ways
in some of the most marvelous artistic creations of the time.
If you've ever taken, especially if you've taken like a child,
(01:53):
like a niece nephew to an art museum, you're probably
even more aware of Oh, there's a lot of sexuality
in the in some of our greatest works of a Yeah,
I don't look too closely at the Greek pottery, right, right? Yeah?
Or do yeah, So all of our great artistic achievements,
sexuality and lust have been along for the ride, and
the same as is true of technology. Not only technology,
we just pretty much anything technological cultural artistic, because we
(02:16):
had poetry, and out of that rises pornography. We invented
the telephone, so suddenly, you know, two people can talk
across vast distances, but you can also have a call
into a sex hotline. Vulcanization responsible for so many rubber products,
including the modern condom. The list goes on. You you
name it. Virtually any kind of technology, especially you're going
to find and at least some attempts to turn it
into sex for war like those are seemed to be
(02:39):
our big interest, and uh, the sexual side tends to
be a little better for everybody. Well yeah, I mean,
I don't know that you could say that all the
language is predicated on sex. But if you say that
one of the things that humans are trying to drive
toward is is sexual coupling for one reason or another,
language is pretty important in communicating that, right, right, So
(03:00):
it makes sense that in this day and age, with
all that we have available to us in the ways
that we communicate with one another, that virtual sex would
show up on the scene. Uh, sooner or later and
really start to play a role in our relationships or
not our relationships. Right, So what is virtual sex? Right? Yeah,
(03:21):
looking at it, I tend to find it to fall
into two categories. Right. You have one form, which is
basically sexual communication with another person. This can be something
as simple as sexting, where individuals are sending text messages
that are merely sexy back and forth, sex chat rooms,
webcam aided cybersex situations where it's it's about one person
(03:41):
connecting with another and there may be varying levels of
illusion between them, some technological, some just due to a
lack of a full sensory experience. Yes, I can't solitary
sexual expert or connected via technology. And as we're looking
into the future too, of what what virtuals sexuality insists
in these situations, it's very much the idea of computer
(04:04):
mediated communication. So the computers are aiding us in an
attempt to communicate with one another, but it's a sexual
communication that is generally more of a like than any
emotional and or physical link. But then there's a second
type of virtual sex, and that would be sexual interaction
with a simulation, interacting with some sort of sexual video
game or some sort of a simulated experience. In other words,
(04:25):
the flesh and blood person is not there, but you're
trying to simulate that experience, right, You're interacting with a
with a fantasy or an idea. All right, So let's
talk about some of the technology behind this. Yes, I'm
talking about the haptic love glove right right, because we
have these five senses, right, and of course sound that's
a pretty easy one to get a hold of. We
(04:46):
have a fantastic ability to transmit sound on the internet.
Visuals that's pretty far along too. It has some ways
to go, but we have a wonderful webcam set up
around the world, and computer graphics are reaching the point
where a virtual setting is more and more possible. But
then how are you going to feel things? Right? And
this is where you get into haptic computer technology. And again,
this is something where it's not just people sitting around
(05:08):
saying I wonder if there's a way to feel up
a centaur in a video mandling like like it's it
goes beyond that because I think we've discussed the importance
of telecommunications and say surgery or robotic exploration. We want
to be able to manipulate a robotic arm on the
other side of the world that's maybe reaching around in
somebody's abdomen performing a delicate surgery, or manipulate that arm
(05:30):
on a space probe as it paused around on another planet.
Like we the more control we have, the better. And
that's where you get into some of this haptic technology,
which is how do I, by the aid of like
a glove or some sort of neural link, how am
I able to really get the sense of touching something
in a virtual setting? Right? So, I mean the foundation
(05:51):
for haptic technology is steeped in science, right, whether or
not it's medical, um space exploration, or military applications. Right,
So military is another one. I'm not gonna punch somebody
in a virtual environment, right, Yeah, that's but then it
falls into all these other non sexual categories to like
just pure entertainment, some sort of like video game experience
where you're not just pawing around with this dummy hand,
(06:13):
but you're actually able to reach out and grab things
and touch things and manipulate things that maybe even feel them.
That's another thing about touch and feel is that it's
a less understood since compared to things like site and
sound right, right, And you're right, it is far more nuanced,
and certainly with haptic technology that there could be improvements made.
And maybe this is actually going to be the impetus
(06:35):
for that, who knows. But I think it's interesting about
this is that haptic technology for the use of virtual
sex is just a testament to humans and their creativity. Right.
They're looking at this and saying, how else could we
use this? Um? And else could I make money on it? Yeah? Right, right,
our entrepreneurial spirits. But we talk about heptic technology, we
should probably just talk about what we mean by that. Right.
(06:57):
So let's say you have a pair of happy gloves.
You insert your hands in them, right, and these are
outfitted with data transmitters, and these gloves allow the user
to not control, but actually feel virtual items. And I
believe in your article about virtual sex, you have a
great photo of someone who's got their hands in one
(07:18):
of the gloves and they're trying to feel the skin
of I believe it's a dinosaur, right, virtual dinosaur. Yeah.
Another example, and I don't think this was in this
was maybe a different article, I think the Dirty robot
Jobs article. But there's this thing they have called the
haptic cow that aids veterinarians and venarians students specifically mainly
in the UK, in how to feel around inside of
a cow, because when you're checking on how a cow's
(07:41):
rear plumbing is working, and and you know, and you
don't really want to do it. You really don't want
to insert your own hand. No no, no, well, I
mean you're gonna have to insert your hand in the apparently,
like before this goes around, it's like the options were
pretty limited practice because the end just go out and
stick a arm and a cow every time. You need
(08:02):
to beginner training, but you need to know where everything is,
and like some of the descriptions are in across the
old way it was. It was kind of like the
you know the game at Halloween where you wear the
blindfold and you said, and you're touching reach other. Here
you're touching a bowl of eyeballs and brains, like you
were basically reaching into something and then you would feel
like a very vague approximation of this organ and then
(08:25):
this organ and then this organ. With a haptic technology,
the idea is, let's create a false cow rear that
you can you can reach your hand in and actually
have a haptic experience with the virtual inside, so you
can get a blueprint in your own brains. Said that
you you actually do it, you're you know what you're
looking for. Plus it seems a little more humane as well. Okay,
so that's that's the basis of haptic technology which is
(08:48):
being used with virtual sex. Right. We should obviously mentioned
so what you know. I don't think that we probably
need to spell it out, but if you have the
ability to digitize and transmit sense data, then you might
be able to feel what it would be like to
touch another human using these gloves, right, I say human
in the air quotes right right. It could be anything,
(09:09):
or it's or it's just a virtual simulation of some
ideal it would be something you created, like a human
like alien centaur, yeah whatever, the Fiji mermaid. And there
are actually some people who have already been tolling around
with the Connect, which is the movement based interface for
Xbox three sixty. Some people have you know, hacked that
(09:31):
and are using the technology for various applications. And there
are people who are working on sexual games where you
would use the Connect to say, reach out and touch
the Fiji mermaid. Yeah, isn't there something called I don't
know pronounces thricks th h r I that triple X. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a three D sex game. It is compatible with
(09:51):
Xbox Connect. So again, users can touch air quotes the
models in the game they're talking about. It's sort of
like Second Life. You can translate in anonymous online animated
six capades into virtual life with three D graphics and
customized fantasy avatars. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah, and
you also have something called again. When we when we
(10:13):
talk about some of these, it might seem like, oh, yes,
this is just the hug shirt. You're talking about Xbox
we're talking about sort of taking it to that degree.
So when we talk about this next thing, the hug shirt,
think about the possibilities in terms of sexually communicating data
to yourself. Yeah, this is an idea that comes to
us from the UK company. By the end of Cute Circuit.
It's alves that question like what do you want to
send somebody hug? And I think we mentioned this in
(10:33):
the Hug episode. So you want to hug somebody, but
you don't want to actually physically touch them, or you
cannot physically touch them, How can you send that hug
to them in a way that's not just like an
XO XO on a text. The answer is, what if
they had a garment that had the internal structure that
can deliver a hug, and then you could trigger that
hug and also to some degree control the type of hug,
(10:55):
the degree of the hug remotely via bluetoothe Well, and
then what if you turn that hug shirt into a
unitard and which just sounds sexy all over, and then
you had the censors strategically placed in areas that might
stimulate a sexual reaction, right, I'm just taking into the yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously,
(11:17):
I mean the hud shirt itself is like a really
like a great sweet thing too. But I'm you know,
making a dirty and I actually I think that there
may have been a listener who told us about the
hud shirt. Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's how we
that maybe that's what we didn't actually mention the hug
podcast and somebody said, hey, how can you not mention
the hug shirt? And uh and and true, it's it's fascinating.
Then there's a there's another area of technological tinkering that
(11:40):
is roughly referred to as tele built tonics, which that's subtle,
isn't it. Due to it flack and subtlely, we don't
even really have to go into it a lot other
than basically some sort of interface that plugs into your
computer that allows somebody elsewhere on the Worldwide Web to
stimulate you be at a you know, a some sort
of wearable item or you know some What I'm trying
(12:01):
to say is it's an accessory and plugs into your computer.
Somebody else activates that device, and it can stimulates somebody sexually.
So it's um, it's attempting to It's the hug shirt
on a different level. I'm struggling to you know, this
is just like becoming like the most awkward podcast ever.
I mean, we have discussed uh Stemen collecting robots, we've
(12:25):
talked about and then that and then that was art
and this this, this is bringing us to our knees,
so to speak. Oh my god, it's getting I can't okay,
it's um. I guess that's the thing is that that
the other things that you mentioned, like the klokobot is
an artistic creation, you know, sprom collecting robot, for all
its absurdity, has its roots and something medical and something
like tele del Donix is basically I mean, just by
(12:47):
the very name they're they're not even trying to to
sugarcoat it with with anything else. But it does fit
into this larger picture of how do we create a
full sensory experience in a virtual world? How could we
possibly fully communicate with somebody who's, say on the other
side of the world, or say it's traveling in space.
Like imagine a situation where a husband and wife are
separated safe for the better part of a year due
(13:08):
to conflicting working situations, or a situation where one of
the individuals is on an interplanetary journey. It's one thing
for them to be able to call and have a conversation,
but what if they could connect in a physical manner
and express their affection physically, Like this is the kind
of technology you'd need. Okay, well now see now that's
more romantic and nice. Yeah, yeah, okay, yes, this would
(13:30):
be the technology as as awkward or weird as it
may seem. And this is you know, the viewpoint from
this year, right Who knows what that's gonna look like
fifty It may be just as as normal as any
other sort of technology that we use. That being said,
I still feel like there's a rudimentary aspect to it, right,
(13:50):
because it's still fairly new, and I'm thinking about real
touch again. I am going to use a euphemism here
that I've used in the past. This is a device
that's made for man's frank and beans. Okay, okay. It
is a sort of haptic hot dog bun that the
frank and the beans or maybe just the front goes into.
Although not quite haptic, right because it's not quite uh
(14:12):
that advanced, But it connects to this device connects to
a computer, and it synchronizes in real time to online porn.
And it works in tandem too. I guess you could say,
the plot line of the of the porn point and
then we all left and the device warms itself up,
it lubricates, it pulls in a grips, so yes, and
in the future possibilities of of romantic connections, you know,
(14:37):
in the best intention ways. But this is this is
the hardware we have right now. Well, it's similar to
these from robot in terms of the technology, because that
had various manipulating devices inside its generating We're discussing like
we're basically talking about a computer interface sex toy for
for for men here, and it's very much a giggly
(14:58):
kind of taboo thing really in in the US to
a large extent elsewhere as well. Um. I was reading
something recently on a campaign in Japan to sort of
remove the stigma from such devices, particular as it pertains
to one particular brand of the device that they're trying
to market. But they made a good case for it,
like making the point that you know, you're you're having
(15:18):
this growing divide in Japan between the sexes, and you
have in any culture, you're gonna have individuals sort of
or outside of the norms of relationships, you know, and
they have they have needs, they have physical desires that
can't necessarily be met in their daily life. So to
what extent can technology helped them? And is that really
that weird or dirty things? Well, and that's a country
(15:40):
that really embraces technology wholeheartedly, so it makes sense. However,
I do think it's kind of interesting because it's a
very reserved culture. Yeah, but that maybe that's some of
the friction that's coming up there right, um, is that
if you're going to embrace it whole hardly you ought
to do so, and you know that is a younger
generation coming up to that's much more calm trouble with
(16:00):
the terms of that. One of the things that I
think is really interesting about this that's far more abstracted
is something called the orgasmatron, which we've talked about before.
And this is the idea that you don't even need, say,
some sort of weird, funky glove to slip your stuff into,
or some sort of fancy touch sensitive pants or porn
to look at, right, basically you circumvent all of that, right, Yeah. Yeah.
(16:21):
Dr Stewart malloy again we've talked about him before, but
he was working on a device to alleviate chronic pain
when he realized that it was sexually stimulating his female
patients and again, lo and behold, whoa this application could
be used for something else. He nicknamed it the orgasmatron. Barbaralla, Yeah, yeah,
we should mention that Jane Fonda starring as Barbara Ella.
(16:43):
And the device is actually a small box with two
small wires that like an epidural run under the skin
and attached to the spinal cord, and it sends an
electrical pulse through nerves from the spinal cord, which relays
the message to the part of the brain that processes
orgasmic sensations, and Jennets tell you like, hey, it's a
go time. You don't even really need to think in
(17:03):
order to have an orgasm with this device. You just
pressed the button and uh, that is going to be
going at the low, low cost of twelve. By the way,
it's interesting though, because subsequent experimentation city is done with
this device, they've been able to stir orgasms in women
that had severe blocks to achieving it otherwise. Right, Yeah, yeah,
that's true. Women who had never been able to achieve
(17:26):
an orgasm before, we're able to achieve it with this.
So I mean, there you go. That's but you can
see advertisement for it, right, But you can see where
it really opens the door for the possibilities of sexual
communication in a virtual sense in the media and far future.
The idea that it wouldn't even you wouldn't even have
some sort of weird body glove you have to slip into.
It could be something that is is connecting correctly into
(17:49):
your brains, into your your your nervous system. But we
should probably mention some of the other sense, real quick
and well, spend a lot of time with these that
we we we really talked about smell printable odors in
in a previous episode and a lot of those same
technologies apply here. Means by which you could print a smell.
You could use a certain palette of of basic smells
and use those to build specific smells. So and again
(18:12):
that's in an attempt to build this virtual uh sexual
reality for someone, right, so you could create more of
a I guess um, a background for your sexual experience
by uploading some smells and in the course a smell
that's a huge influence on the way we taste things.
There have been some virtual reality studies goun to the
(18:32):
creation of of devices that would allow you to say,
taste of food that you're chewing and sort of feel
chewing food to a certain degree, which obviously would have
an impact on attempts to create a you know, a
virtual sexual environment as well. Likewise, you have the kiss transmitter,
another product of Japanese innovation. I think I described before
as being like a joystick that goes in your mouth
(18:52):
and then you can sort of move it around to
transmit a kiss through the Internet. It's current incarnation. It's
you know, it's it's pretty crude design wise, it's pretty basic.
But that's what it's like when you're blazing new trails.
That's right, making that with the joystick. But yeah, I
mean this again, this is stuff that's cutting edge right now,
but it seems rudimentary. One thing that also really wildly
about to all this is the the idea of cross
(19:12):
moodal attention effects, which is the idea that okay, think
back to, Like if you can think back to, say,
you know, your first kiss or something or something of
a sensual nature, or or even it doesn't have to
be central, just something of a memorable nature. You may
really remember what the first kiss felt like. You may
really remember what the smell of the other individual's hair
(19:33):
something of that nature. But you might not remember what
the you know, the couch felt like, you know, or
what was playing on the TV or you know that
kind of thing, because this is the sense data that's
just not important to you at that moment. Right But
like our brains don't really work and full on three
six h D, some things are going to get all
of our attention. Some things are gonna get a little
bit of our attention, and some things are gonna get
(19:54):
none of our attention. So you don't have to worry
about having to create this like totally full on three
e D super high graphics virtual environment. Instead, you focus
on the areas that are being focused on the parts
that are important to the experience, and so you don't
have to worry about every every aspect of this simulated
sense environment really cranking up to eleven. Okay, so this
(20:15):
is what you're talking about your article. The researchers at
the University of York's Audio Laboratory working to toward this
cross modal sort of situation where you have some things
that are amped up in some things that are amped down.
And to that end, they are considering a mouthpiece to
simulate different textures against the tongue in mouth. Yes, this
(20:35):
is this whatever for two yeah, yeah, yeah, And this
is the thing that cracked me up. And I believe
you even put it in air quotes at some point
in the article. This is virtual food chewing research, right,
food chewing because you know, there's going to be a
huge opportunity for virtual restaurants in the future, right, because
everybody wants to virtually chew their food. So that's what
(20:57):
this application is that proposedly for right, which again is
kind of a wink wink, nudge and nudge. Obviously it's
going to be used for for other purposes in virtual effects. Well,
you know, I make fun of it, but then I
have to think on two counts. One it would be
kind of nice, I guess, you know, if you want
to experience like some horrible fatty food or or some
sort of environmentally unsustainable food in the future, or say
(21:19):
in the if we're looking, you know, at a future
in which some of our our current foods have ceased
to be around, Like what if we're looking at age
when bananas aren't a possibility anymore. Or maybe you're just
feeling dangerous and you want to like check out cannibalism
in a safe place, you'd be like a virtual That's
so that's an entirely separate can of warrants. But but
even like in something like the video game Skyrim, which
(21:40):
is the Elder Scrolls game, where you're in this big
sandbox virtual environment, there's food in there, and when you
eat the food, your character is healed, and it's largely
a game about like flowing dragons and killing trolls and whatnot,
and then and then I've been toiling with it a
little bit, but you still find yourself saying, hmm, I
wonder if my character should grab that grilled salmon, or
if should grab the bread, or there's like goat cheese.
(22:02):
And I found that I was having my character grab
more of the goat cheese than the other foods, even
though he's I get nothing out of eating it all, right,
So it was enhancing your experience, which is the idea
of it was enhancing my experience. So I'm just I'm
not sure exactly how that relates to the possible chewing
the food virtually in a game. Well, and who is
we've talked about nanotechnology and maybe there will be nano
(22:22):
nutrients that just that's right cause us to just quit
eating food altogether because we get everything delivered to us.
So maybe yeah, it's some sort of like you know,
yearning for yesteryear when you remember used to chew food, right,
because obviously that the huge pitfall to chewing your food
virtually is you're you're still nothing's going to wind up
in your belly. But but maybe that you have nano
(22:43):
it's down there that are taking care of it. I
don't know, alright, so we should probably take a break, yes,
but when we get back, we're going to talk about
travel Latch and what it has to do the travel
at yeah, the hotel motel, right, yes, and this is
the amazing stuff that's coming up. To stick with it.
What does it to do refrsual sex at all? Right,
(23:07):
we're back and uh, we're looking into the far future
of well supposedly of sleeping at a hotel courtesy of
Dr Ian Pearson in any report that was commissioned by
Travel Lodge of all people in June of two thousand
and eleven. Alr. Yeah, let's talk about the chops. This guy,
I mean, he's not just a futurologist. He has his
maths and physics graduate degree, and he's worked in numerous
(23:30):
branches of engineering, from aeronautics to cybernetics, sustainable transport to
electronic cosmetics. His inventions include text messaging okay, no, no
little feet there, right, and the active contact lens, which
we'll talk about in a moment. So this guy has chops, right,
he knows what he's talking about, and Travel Lodge commissioned
(23:51):
him to create a report of what the future of
sleep week wink, nudge, nudge, looks like yes. And I'll
be sure to put up a link to a PDF
of this so you can you can read it for
yourself on the blog post accompanying this, because there's some
Favos illustrations that go with it that and and work
safe fillustrations. Um, they actually are. And they kind of
(24:11):
even look like the illustrations you would find like the
back of the card on the airplane. It does look
like how to edge of the airplane. Yeah, it makes
it even better, yea. And because the thing is, this
guy didn't Pearson didn't set out to say I'm going
to write about the future of virtual sex or shared
sexy dreams, you know, or that kind of thing. Like
he's basically looking at, like, what, you know, given the
(24:33):
current state of technology and where technology seems to be going,
what conceivably is the state of technologically aided sleep in
the year twenty thirty, And this is just the guy
to answer it because in the in the same way
that the authors of the nineties sixties paper on cyborgs
that we mentioned in the Werewolf Principle episode, the same
way those guys were like looking at the cybernetics and
(24:54):
really making some some seemingly crazy but but really big
predictions about where cybernetic could lead. Pearson is doing the
same thing, except with sleep and with virtual reality and
dream technology. And I mean it's phenomenal to read about
because he's not holding on to too much nostalgia about
where we are now. He's not a small dreamer. This
guy is a big dreamer and he's amazing well. And
(25:15):
I was even thinking too, that reminds you of already
de Gray. Uh, the biogerontologist whom we've talked about several times,
who is interested in extending life and thinks that we
can do so on many different levels if we can
catch disease before it really sort of blooms and takes
over our bodies, and and saying like these are practical
(25:36):
things that we can actually do because we've got the technology.
The same sort of thing here with Pearson and saying,
here's the technology that we have developed, let's see what
it looks like in a travel lodge setting. Some of
it has to do with, say, the way the TVs work,
you know, why you can like you know, pull up
maps in your room. Uh. This stuff is is related
to like, what do you want your room to look like?
Can you push a button and make it look like
your your bedroom at home? Yeah. For instance, I've got
(25:58):
one that's supposed to be for the ladies, and it's
a year that would show you what you're after would
look like after you put on your makeup, so you
it uploads, I guess a photo of yourself with makeup on,
so that when you're applying your makeup, you know what
the after is gonna look like. So someone's a little
bit silly, but it's basically just a showcase for technology. Wow.
I love that. What happens if if someone else looks
(26:18):
into it, what happens if you have a dog or
a cat with you? I don't know what happens like
I do. If you upload like Dolly Parton, does it
just go again? Like can't compute? Like that's you know,
that's what I could se If I were Dolly Partoner,
I probably would want to do that because that's a
lot of makeup And I love Dollie. That's no slide
against her. That was just a great hoist. And then
(26:39):
in other areas it gets it's a little more in
a line with what we're talking about in this podcast.
For instance, there's the auto massage distress pillows, yes, which
are pretty great, and the illustrations to go with it
also paint the picture of couples that have this distance
between them, a geographical distance. So one is in a
hotel room of one is in the bedded home. How
can we bring these two together? Yeah? Okay, so let
(27:00):
me give you a quick overview. I mean he's basically
saying that people and will talk more specifically about it,
but people will be able to wear lenses to change
the way their partner looks while making love without their knowledge, right,
So they being not only do they changing their parents
without their knowledge, right, clients will be able to being
their virtual partners into bed while making love remotely, okay.
(27:20):
And hotel sheets and sleepware are being designed with special
fibers that produce sensory responses allowing clients to feel you know,
air quotes the sensations of sex like this is the
ultimate and sexy pajamas. These are technologically intensified sexual pajamas. Yeah.
I mean, on one level, it's like augmented love making. Right,
So if you actually have another human with you, um,
(27:43):
you could use these active contact lens to change the
way that they appear to you, right, which again this
borders on like how much of this is weird and
how much of this are we already doing to some degree, right,
because they're a variety of different ways that people can
person in themselves, uh for sexual activity that is augmenting
(28:04):
the reality right the really far future end of the spectrum.
He even talked about couples being able to benefit from
the ability to link their nervous systems via active skin
electronics during the lovemaking, so that you would be able
to feel what the other individual is feeling at the
same time you're feeling what you're feeling. That's an enhancement,
that is that is quite an enhancement. I feel like
(28:24):
I've I've read probably some some Richard K. Morrigan that
involves some of that, but like on that far into
the spectrum, using some of this very technology that we're
talking about, the ability to actually go beyond the flesh
and connect more directly with the nervous system in the
brain as far as central pleasure goes. And also to
just to to talk a little bit more about those
active lenses we're talking about delivering high quality three D
(28:44):
images directly onto the rtna um and you can I
mean they they're worn under the eyelids, right, because you
can do this while you're even sleeping, which is kind
of crazy. Ye, active contact lenses that they would have electronics, sensors,
and communication capabilities all embedded in lends itself. This is
something that, like a lot of this technology, it would
have a lot of applications, virsuality, medicine, you name it,
(29:08):
but inevitably sexuality as well. Yeah, I mean, especially we're
talking about sleepwear that you know has fibers that can
create different sensations for you, and talking about massaging pillow.
I mean, you know, it's pretty much spelling out virtual
sex or enhanced sex for starters. Like active context of
this nature, they'd be able to detect when you're dreaming,
(29:31):
inform you that you're dreaming, and allow you to to
dream lucidly, also just to bring up the sheets to
That's something that could also interact with other media, so TV, radio,
web based media games. So again we've talked about the
ability to have sexual video games, so just imagine plugging
that up to you to your Xbox as well, and
(29:53):
participating in that way. But let's talk about dreams, because
that's this is where it gets really very odd and
I love the idea to travel. Lodge commissioned this guy
to help them what sleeping in a hotel room in
would consist of. His answer involves linked dreaming. The idea
that you know, conceivably in the hotel room itself, or
across distances with one member of a couple here remember
(30:14):
of the couple in another city, that they would be
able to share the same or very similar dream experience,
and that you could help to craft that dream experience. Right,
because you're also talking about manipulating this room to the
degree that you get certain smells that would evoke certain memories. Uh.
And you know you're you're clad in sleepwear that is
(30:35):
possibly stimulating your genitals, right, and you've you've got a
your lover beamed into your room, so which you can,
without their knowing, then change the way they look or
if they're there too, you can change the way that
they look. Um. So it stands to reason that you
could now plug into the dream landscape. And again it's
(30:56):
just at what point does it become augmented? UH sexual
experience as opposed to a sexual experience you're already having,
because dreams, already, given their nature, are virtual, right, Yeah,
But what I wonder about the dream and we, I mean,
we could get more into the technology that enables this,
like like does some degree is talking about just your
(31:18):
dreaming and you're listening to the same music and you're
aware that it's a dream, and there you know, some
some other sense. Uh, there's some other sense data thrown
in there as well. But and then in other cases
it's more of like a neural linkage kind of thing.
And he's talking about the ability to to play back dreams,
record dreams and all this. But I wonder, like you
hear people talk about lucid dreaming, and generally the you
(31:38):
don't hear people say And then I realized I was dreaming,
and I had a bunch of sex that they tend
to say. And then I realized I was dreaming and
I was a thousand feet tall and pushing over buildings. Right.
I realized I was dreaming, and the world fell away
and I was flying and I turned into light. All
my my problems were defeatable like this, like it tends
to the accounts I've heard of lucid dreaming tend to
(31:58):
be a lot bigger than sexuality. So I don't feel
like we'll know exactly what it will be like until
we're we're there, you know what exactly the frog since
persons a joint lucid dreaming situation would be like, yeah,
I mean, who knows you. I think that most of
these technologies will come to fruition. It's something like that
that is harder to understand and harder I think, to
(32:20):
manipulate to really be able to predict what you know,
whether or not we could be coupling with each other
intentionally in dreams. But you make a good point. There's
already this aspect of dreams called lucid dreaming which allows
the individual to do that. And you're also right that
and your typical like water cooler conversation people don't normally say, man,
that's lucid sex dream last night. Yeah. But that being
(32:43):
that being said, I mean a I love where this
guy's brain is going with this. But then be I mean,
maybe that would be even bigger than that, Like maybe
it would have some sort of sexual nature to it.
But imagine like a situation where two people in love
are sharing the same dream unbound by physics, feeling what
each other is feeling. I mean, it's it's beautiful, like
(33:05):
it's it's it's kind of like beautiful. But is it
the same sort of situation where you get looped into
those dopamine more texts of just chasing the dream of
the thing rather than dealing with the reality. We all
climb inside our little pleasure capsules and then we just
stay there. Yeah, you know, it's the little pleasure cocoons
that right, and you never see daylight again. It also
(33:27):
reminds me of Until the End of the World, Um
of Invendor's film from I think it's like the eighties
or early nineties, I can't remember. But it also like
it shows the characters absolutely tied to technology and the
past at the same time, because they're constantly revisiting their
dreams from another world because it's supposed to lot apocalyptic
will that they're in, and they keep going back to
their memories because they're getting charged from those. So I
(33:50):
wonder if it's the same sort of thing We're just
gonna all be hold up and he's tricked out travel
lodges again. It's factous to think about because it really
takes us right up to the edge of of what
we know about about about humanity and about technology, and
about about the experience of of being human right or
not being human right, divorcing ourselves from our humanness, the
(34:10):
animal part of ourselves, which would be the touch, the
actual you know, real touch, nothing real touch product. Right.
So there you go. That's a a little bit of
virtual sex wrapped in a little casement of awkwardness with
the little sprinkle of fleshy joy. That was bad. That
(34:32):
fleshy joy. I don't know what that is. It sounds
like a breakfast cereal some kind, doesn't it Again. If
you want to explore more about this and you want
to see that that's a really cool article from Dr
Ian Pearson, check out the blog entry that goes along
with this episode, and I will try to remember to
link to it, and if I forget and I don't
link to it, hassle me and I will link to
it for all intents of purposes. You can get in
touch with us and find us about what our latest
(34:53):
blog posts are about at Stuff to Blow Your Mind
on Facebook. We update everything there, and then you can
also find us on Twitter. Our handle is below the
mind and you can also send us your thoughts on
the future of virtual sex by sending us an email
at Blow the Mind at Discovery dot com. Be sure
(35:15):
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join the House Stuff Work staff as we explore the
most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
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