Latest / Stuff You Should Know / What's the future of virtual sex?

Transcript

What's the future of virtual sex? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there. Sex sex
0:20
Speaker 1: sex sex sex sex sex x sex sex x x
0:23
Speaker 1: sex sex x sex. I was gonna say we should
0:28
Speaker 1: do a C O A, but maybe that qualifies. I
0:31
Speaker 1: think so too. Uh, parents, this is going to be
0:35
Speaker 1: a show that you may I want your kids to
0:37
Speaker 1: listen to. We'll just didn't say that. Yeah, it's about
0:39
Speaker 1: some adult business, that's right. Yeah, freaky stuff. Goodness, how
0:44
Speaker 1: are you? I'm doing good. I still have a little
0:48
Speaker 1: bit of the the nose juice for the most part.
0:53
Speaker 1: I'm I'm good. My energy is up. You dude, I
0:57
Speaker 1: have to show you next time I blow my nose,
0:59
Speaker 1: I have to show you. This looks like it's it's
1:01
Speaker 1: oh no, no, no, no no. It's like Cheetos colored
1:06
Speaker 1: and intensity. I I've never seen anything like it before,
1:10
Speaker 1: and it's coming out of my head. That's weird, orange
1:14
Speaker 1: orange yellow day glow. Well, I might as well talk
1:17
Speaker 1: about my sickness. Yeah, how are you feeling well? I
1:20
Speaker 1: had as you know, um and as you also even further, No,
1:24
Speaker 1: about once a year I get a stomach flu. Even
1:27
Speaker 1: though I think I took last year off, I don't
1:29
Speaker 1: think I ever got it last year. I don't think
1:32
Speaker 1: you did either. But uh so, my daughter waits eighteen
1:36
Speaker 1: full months before she throws up for the first time,
1:38
Speaker 1: which is a nice run, and she comes in the
1:41
Speaker 1: kitchen the other she's like Jerry Seinfeld had really long
1:44
Speaker 1: run too. She comes in the kitchen and just projectile
1:47
Speaker 1: vomits all over the place out of nowhere, and um,
1:51
Speaker 1: you know, isn't feeling well and has some like uh
1:55
Speaker 1: some some diarrhya going on. Why this show was really
1:58
Speaker 1: getting off to a gross start. But two days after that,
2:02
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm invincible, Like I've I've avoided this. That's
2:05
Speaker 1: a bad thing, I think. I hope you didn't say
2:07
Speaker 1: it out loud. I think I might have. And then
2:10
Speaker 1: a two days ago at four pm, it's like, I
2:14
Speaker 1: feel a little weird. Five minutes later I was throwing up.
2:19
Speaker 1: And then six hours after me, it hit Emily. So
2:23
Speaker 1: she was able to at least care for our child
2:25
Speaker 1: until she went to bed, and then she was like,
2:27
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling so good either, And then my mom
2:31
Speaker 1: thankfully came through and uh and took our child from
2:34
Speaker 1: the sick house, and then Emily and I literally all
2:37
Speaker 1: night long, we each had a bathroom at our disposal,
2:40
Speaker 1: and it was just like every thirty minutes, somebody in
2:43
Speaker 1: the house was like, man, it was really bad. I mean,
2:47
Speaker 1: it was just it was one of those things where
2:48
Speaker 1: we pulled the curtains. We were just like, I didn't
2:50
Speaker 1: even want to look at each other. It was just gross.
2:54
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm you know, it's a twenty four hour
2:56
Speaker 1: thing generally, And yeah, you said you told Jerry that
3:00
Speaker 1: it was like twenty four hours to the minute. Uh,
3:03
Speaker 1: pretty much. I mean I started feeling better at about
3:05
Speaker 1: four or five yesterday. But I'm just just weak, you know, man,
3:10
Speaker 1: Like it just takes a lot out of you. And
3:11
Speaker 1: I feel like, of you know, I'm not big on
3:13
Speaker 1: the ad workout, but I feel like, I know, you
3:17
Speaker 1: look ripped. Oh dude, I might have Like I feel
3:20
Speaker 1: like I really might have pulled muscles in my rib
3:22
Speaker 1: cage from wretching. It's funny, all right, So no one
3:26
Speaker 1: else is listening anymore. No, let's talk about virtual sex. Yeah,
3:31
Speaker 1: we chased everyone off. This is a good plan. Hats
3:33
Speaker 1: off to you, so chuck. Yes, people invented the Internet,
3:41
Speaker 1: and within about I don't know, eight or nine seconds,
3:46
Speaker 1: there was a porn side up right, probably yeah, and
3:49
Speaker 1: since then apparently, um, it's it's been largely overstated. But
3:53
Speaker 1: but most people associate the Internet, at least in part
3:57
Speaker 1: with photography. Really, Oh you're kidding, Well, what do you
4:02
Speaker 1: mean associate? Like like when when you think of the Internet,
4:06
Speaker 1: you think, well, that's a vast repository of pornography. I
4:11
Speaker 1: don't know if that's the case. I think a lot
4:12
Speaker 1: of people do. Okay, Um, but there's a lot of
4:15
Speaker 1: pornography on the Internet, and in fact, the Internet has
4:18
Speaker 1: helped just foster pornography into you know, by by by
4:25
Speaker 1: light speed. It's just virgin right. But it turns out, um,
4:30
Speaker 1: apparently one study I saw in two thousand and eleven
4:33
Speaker 1: estimated that only one point five percent of all web
4:37
Speaker 1: pages are sexual sex based one. Well, that was really
4:45
Speaker 1: surprised to hear that. Yeah, but I mean that's just
4:48
Speaker 1: a numbers game. Sure, I mean there's there are literally
4:51
Speaker 1: millions of porn sites. But doesn't that doesn't that seem
4:54
Speaker 1: low though? Even even considering the point is people still
5:00
Speaker 1: all do like sex and pornography, and they like the Internet.
5:04
Speaker 1: And when it when the thing when they were put together,
5:07
Speaker 1: everything just blew up. Like apparently now the the Internet
5:10
Speaker 1: porn industry alone globally is worth something like forty to
5:14
Speaker 1: fifty billion dollars. I saw that in a two article
5:18
Speaker 1: in the Economist. That's a ton of cash. Man. That's like,
5:23
Speaker 1: that's how much like the Disney company is worth. They're
5:27
Speaker 1: not gonna like that. Their name is you know, I
5:31
Speaker 1: just pulled that out of the air. Yeah, good choice. Um.
5:35
Speaker 1: But one of the things, like I said, when when
5:39
Speaker 1: the Internet um further pornography, it hasn't stopped, it hasn't plateaued.
5:44
Speaker 1: It's like, oh great, here's a here's a website that's
5:46
Speaker 1: got porn on it. We've achieved peak Internet pornography. Like that,
5:51
Speaker 1: some of the most um innovative thoughts to developing the
5:57
Speaker 1: Internet further has been based on pornography. Yeah, just when
6:01
Speaker 1: you think they've covered it all, somebody's like, hey, you
6:05
Speaker 1: like to, uh take a Christmas ham and carve out
6:09
Speaker 1: a hole and put your foot in it. We got
6:12
Speaker 1: a website for that, your foot called hamfoot dot com.
6:17
Speaker 1: Oh man, you better hurry up to trademark that before
6:20
Speaker 1: we released this episode. And by the way, when you
6:23
Speaker 1: this article was written by Robert lamb our own uh
6:27
Speaker 1: colleague here of stuff to blow your mind when you
6:30
Speaker 1: read it, did you like, how did you feel just
6:36
Speaker 1: hearing it in Robert's voice? In my head? I don't know,
6:39
Speaker 1: maybe that's something with it. I just wanted to take
6:41
Speaker 1: a shower. Like if Robert, if he typed the word
6:46
Speaker 1: lovers like one more time, I was I was literally
6:49
Speaker 1: just I don't I've never liked that word with you,
6:52
Speaker 1: and especially not coming from Robert like him. And I
6:55
Speaker 1: think he used the word lovers in here like six times,
6:58
Speaker 1: like you know, he was wearing a silk robe and
7:00
Speaker 1: he wrote this. Yeah, I can't imagine how much like
7:04
Speaker 1: graphics stuff got edited out from his first chap uh.
7:10
Speaker 1: But we're talking about the future of simulated virtual sex,
7:16
Speaker 1: not necessarily robot sex um because that's a different thing.
7:21
Speaker 1: And we actually we did a whole episode on that, remember,
7:24
Speaker 1: I think it was called like will we Marry Robots?
7:27
Speaker 1: Because we were trying to be above the board. But
7:30
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about that, but that that's not
7:33
Speaker 1: what this episode is about now. This is a little
7:35
Speaker 1: bit more about UM using technology to either simulate sex
7:41
Speaker 1: or two and I found out in a lot of cases,
7:44
Speaker 1: and we'll go through it as we talk about some
7:45
Speaker 1: of these specific things. A lot of them seem geared
7:48
Speaker 1: towards UH or at least they're marketed as like, hey,
7:54
Speaker 1: are you in a long distance relationship? Like, you know,
7:58
Speaker 1: we can help bring you closer by sort of synchronizing
8:03
Speaker 1: UM phone sex in a way, like just a super
8:07
Speaker 1: advanced form of phone sex, right right. And that's definitely
8:10
Speaker 1: like the the genteel way of putting it, because I
8:14
Speaker 1: think probably more to the point, it's hey, do you, um,
8:19
Speaker 1: i'd like to have internet sex with people you don't know? Well,
8:22
Speaker 1: have we got some technology coming down the pike for you. Yeah,
8:25
Speaker 1: And they don't say, hey, are you super lonely and
8:27
Speaker 1: like and you know, it's easy to laugh about, like
8:30
Speaker 1: the lonely dude in his house, but there there are
8:34
Speaker 1: you know, they're genuine phobias, and like, this could be
8:38
Speaker 1: a benefit to people who who aren't, like literally aren't
8:41
Speaker 1: able to certain conditions to go out and have real sex.
8:45
Speaker 1: You know, sure about that, but it's it's a real
8:50
Speaker 1: it could be proved to be a real benefit. Yeah,
8:52
Speaker 1: holders are gonna love this stuff. The the other thing
8:56
Speaker 1: that that almost sounds like what you just said was
8:58
Speaker 1: like a mid term goal of UM, of the future
9:03
Speaker 1: of internet based sex, right, But ultimately from everything I'm seeing,
9:08
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal, or maybe not even goal, but what
9:11
Speaker 1: will probably prove to be the ultimate reality is um
9:15
Speaker 1: that sex will be so improved and and perfectly refined
9:20
Speaker 1: by science and technology that we we will end up
9:25
Speaker 1: preferring it and and I mean, like the normal average
9:29
Speaker 1: human will end up preferring simulated sex over the actual
9:34
Speaker 1: real thing. I don't know, man, I mean that's a uh,
9:38
Speaker 1: that's that sounds like one of those things that that
9:42
Speaker 1: people in fifty years will look back and be like,
9:44
Speaker 1: what idiots, you know, they got that really wrong. But
9:47
Speaker 1: it also seems like, I don't know, people like, uh,
9:50
Speaker 1: people like good sex, you know. Yeah, but it's like
9:56
Speaker 1: simulated sex is to real sex as soilent is to food.
10:00
Speaker 1: Well that's that's so I guess we can talk about
10:04
Speaker 1: it now. Um, there's the basis of it. Is not
10:08
Speaker 1: like everybody just going to be um these uh just
10:14
Speaker 1: completely what's the word I'm looking for? Just this crazy
10:18
Speaker 1: promiscuous people all just having anonymous internet sex with people
10:22
Speaker 1: all over the internet. That will that will probably be
10:24
Speaker 1: a very real possibility. Um, I mean it already is,
10:28
Speaker 1: but this actual virtual like convincingly simulated sex um will
10:33
Speaker 1: eventually be a possibility. What I've seen that will be
10:36
Speaker 1: more likely is that people will be in monogamous relationships
10:40
Speaker 1: like they are now, but rather than doing it, you
10:44
Speaker 1: will go with your like your separate rooms and do
10:47
Speaker 1: it remotely using the simulations, right, or it potentially could
10:52
Speaker 1: be a way too, maybe relieve the uh, the incland
11:00
Speaker 1: nation to step out on your husband or wife, yeah,
11:03
Speaker 1: and say, you know what, I'm not gonna cheat on you.
11:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna you know, it's just a very technologically advanced
11:09
Speaker 1: form of masturbation. Sure, But that also, like I can
11:13
Speaker 1: definitely see couples where say, like, you know, that's fine,
11:17
Speaker 1: that's great, go get your rocks off with the computer lady.
11:20
Speaker 1: But I also see like, no, no, no, that's not
11:23
Speaker 1: that's terrible. Yeah, and I think that's already an issue now,
11:27
Speaker 1: Like you know, are you sure with porn sites or
11:30
Speaker 1: porn sites or webcam people like whatever, But when you
11:36
Speaker 1: when you add this element and This is ultimately what
11:38
Speaker 1: we're talking about, Chuck, is the progression toward adding actual
11:44
Speaker 1: physical sensation too to internet sex. Um that this it
11:50
Speaker 1: just opens up the whole idea of cheating like even further,
11:53
Speaker 1: you know, like you wouldn't have to use your imagination
11:56
Speaker 1: any longer because your body is being physically manipulated to
12:00
Speaker 1: to recreate the sensations of having sex in real life.
12:06
Speaker 1: I feel like we should take a break. I think
12:08
Speaker 1: so too. I think we really set this one up
12:10
Speaker 1: so high that we can't possibly deliver from now on.
12:13
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's take a break and uh, I'm
12:15
Speaker 1: gonna go have a talk with Robert Lamb and we'll
12:18
Speaker 1: be back right after this. All right. So Robert Lamb
12:47
Speaker 1: points out that every lover's embrace is essentially since data.
12:53
Speaker 1: And that's true. It's um, you know, it's touch, smell, uh, sound,
13:00
Speaker 1: it's it's like all the sensory data that we get
13:03
Speaker 1: from you know, eating an apple or something is the
13:06
Speaker 1: same with sex the sexy times. But he asked a
13:10
Speaker 1: very pertinent question here, and that's kind of what we're
13:12
Speaker 1: after is how far can you go to digitize and
13:17
Speaker 1: transmit that information? And uh, touch is probably the best
13:22
Speaker 1: the obvious starting point, right exactly, because if you step
13:26
Speaker 1: back and you look at the the landscape of internet
13:29
Speaker 1: sexuality today, right, it's all all of it is visual,
13:35
Speaker 1: the entire thing. I mean there's audio too, so it
13:37
Speaker 1: is um oral and visual. And I mean the au
13:42
Speaker 1: are a l um Now. I had a joke I
13:46
Speaker 1: had to really fight to not say out loud, well
13:49
Speaker 1: email it to me, okay, um. But so basically, the
13:53
Speaker 1: the current state of internet sex uses your eyes and
13:58
Speaker 1: your ears, and that's it, right, yeah, And everything that
14:02
Speaker 1: we have is based on that, and there's but that's
14:05
Speaker 1: that's not to say that that's not going to play
14:08
Speaker 1: a part in the future of sex. It's just that's
14:11
Speaker 1: the bedrock, the basis that's been laid, and now they're
14:13
Speaker 1: trying to develop it based on that bedrock. And like
14:16
Speaker 1: you said, the next step is touch. Yeah, and if
14:20
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about technology and touch, um haptic technology,
14:25
Speaker 1: which we've talked about. We've talked about this before, haven't
14:29
Speaker 1: we in some capacity? Surely maybe it was a trans
14:33
Speaker 1: cranial The thinking cap was that maybe I don't know,
14:36
Speaker 1: it doesn't ring a bell to me, honestly, all Right, Well, anyway,
14:39
Speaker 1: haptic technology is that that's gonna have a lot of applications.
14:44
Speaker 1: It's essentially I mean, if you're talking about uh, non
14:48
Speaker 1: sexy time stuff. It ranges from uh, telesurgery like literally
14:53
Speaker 1: a doctor being able to perform a surgery that's not
14:56
Speaker 1: in the room, um, which could be amazing, you know,
14:59
Speaker 1: in a lifet having technology or like military training, space,
15:04
Speaker 1: NASA space exploration, stuff like that. But it's essentially technology
15:10
Speaker 1: that uh is. It's it's wearable. I mean they talk
15:15
Speaker 1: about gloves a lot, but it takes it can take
15:18
Speaker 1: the form of a shirt that you wear that sends,
15:21
Speaker 1: you know, pulses of stimulation through that device, whether it's
15:25
Speaker 1: a glove or a shirt to your body, right exactly.
15:28
Speaker 1: So it's it recreates the sensation of touch, right. Yeah.
15:32
Speaker 1: And the weird thing is when I started researching this,
15:35
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, what is touch? You take
15:38
Speaker 1: it for granted, but um, one of the things that
15:41
Speaker 1: they're going for is when you when you touch something,
15:46
Speaker 1: what you're really doing. Like let's say you pick up
15:48
Speaker 1: a vase. Yes, you're you're picking it up, but as
15:51
Speaker 1: far as your sense of touch is concerned, that vase
15:54
Speaker 1: is exerting pressure on the inside of your hand, and
15:58
Speaker 1: haptic gloves in particular are concerned with recreating that pressure
16:04
Speaker 1: um against the inside of your hand to make it
16:07
Speaker 1: feel like when you're looking online and you're virtually grabbing
16:11
Speaker 1: a vase that in real life, the pressure that you
16:15
Speaker 1: would normally be feeling is being recreated by a number
16:18
Speaker 1: of different means. And they've got a lot of different
16:20
Speaker 1: technologies that are competing right now in the prototype space
16:25
Speaker 1: for coming up with this kind of haptic technology that
16:28
Speaker 1: can recreate it. Like, there's one did you see that
16:30
Speaker 1: thing I sent you about the haptic glove that uses ultrasound. Yeah,
16:35
Speaker 1: that's out of the University of Sussex in uh jolly
16:38
Speaker 1: old England, and it's called skin Haptics is a system
16:43
Speaker 1: and yeah, he uses ultrasound pulsing, this focusing basically this
16:49
Speaker 1: haptic feedback onto the surface of your skin so it
16:51
Speaker 1: feels like I mean, right now, it's not just like
16:54
Speaker 1: sexy stuff they're talking about, uh, like a like an
16:58
Speaker 1: interface that doesn't exist in front of you, right right.
17:02
Speaker 1: So there there's a couple of different ones. One actually
17:05
Speaker 1: uses ultrasound to disturb the air in mid air so
17:10
Speaker 1: when you go to press a button with your finger,
17:12
Speaker 1: the ultrasound a non existent button, right exactly. Um, the
17:17
Speaker 1: ultrasound creates an enough air turbulence where your fingers going
17:22
Speaker 1: that you're you get a bit of resistance from it.
17:25
Speaker 1: You feel pressure, which is awesome. Yeah, it's amazing. This
17:28
Speaker 1: other the other skin I think skin haptics version, actually
17:32
Speaker 1: sends the the ultrasound pulse through your hand so that
17:37
Speaker 1: you feel it from its pulsing from the back of
17:40
Speaker 1: your hand through your hand, and then the sensation is
17:43
Speaker 1: being felt on your palm, so it's recreating it coming
17:47
Speaker 1: in the reverse direction. But it feels like, say you're
17:50
Speaker 1: picking up a vase. Yeah, and now is that with
17:52
Speaker 1: a glove or is that just the ultrasound through the air.
17:56
Speaker 1: That second one is with the gloves, So so the
18:00
Speaker 1: other one is like, say a screen that's mounted next
18:04
Speaker 1: to an oven is using ultrasound from the screen on
18:08
Speaker 1: the countertop to disturb the air above it in mid air.
18:13
Speaker 1: That's different. The the glove is sending it from the
18:15
Speaker 1: back of your hand to the front of your hand.
18:17
Speaker 1: And I keep saying it's like you're grabbing a base.
18:20
Speaker 1: But really, with what we're talking about. It's they're trying
18:23
Speaker 1: to recreate what it feels like to say, grab a boob.
18:28
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what they're doing here, right. So so
18:31
Speaker 1: you know the connect controller for I think Microsoft came
18:35
Speaker 1: out with it for Xbox a few years back, and
18:38
Speaker 1: um like, within literally within a month, there was an
18:41
Speaker 1: open source controller. It still is and within a month
18:44
Speaker 1: somebody released a um like a connect porn game. Sure, right,
18:52
Speaker 1: And so if you look at the videos of this,
18:55
Speaker 1: did you see any of them, uh of the Xbox
18:58
Speaker 1: thing or the other thing, the Xbox one, No, I
19:03
Speaker 1: did not see that one. So it's basically the demo
19:06
Speaker 1: is a guy like kind of feeling up a c
19:09
Speaker 1: G I lady, right, okay, And and if what he's
19:14
Speaker 1: doing is it's all visual. What they're trying to get
19:18
Speaker 1: is with with haptic devices is that visual thing, but
19:22
Speaker 1: then you will feel what you're seeing on screen. That's
19:26
Speaker 1: that's the next step that people are working on as
19:28
Speaker 1: far as the Internet sex is going, Yeah, trying to
19:31
Speaker 1: synchronize well, well we'll get to that, but yeah, trying
19:35
Speaker 1: to synchronize these things to where you're looking at something
19:38
Speaker 1: and if you and it just matches up the feel
19:42
Speaker 1: and the and the visual all matches up right, So
19:45
Speaker 1: you get the visual to begin with, that's already done.
19:48
Speaker 1: That now you have, thanks to the say VR connect,
19:51
Speaker 1: you can move your hand in this world and it
19:53
Speaker 1: translates onto your computer the virtual world, and then that
19:58
Speaker 1: so that's done. Then next step again is recreating the
20:02
Speaker 1: sensation of touch from that virtual world into this world.
20:06
Speaker 1: So I thought you were talking about the um that
20:11
Speaker 1: that website, the sex game website. Oh three d x chat.
20:18
Speaker 1: Did you go to that one? Yes? Holy cow? Yeah
20:21
Speaker 1: warning warning, uh, very graphic website. Yeah, we're not saying
20:28
Speaker 1: that to all the fourteen year olds because I think
20:29
Speaker 1: every fourteen year old live has been there, but the
20:33
Speaker 1: year old had not. Yeah, I hadn't either. I had
20:36
Speaker 1: no idea. It was a thing. I was like, what
20:37
Speaker 1: is that kept popping up in uh in in research,
20:41
Speaker 1: and I went and looked. I was like, no way, Yeah,
20:44
Speaker 1: it's um that is a sex game and it's you.
20:48
Speaker 1: You're you have an avatar, but game game is uh,
20:52
Speaker 1: you're using that loosely. It's almost like second life. It's
20:54
Speaker 1: like a hangout, like virtual chat, like life based. Yeah,
21:00
Speaker 1: like you you have a you design your your dude,
21:03
Speaker 1: to your lady, and you go into a bar and
21:05
Speaker 1: you're hanging out, and then you take that person back
21:06
Speaker 1: to your apartment and you have like really graphic uh
21:10
Speaker 1: you know, animated sex. Right, but the person you're picking
21:14
Speaker 1: up is an actual person in real life as well.
21:16
Speaker 1: It's their avatar. It's not like you know, you're you're
21:19
Speaker 1: picking up a sim or something. Right. So, and that's
21:23
Speaker 1: that's apparently like really big right now. A year that's
21:29
Speaker 1: what it cost. Yeah, you get to that's a weird number, man,
21:33
Speaker 1: I know, and it's not even ninety two. I rounded up.
21:36
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't I don't know. They found that
21:41
Speaker 1: was a tipping point. Yeah, exactly, No, they won't pay
21:43
Speaker 1: ninety nine. They'll pay. We pulled a few perverts in
21:47
Speaker 1: our town and they said a hundred dollars, no way.
21:50
Speaker 1: But they got confused around the marks. So that we
21:54
Speaker 1: want that, so, Chuck, we we were largely talking about
21:57
Speaker 1: with Haptick devices, um the love it's not just the glove.
22:01
Speaker 1: That's a that's a big first step, but ultimately the
22:04
Speaker 1: goal is going to be a basically a haptic full
22:07
Speaker 1: body suit to where this the pressure, incense and warmth
22:12
Speaker 1: and everything that has to do with touch is recreated
22:15
Speaker 1: all over your body because your hands are great, but
22:19
Speaker 1: you know, there's still just your hands. As far as
22:22
Speaker 1: internet sex is concerned, that that full body haptic suit
22:26
Speaker 1: is going to be the holy Grail, and apparently it's
22:29
Speaker 1: not that far off. There's a a guy who founded,
22:32
Speaker 1: um a company called Shadow Robot Company. Uh that sounds creepy. Well,
22:38
Speaker 1: actually they make anthropomorphic robot hands for um like people
22:43
Speaker 1: who have had a limb ampitated. It's like a legit
22:47
Speaker 1: robot um company that he just happened to be quoted right.
22:52
Speaker 1: His name was Richard Greenhill, and he said that, um,
22:54
Speaker 1: I think it was last year in an article he
22:56
Speaker 1: said that hap full body haptic suits are just a
22:59
Speaker 1: few years away. Probably Yeah, that'll be huge. But in
23:02
Speaker 1: the meantime, there's been these baby steps that have been
23:05
Speaker 1: taken over the years. And one of the first I
23:09
Speaker 1: guess kind of prototypes of a haptic suit was a
23:12
Speaker 1: haptic shirt called the hug Shirt. Yeah, I don't. I looked.
23:17
Speaker 1: I went to their website and I didn't see I
23:19
Speaker 1: mean it said by it now, So I kept on
23:21
Speaker 1: it to see how much it was and then it
23:23
Speaker 1: didn't come up so I don't know if it's not
23:26
Speaker 1: at market yet, but the idea is is it's a
23:29
Speaker 1: shirt and this is the you know, the most g
23:31
Speaker 1: rated part of this show, because it's a shirt that
23:34
Speaker 1: simulates a hug, yeah, which is pretty sweet. Company UK
23:38
Speaker 1: company called Cute Circuit and I think they came out
23:41
Speaker 1: with it back in like two thousand one or two,
23:44
Speaker 1: and they I think they released them for sale in
23:46
Speaker 1: like two thousand five or six or something like that.
23:48
Speaker 1: But basically, you are wearing your, um, your hug shirt.
23:54
Speaker 1: You're connected to the internet via the hug Shirt app,
23:58
Speaker 1: and then you're you're, UM, your lover, your lover. Man,
24:04
Speaker 1: I was gonna say a little sweetie was on the
24:06
Speaker 1: other end, but lovers fine, um, and they're wearing their
24:11
Speaker 1: hug shirt connected to the app. So when you simulate
24:15
Speaker 1: a hug, right, you hug yourself wearing the hug shirt,
24:18
Speaker 1: it transmits that hug to your right and they feel
24:25
Speaker 1: the sensation of the hug you just sent transmitted through
24:28
Speaker 1: their hug shirt. It's pretty it's awfully sweet. Yeah. I
24:31
Speaker 1: wanted to I want to know what this feels like,
24:33
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to sample one. Yeah, well, I
24:36
Speaker 1: mean We're on a pretty great streak of not doing
24:40
Speaker 1: the stuff that we're talking about, So why start now?
24:43
Speaker 1: You know? Well I couldn't, you know, I tried to
24:45
Speaker 1: buy one, but I didn't see where you could. Did
24:47
Speaker 1: you see a very nice man named Don Kent who
24:50
Speaker 1: gave us plenty of the Elder before sent us a
24:52
Speaker 1: box of soiling? Oh wonderful. Yeah, well, let's try it
24:57
Speaker 1: on air. Okay, okay, Oh man, that's a eight idea.
25:00
Speaker 1: We'll have to set it up in another episode just
25:02
Speaker 1: so that it has all the proper introductions. We'll just
25:05
Speaker 1: say this so that everybody can get really excited about it. Yeah,
25:08
Speaker 1: I'm excited already. Uh. So the other simulator that um
25:12
Speaker 1: is in prototype mode. There's something called the Kiss Transmitter
25:16
Speaker 1: from Kajumoto Laboratory at Tokyo's University of electro Communications, and um,
25:22
Speaker 1: did you see this thing? Yeah? I was very much
25:26
Speaker 1: turned off by that. Yeah, it's at least right now
25:29
Speaker 1: unless the prototype has advanced. It's supposed to simulate French kissing.
25:32
Speaker 1: But it was a box. Uh and it looked like
25:36
Speaker 1: a bent drinking straw that just went around in a circle. Yeah.
25:42
Speaker 1: And they showed some poor undergrad who is having to
25:47
Speaker 1: demonstrate it, and they were doing close ups of his
25:50
Speaker 1: mouth and this thing swirling around with It's not pleasant
25:53
Speaker 1: at all, No UM, but the Kissinger, well hold on
25:57
Speaker 1: with just with the with the the kiss transmitter. I
26:01
Speaker 1: think the idea is eventually that that um straw will
26:04
Speaker 1: be a tongue, which would makes a lot more sense.
26:07
Speaker 1: But the trick to this is it doesn't just spin
26:10
Speaker 1: in a circle. What it does is it uh, it
26:13
Speaker 1: works with you like when you are moving your tongue around,
26:17
Speaker 1: it is reciprocating in likewise fashion. So it's not just
26:21
Speaker 1: willie Nilly spinning around in a circle. It's it's it's
26:26
Speaker 1: smarter than that. Yeah. So there was this other thing
26:30
Speaker 1: called the Kissinger. I did see that that was really creepy.
26:33
Speaker 1: So that one, this one makes a lot more sense
26:36
Speaker 1: to me. It's it's actually the PhD project of Emma
26:40
Speaker 1: yan Zang out of the City University of London and
26:44
Speaker 1: UM this thing. It was originally a box that connected
26:48
Speaker 1: via USB to your laptop that you kissed and it
26:51
Speaker 1: had like kind of almost cartoonish lips attached to it
26:54
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then the newer prototype is this UM
26:59
Speaker 1: this thing that you connect to, say your iPhone, and
27:03
Speaker 1: so it's it's connected to the web through an app.
27:06
Speaker 1: And when it's got this, I guess the mouth interface
27:10
Speaker 1: is just this um, this pad almost a touchpad area
27:15
Speaker 1: that you kiss, right, yes, And as you're kissing it,
27:19
Speaker 1: it is taking in the movement and pressure of your lips,
27:23
Speaker 1: sending it through the app to your lover yeah um
27:28
Speaker 1: on the other end, and recreates the kiss to them.
27:32
Speaker 1: But what's cool is it's bidirectional, so while they're kissing
27:35
Speaker 1: you back, you're receiving their kiss. Yeah. What's the disturbing
27:40
Speaker 1: part to me is is that it comes in the
27:42
Speaker 1: form of like a little round bunny rabbit. Oh yeah, yeah,
27:46
Speaker 1: you didn't see it. Oh that was the first version. Oh,
27:50
Speaker 1: the second version is conversion. The second version is much
27:53
Speaker 1: less like they basically threw out any attempt to make
27:57
Speaker 1: it look like a mouth. It just it funk sans
28:00
Speaker 1: like it. It doesn't look like it because I think
28:02
Speaker 1: they probably you were probably in the majority of people
28:05
Speaker 1: who are like, I'm not kissing that thing. Well, yeah,
28:07
Speaker 1: I mean it was a little it looked like a
28:09
Speaker 1: little round like Ferby toy with a big set of lips.
28:12
Speaker 1: On it. Yeah, And the other disturbing part was you
28:15
Speaker 1: had to hold it down because it was constantly trying
28:17
Speaker 1: to get away, which it was like, why did you
28:21
Speaker 1: make that design choice? That's very creepy. Yeah, so we'll
28:24
Speaker 1: get to really creepy stuff later too. By the way, well,
28:28
Speaker 1: are you talking about tell a del donis. I think
28:31
Speaker 1: we should take a break before we talk about that
28:33
Speaker 1: about tell adul donis. Let's take a break alright, We're
29:01
Speaker 1: back to talk about telldil donics. It's funny, like I
29:05
Speaker 1: can't say lover, but I have no problem saying telldul donics. Yeah.
29:10
Speaker 1: So of course they called it that. It needs some
29:13
Speaker 1: like nineties club like background beat with like telldulics. Yeah.
29:18
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see if Noah whip us up one. Alright,
29:23
Speaker 1: So tell adul Donix is the development of automated sex
29:30
Speaker 1: toys controlled by either a program or remote user. Right,
29:36
Speaker 1: so technically, if kissing it could be construed as sex,
29:41
Speaker 1: the kissinger is a form of teleodul donis. Yes, and
29:46
Speaker 1: the basis of telldul donics as you have some sort
29:49
Speaker 1: of um uh sex toy, I guess it's a good
29:53
Speaker 1: way to put it. That's a great way to put it.
29:55
Speaker 1: And that sex toy is connected to the internet. Um
30:00
Speaker 1: and like you said, it can be controlled by somebody
30:03
Speaker 1: else on the other end, or a program or like
30:06
Speaker 1: a video that's um pre programmed to interact with your
30:10
Speaker 1: sex toy. Right. Um, the both of those are are
30:16
Speaker 1: gonna be huge, But it seems like the it seems
30:20
Speaker 1: like the progression is more toward remote sex. Right. So
30:25
Speaker 1: the upshot of it is that you have two separate
30:29
Speaker 1: sex toys, um with some distance between them, connected to
30:34
Speaker 1: the Internet, and the people manipulating them on either side
30:39
Speaker 1: are receiving the sense information, the tactile information from the
30:44
Speaker 1: other's sex toy into their sex toy and is responding
30:49
Speaker 1: to it in kind. How is that? Uh, that's a
30:52
Speaker 1: good you navigated those waters. Thank you. If it sounds
30:56
Speaker 1: like the word itself sounds like something from the seventies,
30:59
Speaker 1: it's because it is. Um. It was coined in nine
31:02
Speaker 1: by a guy named Ted Nelson. Uh. And he was
31:05
Speaker 1: talking about you know, future where you have remote sex
31:08
Speaker 1: with those those real feelings of touch transmitted through computers. Um.
31:13
Speaker 1: So he was really kind of ahead of the game there. Um.
31:16
Speaker 1: And one thing they compare it to uh, it's also
31:19
Speaker 1: cyber del Donis or telesildnix Um. One kind of non
31:24
Speaker 1: sexy thing that they will liken it too is the
31:28
Speaker 1: the vibrating uh video game controller rumble pack. Yeah, but
31:34
Speaker 1: I mean they all have it now, and it's if
31:36
Speaker 1: you play video games, that's a big part of it.
31:38
Speaker 1: You know, it really adds. It adds a lot to
31:42
Speaker 1: the game played. Um when you feel like the rumble
31:46
Speaker 1: of like a car crash or an explosion or something,
31:49
Speaker 1: and you know it's kind of subtle, but it's just
31:51
Speaker 1: such a part of gaming now. If it went away,
31:52
Speaker 1: people would be like, you know, what's what's going on?
31:54
Speaker 1: It's not nearly as good, right, Okay, So now imagine that,
31:58
Speaker 1: like your controller rumbling a little bit, and the effect
32:01
Speaker 1: that that has on you if you if you think
32:03
Speaker 1: about it, like especially with the N sixty four rumble pack,
32:06
Speaker 1: the first one I believe, which is haptic technology, right, Yeah,
32:09
Speaker 1: I remember when that came out. It was pretty awesome,
32:12
Speaker 1: and it was awesome, but if you think about it,
32:13
Speaker 1: basically your controller just shook and it didn't necessarily faithfully
32:17
Speaker 1: recreate whatever it was supposed to be recreating, but that
32:22
Speaker 1: that extra sense that was being manipulated caused your brain
32:25
Speaker 1: to just go wild. Your imagination just ran wild, and
32:29
Speaker 1: it really enhanced it, like you said, right, yeah, it's
32:32
Speaker 1: gotten a lot better too. But how they do it? Now?
32:34
Speaker 1: Imagine you take that out of your controller and out
32:38
Speaker 1: of your hands and apply it to say, your sex toy, right,
32:42
Speaker 1: and now you're developing sex toys that have an amazing
32:47
Speaker 1: degree of precision in recreating temperature, moisture, level, um pressure, attention, torque, horsepower,
32:59
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Right, So you've got so the sex
33:01
Speaker 1: toys are advancing, and then their ability, their bi directional
33:05
Speaker 1: ability to receive information and transmit information to another sex toy,
33:10
Speaker 1: which is then capable of recreating and then sending its
33:14
Speaker 1: own information, means that you can have virtual sex across
33:19
Speaker 1: the internet using sex toys and experiencing a real techtile
33:24
Speaker 1: sensation from it. Yeah, and these are the ones where
33:27
Speaker 1: mostly I saw that they were trying to target, uh,
33:30
Speaker 1: couples that are in long distance relationships or when you're
33:34
Speaker 1: away from each other for business travel or whatever that
33:37
Speaker 1: you can you can sink up your sex toys in
33:40
Speaker 1: real time, so the things that you're doing are being
33:45
Speaker 1: felt on the other end exactly But a good example
33:49
Speaker 1: of this is the love Pals, which if you're a
33:52
Speaker 1: sex toy manufacturer, step up the names, shall we. Oh
33:57
Speaker 1: it's always been that way. Love Pals with the z
34:01
Speaker 1: um Yeah, of course. But they came up with a
34:03
Speaker 1: pair of um sexy choice called Zeus and Hera and
34:08
Speaker 1: and they're exactly what we're describing, and from what I
34:10
Speaker 1: can gather, they're basically the cutting edge of it. Yeah,
34:14
Speaker 1: I mean I looked up there were they list a
34:16
Speaker 1: few in this article Real Touch from two thousand nine
34:20
Speaker 1: seems like it completely went away. There was one in
34:23
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven called love Lovins, not with a z
34:29
Speaker 1: surprisingly Um, and they had the Iman and the Eye Lady,
34:34
Speaker 1: and that I look that up. They had Max and
34:37
Speaker 1: Nora which were there. It was a male master bader
34:41
Speaker 1: which is a machine that does it for you, and
34:45
Speaker 1: a female stimulator and they named them Max and Nora.
34:49
Speaker 1: Is very cute and they worked through bluetooth in their
34:52
Speaker 1: phone app. But um, the last I saw was there
34:55
Speaker 1: was an indie Go go from a couple of years
34:58
Speaker 1: ago that was half funded and posed. So the only
35:01
Speaker 1: one that I've seen that has really and I don't
35:03
Speaker 1: know about taken off because I don't know they're sales,
35:05
Speaker 1: but it seems like it's a legit thing that's out there.
35:07
Speaker 1: Is the love Pals, Well did you look up the winds?
35:10
Speaker 1: So we got that article from the website of a
35:13
Speaker 1: company called kirou k I I R O O. Yeah,
35:17
Speaker 1: and they have their own thing going. That's actually what
35:19
Speaker 1: um doing well too. The onyx, yeah, the onyx and
35:22
Speaker 1: the pearl, yes, yeah. And the onyx is the male
35:27
Speaker 1: uh buddy, right, and the pearl is the female buddy yeah. Uh.
35:33
Speaker 1: And these things look like you know that the right
35:35
Speaker 1: out of the Apple Store. I don't know if you
35:36
Speaker 1: saw pictures, but they're obviously trying to make them like
35:40
Speaker 1: take them out of the back rooms of Spencer Gifts
35:43
Speaker 1: and bring them to the forefront of Like, look at
35:46
Speaker 1: this thing. It looks like you're you know, it looks
35:49
Speaker 1: like any any Apple device you would find. It's exactly.
35:52
Speaker 1: It's futuristic looking. Uh. You can put it in your dishwasher,
35:56
Speaker 1: you can leave it on your coffee table and your
35:58
Speaker 1: parents could come over. They'll have no idea exactly, doesn't
36:01
Speaker 1: have any weird spikes or nubs. Right, You don't get
36:05
Speaker 1: like a free trial of um, you know, simulated pot
36:09
Speaker 1: with it. What's that stuff called? I have no idea,
36:14
Speaker 1: you know, like simulated like um fake pot that you
36:18
Speaker 1: could buy it a head shop. Oh yeah, I think
36:21
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. I can't remember. It's
36:23
Speaker 1: called spice. Yes, spice. You get a little baggy of
36:27
Speaker 1: spice for free with it. They're like, we simulate everything,
36:32
Speaker 1: all right. So we're joking around a lot. But um,
36:34
Speaker 1: there's a man named Dr Stewart Milloy and he created
36:38
Speaker 1: something called the Orgasmatron and again that's kind of a
36:42
Speaker 1: goofy name, but he created in two thousand eight, and
36:45
Speaker 1: this one actually sends an electrical pulse through the nerves
36:48
Speaker 1: of the spinal cord and basically the idea is it
36:55
Speaker 1: could potentially help women who either cannot or last the
36:59
Speaker 1: ability to experience and orgasm to regain that with this device. Yeah,
37:04
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. Yeah. Well he named I should
37:06
Speaker 1: say he named the after the the machine and Woody
37:10
Speaker 1: Allen Sleeper nine three, right, But apparently he stumbled upon
37:14
Speaker 1: this idea because he is a pain doctor. But he
37:19
Speaker 1: uses um electrodes in the brain to to cut down
37:23
Speaker 1: on pain and chronic pain patients and he was working
37:26
Speaker 1: on one woman um and apparently during the procedure, so
37:30
Speaker 1: he knows where the electrodes should go. The patient has
37:33
Speaker 1: to be conscious, so they just give you a local
37:35
Speaker 1: anesthetic and take off the top of your head and
37:38
Speaker 1: then he gets in there and fiddles around. It's like
37:40
Speaker 1: hell Raiser basically right. And as he was doing it,
37:43
Speaker 1: he hit the spot and he said that the um.
37:47
Speaker 1: The patient began to quote exclaim in fat emphatically and
37:52
Speaker 1: he stops him. He's like, what's going on, what's what
37:55
Speaker 1: are you experiencing? And she's like, you need to teach
37:57
Speaker 1: my husband how to do that, and he's like, huh.
38:02
Speaker 1: People would love this. But I was reading Chuck the
38:04
Speaker 1: Scientific you no New Scientist article on it, and they
38:09
Speaker 1: said that his orgasmatron received a limp reception from the
38:14
Speaker 1: scientific community. They're better than that, they said, limp reception.
38:18
Speaker 1: They're better than that. Apparently not. So we we've covered touch.
38:23
Speaker 1: Touch isn't going to be a very important one pretty soon.
38:26
Speaker 1: There's this thing called the Illusion VR body Suit, and
38:29
Speaker 1: it's basically a hack together version of what will ultimately
38:33
Speaker 1: be what everybody's wearing in the future, which is a
38:36
Speaker 1: full haptic body suit with VR, which is really important.
38:45
Speaker 1: Next step as well, UM pornography combined with some sort
38:51
Speaker 1: of UM sex toy that works automatically. Yes, yeah, so
38:58
Speaker 1: the idea, I mean, you've heard of Oculus off the
39:01
Speaker 1: you know, probably the most advanced VR system going now,
39:03
Speaker 1: at least as far as I know. I'm not up
39:07
Speaker 1: to date on the latest with that stuff, but it's
39:09
Speaker 1: supposed to be great. So you know, you're talking about
39:11
Speaker 1: a future where you, I guess sound is covered that
39:14
Speaker 1: with the invention of headphones, it's kind of all you
39:16
Speaker 1: need there, but throw on the headphones, throw on the
39:19
Speaker 1: Oculus rift uh, strap into your teledul donic system, and
39:27
Speaker 1: you could you know, the range of things that can
39:31
Speaker 1: happen there are either just long distance sex with your
39:35
Speaker 1: lover or potentially weird things like, hey, do you want
39:40
Speaker 1: to have sex with uh Jennifer Lopez, Well, we've got
39:45
Speaker 1: a program you can pay for and do that, and
39:47
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lopez is really mad, Well yeah, you know, or
39:53
Speaker 1: or UM I think another another potential that a lot
39:57
Speaker 1: of people are worried about from this is is UM
40:00
Speaker 1: VR especially gets more and more realistic. Are people just
40:04
Speaker 1: acting out there just darkest darkest fantasies, and there's a
40:09
Speaker 1: lot of UM. There's a lot of debate right now
40:13
Speaker 1: over ethically, morally and legally how acceptable that is. You know.
40:19
Speaker 1: So one of the big discussions about UM internet pornography
40:24
Speaker 1: right now is as we're reaching this ability to UM
40:28
Speaker 1: pretty accurately simulate, although a lot of it's not very accurate,
40:32
Speaker 1: like even good c g I is still clearly c
40:35
Speaker 1: g I, and some of it dips into the uncanny valley.
40:38
Speaker 1: But as we pass out of the uncanny valley and
40:41
Speaker 1: get like more and more realistic, the question is is, well,
40:44
Speaker 1: if you have people who UM are engaged in victimizing
40:51
Speaker 1: other people in real life out of compulsion or something
40:55
Speaker 1: like that. Like there's a lot of debate over whether
40:57
Speaker 1: pedophilia is actually based on brain chemistry, which would take
41:03
Speaker 1: it out of the realm of choice. Right, So, let's
41:05
Speaker 1: say you believe that PEDOPHILIAX people, Yeah, pedophilis pedophiles, that's right.
41:12
Speaker 1: If you believe that pedophiles don't have a choice in
41:14
Speaker 1: their just their their decisions, their compulsions UM, and that
41:20
Speaker 1: they have to carry this out, it's just basically castrate themselves,
41:26
Speaker 1: is it morally acceptable to give these people a virtual
41:31
Speaker 1: simulation of that, yes, and in which case it will
41:33
Speaker 1: satisfy their compulsion while at the same time preventing them
41:39
Speaker 1: from carrying out this compulsion in real life. So so
41:42
Speaker 1: in real life no one is being harmed, but you're
41:46
Speaker 1: still giving over a virtual kid for a pedophile to
41:51
Speaker 1: do whatever with. Yeah, that is the slippery uts of slopes,
41:55
Speaker 1: because if someone were to argue that, someone I'm very
41:59
Speaker 1: right fully would argue that who's saying that satisfying that
42:04
Speaker 1: and not building up two act out on that for real?
42:09
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, yeah, And that's that's a lot of
42:11
Speaker 1: a lot of concern coming from the other end as
42:14
Speaker 1: well as that, UM as we get more and more
42:17
Speaker 1: into this incredibly rendered um VR sex that you can
42:24
Speaker 1: actually feel in sense and all that as well, that
42:27
Speaker 1: it will you know, the fact that it's VR will
42:30
Speaker 1: make people who otherwise in real life wouldn't have said, well,
42:33
Speaker 1: you know what happens if I um choke this avatar
42:36
Speaker 1: to death while we're doing it. Let's see what that's like,
42:40
Speaker 1: And then they'll find out that they actually like that
42:41
Speaker 1: and they might want to try it in real life.
42:43
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean as soon as this stuff like
42:46
Speaker 1: is out there, there's gonna be someone selling rape and
42:49
Speaker 1: murder fantasy software and I just don't see how that
42:54
Speaker 1: could lead to anything good. Well, but that's the I mean,
42:57
Speaker 1: that's the long term debate, you know, Like people have
42:59
Speaker 1: said the thing about violent video games, there's there's never
43:03
Speaker 1: been a body of of study that shows that violent
43:08
Speaker 1: video games actually do lead to increased violence in real life.
43:13
Speaker 1: So I mean, is the same thing true for um,
43:17
Speaker 1: for sex freaky sex. Well, all right, people can turn
43:23
Speaker 1: it off because Chuck's opinion is coming emvoy. People don't
43:27
Speaker 1: like it when I say opinionated things. Some people do.
43:31
Speaker 1: I don't remember if I covered this much on our
43:33
Speaker 1: on our episode about video game violence, but I've played
43:36
Speaker 1: a lot of violent video games more in the last
43:38
Speaker 1: two years, and my feeling is that you may not
43:42
Speaker 1: be able to pinpoint that as a cause, but I
43:44
Speaker 1: think it can be a factor and a tipping point
43:47
Speaker 1: to someone who was teetering on that edge of carrying
43:52
Speaker 1: out a violent act. Yeah, that's that's my I firmly
43:55
Speaker 1: believe that because I am a non violent grown man,
43:59
Speaker 1: and when you play these game sames enough, you find
44:02
Speaker 1: yourself driving around and having these thoughts like not that
44:04
Speaker 1: I really would do these things, but they pop into
44:07
Speaker 1: your head, just like the same way used to have
44:08
Speaker 1: Tetris streams. When I played Tetris too much and I
44:11
Speaker 1: would not even dreams like waking dreams. I would walk
44:14
Speaker 1: into a room and see boxes be like, oh, you
44:16
Speaker 1: could arrange these in a different way. It like has
44:18
Speaker 1: a way of kind of taking your brain over and
44:20
Speaker 1: then you take out your aggression on the box. But
44:23
Speaker 1: I think it definitely absolutely can be a a factor
44:27
Speaker 1: and a tipping point if someone is close. Yeah. Again,
44:30
Speaker 1: I mean it's anecdotal, but you prefaced it with the
44:33
Speaker 1: fact that that's your opinions, just my opinion, but that's
44:35
Speaker 1: your experience too, you know. Yeah. And I'm not saying
44:38
Speaker 1: like band violent video games because like the lion share
44:42
Speaker 1: of people can play these things with no problem. But uh,
44:46
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's tricky. One of the other
44:48
Speaker 1: problems with it, too, Chuck, is that as we get
44:51
Speaker 1: more and more into recreating the sensation of sex through
44:54
Speaker 1: vr UM, the possibility of sexual assault is expected to
45:00
Speaker 1: just skyrocket. Virtual sexual assault and apparently it's already happened. Um.
45:06
Speaker 1: There's a writer named Jordan bell Air, and she was
45:11
Speaker 1: playing a VR game called quiver Um within multiplayer mode,
45:18
Speaker 1: and she said that um, her voice sold her out
45:21
Speaker 1: as a woman, revealed she was a woman, but other
45:25
Speaker 1: than that, her avatar looked like a man. And then
45:28
Speaker 1: one of the other players just started chasing her and
45:30
Speaker 1: groping her and rubbing her um in her uh where
45:34
Speaker 1: her bathing suit covers and she um. She said that
45:38
Speaker 1: she felt genuinely violated by it. I'm sure this is
45:42
Speaker 1: without any kind of haptic technology whatsoever. This is strictly visual,
45:47
Speaker 1: and she still felt violated. So we're she wearing like
45:50
Speaker 1: a haptic body suit so she could feel what her
45:52
Speaker 1: avatar was feeling. What's the difference between somebody doing that
45:57
Speaker 1: in real life and somebody doing it virtually, I think
46:01
Speaker 1: to me the answer is is none. There is no
46:03
Speaker 1: difference for the end user, for the the victim is
46:07
Speaker 1: another way to put it. The victim is going to
46:09
Speaker 1: experiences the same because your brain is relying on sensory
46:13
Speaker 1: input to determine, say, whether a touch is comfortable or
46:17
Speaker 1: welcomed or unwelcomed or violating, and whether it's being recreated
46:22
Speaker 1: by a computer. Your mind isn't going to make any
46:25
Speaker 1: distinction from that. And you're tho, so the violation is
46:29
Speaker 1: through and through real and and again that there's that
46:33
Speaker 1: potential where because it's not in real life and because
46:37
Speaker 1: of the anonymity that the Internet affords, that the possibility
46:41
Speaker 1: of that happening can just could really explode. Yeah, somebody
46:47
Speaker 1: needs to come up with the game called a game
46:50
Speaker 1: like that called affirmative consent, you know, where everything is
46:55
Speaker 1: just above board. You introduce yourself and you get to
46:58
Speaker 1: know each other and you say, I like to be
47:00
Speaker 1: your lover. Can I touch you there? Sure? No? Okay,
47:04
Speaker 1: well I'll just back out of the room slowly. So
47:07
Speaker 1: the one thing we haven't talked about is smell as
47:10
Speaker 1: far as sensory experience goes. And some people may uh
47:15
Speaker 1: discount smell or the importance of smell and sexuality, but
47:20
Speaker 1: I have always been long championed smell as the one
47:26
Speaker 1: of the underrated uh senses when it comes to sexy times. Uh.
47:32
Speaker 1: And if you do think, oh, like it's not the
47:33
Speaker 1: big of a deal, think about if you've ever had
47:36
Speaker 1: a time or smell has ruined something in sexy time.
47:40
Speaker 1: So if you do like think smells not that big
47:42
Speaker 1: of a deal. We're not. Just don't think of just
47:45
Speaker 1: good smells, like oh, somebody's perfumer cologne, like, think of
47:49
Speaker 1: like bad smells. How that can turn something wrong. Well,
47:51
Speaker 1: Robert actually makes a pretty good point in this article.
47:54
Speaker 1: He says that one out of every fifty gens lover
47:57
Speaker 1: in the human genome concern sense, yeah, or smell. The
48:02
Speaker 1: sense of smell. Yeah. I think every husband has been
48:05
Speaker 1: told at some point, like, why don't you go take
48:07
Speaker 1: a shower first? You know you were you were just
48:11
Speaker 1: working in the yard. Sure, there's nothing sexy about that. Yeah,
48:15
Speaker 1: except the smell of grass is pretty great to grass um.
48:20
Speaker 1: But there was a company chuck a few years back.
48:23
Speaker 1: I think they went under around two thousand one or
48:25
Speaker 1: two thousand two, and the company is called digit Sense,
48:28
Speaker 1: and they had something called the I Smell and it
48:31
Speaker 1: was connected to your computer. And the whole idea was
48:34
Speaker 1: that they had to say, you know how, you have
48:38
Speaker 1: cyan magenta um colors, yellow, and black? Is that right?
48:44
Speaker 1: C M y K Yeah, And you can make millions
48:48
Speaker 1: millions of colors based from those four pigments. These guys
48:52
Speaker 1: were trying to do the same thing with smells. Come
48:55
Speaker 1: up with four basic sense that you could make virtually
48:59
Speaker 1: any smell with right, and uh, it's amazing. It's so
49:03
Speaker 1: sad to me that they it didn't go anywhere, but
49:06
Speaker 1: it's like, come back, digit sense, do it now, like
49:10
Speaker 1: we're ready. Yeah, this would be so amazing if like
49:14
Speaker 1: the whole thing was, you'd be on the Internet and
49:16
Speaker 1: there'd be a little, um, a little pixel on the
49:20
Speaker 1: web page that triggered your eye smell to produce a
49:23
Speaker 1: certain sent It sent the information how long it should
49:26
Speaker 1: be there for, how intense whatever. So you're looking at
49:30
Speaker 1: elephant pictures and you can smell the elephant poop right
49:33
Speaker 1: there in the room with Yeah, there's this other cool
49:37
Speaker 1: aspect Robert points out to which is um. The addition
49:41
Speaker 1: of this smell and taste to this experience and touch
49:46
Speaker 1: even it lightens the burden on the visuals. So it's
49:50
Speaker 1: something called cross mode all attention effects uh in in
49:54
Speaker 1: science communities, and it basically it's the way the brain
49:57
Speaker 1: prioritizes century input. UM. Like you know, if you're sitting
50:02
Speaker 1: on this and this is a great example uses if
50:05
Speaker 1: you're sitting on the sofa and you're just sitting there,
50:07
Speaker 1: you might feel the sense of the sofa cushion under
50:11
Speaker 1: your arm and under your butt. But then someone comes
50:14
Speaker 1: over and kisses you, and your brain goes, well, hey,
50:19
Speaker 1: and you don't feel the sofa cushion under your butt anymore.
50:21
Speaker 1: You feel the lips against your lover's lips, and your
50:25
Speaker 1: bow tie spins around. But that's the real thing. It's
50:30
Speaker 1: cross model attention effects. It's like literally the brain prioritizing uh,
50:35
Speaker 1: sensory input. Yeah, and apparently also one of the aspects
50:39
Speaker 1: of it too, is that when you have the more
50:43
Speaker 1: senses you have giving you information about a particular thing,
50:47
Speaker 1: the less any one particular sense has to carry the load.
50:51
Speaker 1: And again, up to this point, our sense of vision
50:55
Speaker 1: and our sense of hearing have been doing all of
50:57
Speaker 1: the heavy lifting. So if you add smell, if you
51:00
Speaker 1: managed to add taste, if you managed to add touch,
51:03
Speaker 1: the the like, just how visually stunning the the VR
51:09
Speaker 1: pornography has to be. Is it comes down several notches.
51:14
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be as good because these other
51:16
Speaker 1: senses are making up the slack. Well, I mean, phone
51:20
Speaker 1: sex was just audio, right, I mean I said, was
51:24
Speaker 1: imagine that's still a thing, But um, did you ever
51:27
Speaker 1: see Shortcuts the Robert Altman movie. Remember Jennifer Jason Lee
51:31
Speaker 1: was a phone sex operator. She's like, you know, feeding
51:34
Speaker 1: her baby and ironing, and like her husband's in the
51:37
Speaker 1: other Chrispin is in the other room. God rest his soul.
51:40
Speaker 1: Oh Chris Pinn died huh two thousand and sixteen. Oh no, no, no, no,
51:45
Speaker 1: years ago, Crispin. Yeah, but anyway, that was always kind
51:50
Speaker 1: of thought. That was funny. Like anyone who thinks the
51:52
Speaker 1: phone sex person is is right enjoying themselves like you are.
51:58
Speaker 1: They really sold themselves. Uh. And Robert, I do want
52:01
Speaker 1: to read this one great sentence from his article here. Uh,
52:05
Speaker 1: there are people at the University of York's audio laboratory
52:08
Speaker 1: who are working to employ this cross model attention effects
52:12
Speaker 1: and really just fine tune it all. And he said
52:15
Speaker 1: here in his last sentence, They've even considered employing a
52:18
Speaker 1: mouthpiece to simulate different textures against the tongue in mouth
52:22
Speaker 1: for virtual food chewing, they claim. M Man. Then, then
52:30
Speaker 1: I think Robert navigated some pretty tricky waters himself. Now
52:33
Speaker 1: he did, well, it's a good article. I just yeah, yeah,
52:37
Speaker 1: the lover's thing. Yeah, uh, you got anything else, no, sir? Uh?
52:43
Speaker 1: We'll want to give a shout out to um Tracy
52:46
Speaker 1: Clark Floory from Vocative for the UH the Ethics of
52:51
Speaker 1: of VR sex stuff, UM kill Kei rou who gave
52:56
Speaker 1: us the televildonic stuff, and of course are and Robert
53:00
Speaker 1: Lamb who wrote the whole article. Right, yeah, stuff to
53:03
Speaker 1: blow your mind. Did good show. If you want to
53:05
Speaker 1: know more about future sex, you can type those words
53:08
Speaker 1: into the search bar and what comes up will be
53:10
Speaker 1: wowee wow wow. And since I said that it's time
53:13
Speaker 1: for listener mail, I'm doing something I out normally do
53:19
Speaker 1: because I didn't have one prepared. I'm just gonna randomly
53:22
Speaker 1: pull one up. We have to do administrative details against soon. Yeah,
53:28
Speaker 1: I'm gotting some good stuff. By the way, thank you
53:30
Speaker 1: to the people that send an emails saying that UH
53:35
Speaker 1: an English speaker saying junta is completely correct. Whatever I know.
53:42
Speaker 1: You like to show off your your flair. You're Latin
53:45
Speaker 1: American flair. My my heat, my Latin heat. All right?
53:51
Speaker 1: I found one, Hey, guys for starters. I love the show.
53:55
Speaker 1: I got hooked on s U s K. People still
53:59
Speaker 1: do that occasionally. It's funny. Uh SUSK and even had
54:03
Speaker 1: iTunes to do the download all and I'm turning through
54:06
Speaker 1: them all. Just got done listening to the soilent episode
54:08
Speaker 1: and the listener mail. You mentioned how the breastfeeding episode
54:11
Speaker 1: was so well received, So was there an episode and
54:13
Speaker 1: stuff you should know history, he said, s Y s K.
54:16
Speaker 1: The second time, by the way, that was chock full
54:19
Speaker 1: of hate mail. Would be a cool factoid of what
54:22
Speaker 1: your greatest bomb was. Maybe parallel that with your top
54:26
Speaker 1: five shows of all time to smooth it over. Well,
54:29
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that, but it's a lot of asks.
54:32
Speaker 1: Yeah that is from John uh Navicus Navicus and um boy.
54:41
Speaker 1: You know what, we got a lot of bad mail
54:42
Speaker 1: recently about artificial sweeteners. I've noticed. Oh yeah, yeah, people
54:47
Speaker 1: are kind of mad. Some people are I think they're
54:51
Speaker 1: all like Um from the Splendid Family. But yeah, that
54:57
Speaker 1: one set people off to an extent. We also got
54:59
Speaker 1: a lot out of kudos for that one. The one
55:02
Speaker 1: John Um to me that stands out that we got
55:05
Speaker 1: the most hate mail for UM is not necessarily our
55:09
Speaker 1: biggest bomb, but it was homelessness or homelessness episode. Sure,
55:15
Speaker 1: we got tons and tons and tons of negative emails
55:19
Speaker 1: from people who are basically like homeless people are there
55:21
Speaker 1: because they're lazy. Stop telling people to be nice to them.
55:25
Speaker 1: And uh, probably more than any other episode we've ever done.
55:28
Speaker 1: I would say that's the one that has that we
55:31
Speaker 1: got the most hate mail for. What about You? Uh
55:35
Speaker 1: yeah probably so, Um, yeah, I think so. I think objectively,
55:41
Speaker 1: that is the one by far that we got the
55:43
Speaker 1: most hate mail for. Yeah, and we've been on record
55:45
Speaker 1: about that, and we even got a mail just last
55:48
Speaker 1: week about that episode saying, hey, I know you guys
55:50
Speaker 1: get a lot of flak for this one, and they
55:52
Speaker 1: send us an email of support, which is nice. Thank
55:54
Speaker 1: you to whoever wrote that. That was very nice. Yeah.
55:57
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say artificial sweeteners and homelessness. Uh yeah,
56:00
Speaker 1: It's not like those emails like made me reconsider my
56:03
Speaker 1: stance on how I feel about homeless people or whatever.
56:05
Speaker 1: But it just sucks to hear angry stuff from that
56:09
Speaker 1: many people about something that you think is kind of
56:12
Speaker 1: brain dead, you know. Um, well, all right, if you
56:17
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, like John did,
56:18
Speaker 1: thanks for the email, John, you can tweet to us.
56:21
Speaker 1: I'm at Josh M clark and at s Y s
56:23
Speaker 1: K podcast. Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that
56:27
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know on Facebook. You can send us
56:29
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot
56:31
Speaker 1: com and has always hang out with us at our
56:33
Speaker 1: home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
56:41
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
56:43
Speaker 1: it how stuff Works dot com