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