Nov 2010
Why Han Is Solo: Techno SEX!
Filed in: Why Han Is Solo: Techno SEX!
By Rosie DiManno
GUELPH
I have come here for sex.
An unlikely destination for it, granted. Who knew they were even having any? But the University of Guelph – more commonly associated with agricultural study – is the site of a two-day sexuality conference, the 31st annual symposium on all matters coital and squishy. That means a lot of sex therapists and clinicians sitting around talkin' dirty and calling it research: the academic missionary position.
After loading up on graft at the giveaway table – condoms and, um, specimen collection kits (for do-it-yourself gonorrhea and chlamydia swabbing) – I scanned the workshop schedule, disappointed at having just missed a forum on "Managing Sexual Feelings in Professional Practice," which either refers to prostitutes falling in lust with their johns or therapists crossing the line with their patients, a no-no clearly unobserved by that prominent Toronto psychiatrist who last week was stripped of his licence by the College of Physicians and Surgeons for knocking up a patient and taking her on secret shag trips. Off by a day, also, for "A Kink Positive Approach" – when does S & M become abusive? – and "The Poles Are In," which does not refer to Eastern Europeans.
Instead, I sidled into a jammed presentation on "Women's Sexuality," an attractive young lady dishing the latest on hyperactive sexual arousal disorder, which is clinical jargon for "Not tonight, dear, I've got a headache." In fact, as I learned, fatigue and not-in-the-mood and you-stink-of-booze are but three of some 700 reasons/excuses documented by researchers studying why women decline amorous overtures. What with the zowie boost of Viagra, though, dames have been demanding their own stimulant and pharmaceuticals are keen to fill that prescription. One product in the testing stage, a pump-bottle lotion that's rubbed into the arm for instant horniness, will cost about $4 a day, but is expected to rake in up to a billion a year for its maker.
Women have apparently been clamouring for inclusion in the large test group. "They all want to sign up," said the expert at the podium. "They all want to get in the program and increase desire.'' Or perhaps the problem rests with the undesirability, after a time, of one's sexual partner, but make-you-pant orgasm launchers don't come in a bottle, although they do sometimes come in a box ... from the sex toy shop.
While gadgets are popular, millions upon millions are increasingly getting their jollies in the alternate universe of virtual make-out – on the Internet. This was the subject of the plenary session "Sex Tech: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology," delivered by sex educator Cory Silverberg, fast-talking co-founder of Come As You Are, a Toronto-based nookie-gizmo emporium. The cybersex phenomenon all started with your basic porn, of course, a beast still largely fed by purveyors – the first streamers – of traditional male fantasies fulfilled. But techno-sex is a brave new frontier, limited only by imagination and what's currently available in programming capability. As a Luddite, I plead ignorant to what's out there online, though Silverberg's entertaining presentation provided glimpses into a raunchy world just a click away, as well as a preview of what may be on tap.
Interactive pornography – that hot girl on the screen – is not at all what it seems, a computer "responding in a way that seems human" to commands tapped in. But the next stage, already here actually, at least in trade shows, is the era of teledildonics, which is pretty much as it sounds: manipulation of a sex toy over the Internet using a computer interface.
Example: One person controls a dildo's commands – vibration and speed – while a partner on the other end experiences the sensations, perhaps seen in real time on a net-cam or videophone. "It will bring touch into the virtual world,'' Silverberg explains. "My partner is watching me watching them and feeling me touching them."
Another clever tech evolution, still at the infancy stage, is the Hug Shirt – a body suit that simulates caresses, and more, as commanded by an operator, who might be your spouse on a business trip. This is like phone sex, but mutually tactile. The current patent-holders originally envisioned the product for long-distance hugs. "They intended to sell them to parents who travel a lot," notes Silverberg. But where hugs lead, sex follows, certainly with the global appetite for Internet porn.
And can sex-tech ever be really real? Does that even matter anymore, in a world where, according to a Stanford researcher, 16 million people are now plugged in to "massively multiplayer role-playing games," spending an average of 22 hours a week at it online? Anyway, I could say more about this particularly gratifying sex symposium at the university.
But what happens in Guelph stays in Guelph.
© 2009 Torstar Syndication Services. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved.
You may forward this article or get additional permissions by typing http://license.icopyright.net/3.7212?icx_id=651956 into any web browser. Torstar Syndication Services and Toronto Star logos are registered trademarks of Torstar Syndication Services . The iCopyright logo is a registered trademark of iCopyright, Inc.
GUELPH
I have come here for sex.
After loading up on graft at the giveaway table – condoms and, um, specimen collection kits (for do-it-yourself gonorrhea and chlamydia swabbing) – I scanned the workshop schedule, disappointed at having just missed a forum on "Managing Sexual Feelings in Professional Practice," which either refers to prostitutes falling in lust with their johns or therapists crossing the line with their patients, a no-no clearly unobserved by that prominent Toronto psychiatrist who last week was stripped of his licence by the College of Physicians and Surgeons for knocking up a patient and taking her on secret shag trips. Off by a day, also, for "A Kink Positive Approach" – when does S & M become abusive? – and "The Poles Are In," which does not refer to Eastern Europeans.
Instead, I sidled into a jammed presentation on "Women's Sexuality," an attractive young lady dishing the latest on hyperactive sexual arousal disorder, which is clinical jargon for "Not tonight, dear, I've got a headache." In fact, as I learned, fatigue and not-in-the-mood and you-stink-of-booze are but three of some 700 reasons/excuses documented by researchers studying why women decline amorous overtures. What with the zowie boost of Viagra, though, dames have been demanding their own stimulant and pharmaceuticals are keen to fill that prescription. One product in the testing stage, a pump-bottle lotion that's rubbed into the arm for instant horniness, will cost about $4 a day, but is expected to rake in up to a billion a year for its maker.
Women have apparently been clamouring for inclusion in the large test group. "They all want to sign up," said the expert at the podium. "They all want to get in the program and increase desire.'' Or perhaps the problem rests with the undesirability, after a time, of one's sexual partner, but make-you-pant orgasm launchers don't come in a bottle, although they do sometimes come in a box ... from the sex toy shop.
While gadgets are popular, millions upon millions are increasingly getting their jollies in the alternate universe of virtual make-out – on the Internet. This was the subject of the plenary session "Sex Tech: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology," delivered by sex educator Cory Silverberg, fast-talking co-founder of Come As You Are, a Toronto-based nookie-gizmo emporium. The cybersex phenomenon all started with your basic porn, of course, a beast still largely fed by purveyors – the first streamers – of traditional male fantasies fulfilled. But techno-sex is a brave new frontier, limited only by imagination and what's currently available in programming capability. As a Luddite, I plead ignorant to what's out there online, though Silverberg's entertaining presentation provided glimpses into a raunchy world just a click away, as well as a preview of what may be on tap.
Interactive pornography – that hot girl on the screen – is not at all what it seems, a computer "responding in a way that seems human" to commands tapped in. But the next stage, already here actually, at least in trade shows, is the era of teledildonics, which is pretty much as it sounds: manipulation of a sex toy over the Internet using a computer interface.
Example: One person controls a dildo's commands – vibration and speed – while a partner on the other end experiences the sensations, perhaps seen in real time on a net-cam or videophone. "It will bring touch into the virtual world,'' Silverberg explains. "My partner is watching me watching them and feeling me touching them."
Another clever tech evolution, still at the infancy stage, is the Hug Shirt – a body suit that simulates caresses, and more, as commanded by an operator, who might be your spouse on a business trip. This is like phone sex, but mutually tactile. The current patent-holders originally envisioned the product for long-distance hugs. "They intended to sell them to parents who travel a lot," notes Silverberg. But where hugs lead, sex follows, certainly with the global appetite for Internet porn.
And can sex-tech ever be really real? Does that even matter anymore, in a world where, according to a Stanford researcher, 16 million people are now plugged in to "massively multiplayer role-playing games," spending an average of 22 hours a week at it online? Anyway, I could say more about this particularly gratifying sex symposium at the university.
But what happens in Guelph stays in Guelph.
© 2009 Torstar Syndication Services. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved.
You may forward this article or get additional permissions by typing http://license.icopyright.net/3.7212?icx_id=651956 into any web browser. Torstar Syndication Services and Toronto Star logos are registered trademarks of Torstar Syndication Services . The iCopyright logo is a registered trademark of iCopyright, Inc.
