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Teledildonics and New Ways of “Being in Touch”: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Use of Haptic Devices for Intimate Relations

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse teledildonics from a phenomenological perspective in order to show the possible effects they will have on ourselves and on our society. The new way of using digital technologies is to merge digital activities with our everyday praxes, and there are already devices which enable subjects to be digitally connected in every moment of their lives. Even the most intimate ones are becoming mediated by devices such as teledildonics which digitally provide a tactual stimulation allowing users to have sexual intercourse through them. The efforts made in order to provide such an intertwinement of our everyday lives and digital technologies are evident, but the effects produced by them are not clear at all. This paper will analyse these technologies from a phenomenological perspective in order to understand their effects on the constitution of the subjects and on our society at the intimate level.

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Notes

  1. These devices are also known as “cyberdildonics”.

  2. For example, we will not take into account how these technologies are going to act from an engineering point of view focussing on the hardware and software used in order to achieve “pleasant” results. We will not take into account even the effects on gender studies these technologies will have by allowing the subject to restructure their own sexual body and we will not focus on the special attention of the “penetration” we find in the design of these devices.

  3. Even if the possibility of interacting with artificial intelligences is taken into consideration, we will use it in order to improve our understanding on the interaction between two human subjects. Therefore, we are not interested in predictions concerning the creation of an artificial intelligence such as the ones made by Ray Kurtzweil for the years 2020–2050 (Kurzweil 2006).

  4. There are studies aiming to merge phenomenology and feminist theory such as (Al-Saji 2010), but this work is not concerned about this theme.

  5. There are many studies on how the virtual reality is designed according to a “male” point of view. “Virtual worlds are almost exclusively created by white, middle class males, whether the venue is virtual sex or virtual cooking.” (MacKie 1994).

  6. See, for example, (Campbell-Kelly et al. 2013).

  7. See, for example, the phenomenological analysis proposed by Hansen (Hansen 2006).

  8. The virtual reality can be described very well by the cyberpunk term “cyberspace” coined by William Gibson (Gibson 1982, 1984). The cyberspace is defined as a “consensual hallucination” and it clarifies the idea of being immersed into a second world where its space is not a physical space, but an “imagined” “cyber” one.

  9. It is possible especially thanks to the pervasive use of Internet.

  10. One of the last revolution in computer design is the introduction of personal computers which allow everyone to have their own private and personal point of entry to these second virtual world (Allan 2001).

  11. On phenomenology and augmented reality see also (Liberati 2014a, 2015a).

  12. Actually the usage of technologies for sexual activities has a quite long history. See, for example, (Tierney 1994; Springer 1996).

  13. It is difficult to define this term because it touches many different praxes (Divínová 2005). However, we will use it in relation to every action concerning a sexual activity and a digital technology without limiting it to an interaction among two or more actors. We are doing this kind of simplification because we are not interested in the perfect definition of this term, but only in how subjects can have a sexual interactive experience thanks to the digital technologies.

  14. On cybersex and power see, for example, (Penny 2013).

  15. Couples already use these devices to being in touch (Neustaedter et al. 2013). It is possible to think, in the near future, even intimate relations will be mediated by these digital technologies and especially by teledildonics.

  16. According to the survey made by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy the “21 % of teen girls and 18 % of teen boys have sent/ posted nude or semi-nude images of themselves” (Washington 2008).

  17. According to Personnel Today almost fifthteen years ago (in 2002) the use of sexual material at work by surfing the internet was already massively present. The “69 % of all dismissals in the previous year had been for surfing sex sites on the Web”.

  18. It is estimated every second thousands of US dollars are spent in pornography and there are thousands of users expressively oriented toward a sexual content. See, for example, http://www.webroot.com/us/en/home/resources/tips/digital-family-life/internet-pornography-by-the-numbers (Accessed March 15, 2016).

  19. We use mathematical formalisations for highlighting the kind of relation created through the technologies. Thus, they are not used for any computations, but just to show the structure in a more defined way.

  20. Especially this second way of experiencing cybersex is important for every kind of analysis because it represents the way it was made pervasive.

  21. In this case we use the double arrow (\(\leftrightarrows\)) instead of the single arrow (\(\rightarrow\)) in order to show how the subjects are interacting together. We do not have an omnidirectional consumption of the sexual content.

  22. It is possible to have sex through a phone call in “phone sex” where two people can intimately relate each other (Selmi 2012). However, we will not take into account this case directly because it is focussed on the auditory sense while we are more interested in visual and tactual ones.

  23. The chat is an interaction among subjects and this simple aspect makes it much more important for our purpose because it is a new way of being in touch with the other.

  24. Obviously it is possible to describe many different activities not related to penetration, but still related to sexual activities. However, with teledildonics we will mainly talk about penetration and so we are highlighting this element in order to make easier the connection among these technologies.

  25. On phenomenology and the “avatar” see, for example, (Klevjer 2012).

  26. Especially at the beginning, when the chat was created, the simple fact the subject could choose their own definitions made this technology massively used. Today we are facing the opposite trend. The social network and other forms of textual interaction among subjects anchor the identity of the subjects to their “real” identity. Therefore, they are required to provide their pictures and their actual details instead of allowing the subject to freely choose who to be. For example Facebook “suggests” to the users to use the real details instead of creating accounts with fictitious data. See, for example, https://www.facebook.com/help/167722253287296 (Accessed March 15, 2016) where users can “report” that fact an account has “fake” pictures which “Don’t represent a real person”.

  27. See, for example, (Moring 2006).

  28. “Suzette [a Chatbot] is constantly being hit on by guys making suggestions ranging from rude to aggressive to pornographic (mostly the latter)” (Wilcox and Wilcox 2011). See also (Yeoman and Mars 2012). Moreover, it is a theme we can find even in our usual life such as in the film Her directed by Spike Jonze where there is an artificial intelligence which sexually interacts with the protagonist.

  29. In this case we are assuming a very advanced artificial intelligence which can pass the Turing test. At present we do not have it.

  30. Sometimes we will refer to this world as the everyday world or the “real” world as opposed to the one created by the digital technologies into which the subjects immerse.

  31. We are always assuming a human first subject (\(^{H}{}{S_1}\)). However, we could take into account also the case of an artificial intelligence as the first subject (\(^{H}{}{S_1}\)). We are not doing it because we are interested in the relations among human subjects much more than the one between artificial intelligences.

  32. These different subjects can be human beings or artificial intelligences as we previously showed.

  33. We use the example of Second Life because it is one of the most used platforms for experiencing virtual reality. See the official website http://secondlife.com/ (Accessed March 15, 2016).

  34. See, for example, (Craft 2012).

  35. We always refer to the “visual” experience because it is most used sense in virtual reality. However, it is possible to think to the stimulation of every other sense if the subjects use the right devices. We will later see the possibility of having tactual stimulation with teledildonics.

  36. This kind of duplication of the world raises many questions about the possibility of being “bodily free” because it is possible to “leave” this world and our physical body. “The most “dehumanizing” aspects of computerization, such as anonymous communication, online role playing, and cybersex.” Feenberg (2005, p. 60).

  37. For example, one of the problem rising with these technologies is the increasing rate of paedophilic acts done in the virtual world.

  38. This aspect about the effects in the outside world of the actions performed in the virtual reality is related to the way the subject are immersed in the second world. See, for example, (Liberati 2013, 2015b).

  39. This devices will be available in the second half of this year (2016). See the web page https://www.oculus.com/en-us/ (Accessed March 15, 2016).

  40. See also the predictions made by Kurtzweil (Kurzweil 2010). On an introduction of haptic devices and other technologies connecting different sensory fields for sex see, for example, (Gallace and Spence 2014, pp. 225–228). Moreover, see (Brave and Dahley 1997) if interested in one of the first realisation of an haptic device which allowed distant subjects to touch each other.

  41. Rheingold pointed out these devices would have been used for communication (Rheingold 1990).

  42. See (Samani et al. 2012; Saadatian et al. 2014).

  43. The design of these technologies can vary so much to reach the level of being designed as puppets which are controlled remotely (Wagner and Broll 2014). There are already many different teledildos on the market: RealTouch (discontinued some years ago), Kiiroo (https://www.kiiroo.com/), OhMiBod (http://shop.ohmibod.com/) and the one developed by FriXion (http://www.frixion.me/) (Accessed March 15, 2016). The fact there was a “patent troll” case with teledildonics shows how pervasive this phenomenon is becoming (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/teledildonics-patent-troll-backs-down-from-lawsuit-against-kickstarter/) (Accessed March 15, 2016).

  44. See above at page 9.

  45. See, for example, http://www.virtualporn360.com/ (Accessed March 15, 2016).

  46. The tactile sensations are defined by Husserl as the most important ones because they are “localised” and so they allow the subject to have a living body [Leib]. See, for example, (Liberati 2012, 2014b). A subject with non localised sensations could not have any [Leib] (Husserl 1971, p. 122).

  47. On female robots see, for example, (Kuwamura and Nishio 2014) (http://www.gcoe-cnr.osaka-u.ac.jp/Geminoid/GeminoidF/f_resources.html) (Accessed March 15, 2016). Clearly this model is not designed for sexual activities, but it is an example of a “female” robot. On robots designed for sexual activities see (Levy 2009; Bond 2007; Yulianto 2015).

  48. In the following schemes we will use the parentheses in order to identify the tight relations between subject and technology. The reason for such a choice is the kind of relations working between them which will be analysed in the section on embodiment relations.

  49. Not every kind of teledildonics is able to perform such an interaction between the subjects and most of them work just in one direction without allowing the first subject to “feel” the feedback coming from the second subject. However, we can work with ideal technologies without caring too much about the limits these devices are now facing in order to study their effects in the long run.

  50. With the term “male-shaped” we mean a shape which mimics a male sexual organ and with “female-shaped” we mean a teledildo which replicates the female sexual organ. Thus, a subject who wants to transmit the specific stimulus of “penetration” to another subjects needs a female-shape teledildo in order to capture the “penetrating” motions.

  51. The way the device is designed has to be related to the original sex of the user because it has to take the input from it. For this reason, we cannot say the original gender of the subject is completely irrelevant because the devices have to be designed according to it. However, once the input coming from the body of the subject is captured, there are no further reference to the subjects’ original sex because the data can be decoded in many different ways.

  52. The first subject is free to shape the data sent to the second subject and to reshape the data received by this second subject. Thus, it is possible to think of subjects who are not related to the other because they can re-shape everything as they want. However, even if the first subject is free to shape the data received from the second subject, these data are pre-arranged by the second subject and received with this original arrangement. Thus, the first subject knows the kind of gender the second subject wants to show, even if the first subject is still able to re-shape it. So, in principle the first subject decides what to “send” to the other and they know what the second subject will send back.

  53. For example, there is already a teledildo which reacts to the music played by the iPod: the OhMiBod Freestyle (http://shop.ohmibod.com/Boutique-ohMiBod/Music-Vibrators-wireless/Freestyle-W) (Accessed March 15, 2016).

  54. This is a basic way of producing a simple input based on four possible combinations. However, it is possible to generate much more sophisticated inputs. Especially in the era of the “smart house” or “smart city” it is really easy to think of private or public devices which are able to provide such a “useful” and “rich” input. Moreover, we should not think of “private” objects only because the teledildos can be connected to public objects as well. For example, a traffic light can provide such an input.

  55. On an introduction on post-phenomenology see, for example, (Verbeek 2005; Ihde 2003a, 2009; Selinger 2006).

  56. With the term “living body” we mean the phenomenological German term Leib as opposed to Körper.

  57. This is not a paper on post-phenomenology and so we are not going to introduce these relations in details. In order to study these relations in more details see the references on post-phenomenology we already made through the text such as (Verbeek 2005; Ihde 1990).

  58. We have to use the word “modification” and not “enhancement” in order to take in mind that every kind of “magnification” of the original subject’s capabilities yields also a “reduction”. For example, the glasses yield richer details, but it provides also flare and chromatic aberrations. See (Liberati 2015c). However, even if the right term is “modification” and not enhancement, in the future we will use both terms because we are interested especially in the improvement of some part of the perceptual capability of the subject and so we can “ignore” the reduction produced by the devices.

  59. With “phenomenology” we refer especially to the Husserl’s philosophy.

  60. See, for example, (Geniusas 2012).

  61. See, for example, (Husserl 1966).

  62. This example works also in other cases.

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Acknowledgments

The author is supported by the PostDoctoral Research Fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) No. P14782. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the paper, as these comments led us to an improvement of the work.

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    Nicola Liberati

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Liberati, N. Teledildonics and New Ways of “Being in Touch”: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Use of Haptic Devices for Intimate Relations. Sci Eng Ethics 23, 801–823 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9827-5

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  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9827-5

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