Sex in 2115: Biohacking Bodies and Turning Ourselves into Sexual Cyborgs
What erotic transformations are awaiting us in the next century?
Welcome to Human Body 2.0
Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the basic operations of both the new and improved physical structure as well as the operating system.
The first things you may have noticed are the major improvements to the physical sexual perimeters (i.e. the genitals). Don’t be alarmed. Rest assured that not only will they perform just like the previous versions, but they have been totally redesigned to improve just about every aspect of erotic pleasure.
Oh, and don’t forget to agree to the Terms and Conditions.
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Predicting the future is, at best, hit and miss; mostly a lot of misses to a very few hits.
But that’s never stopped me before. So, after looking at a few of the remarkable innovations that have recently appeared, I’ve tried to speculate on the hot new bodies we all could be wearing in the next hundred or so years.
And, naturally, as this is Future of Sex, I’ll be paying particular attention to the erotic fun all of us might be having with our new bodies.
Above the neck
Not to take away from what many people call their favorite body part, but one of the greatest changes coming to our sex lives is actually above the neck—not below the waist.
The field of neurochemistry has made tremendous steps in the last few years. True, there is still a lot to learn, but if things progress at this rate in a few more years—let alone 100—there’s every indication we’ll have the ability to alter our thoughts, our emotions, our intelligence: everything that makes us… us.
Anxiety, shame, guilt, depression, and a whole myriad of psychoses—the whole negative parade of things that makes life barely tolerable for millions of humans—could be managed, or completely edited out, with new drugs or even customized cybernetic implants.
And what does this have to do with sex? Well, everything; after all, our sexuality rests much more in our minds than in our bodies. With this conquering of consciousness, we’ll have the ability to not just increase or decrease our libidos but change the focus as well.
Let’s get a touch more specific. After all, I more than likely won’t be around in 100 years to be criticized for getting any of this wrong.
Jumping a tad ahead from mind to bodies, one almost guaranteed innovation is going to be longevity. Some have even speculated that soon we’ll see the death of death within the next few decades.
Others have conjectured that this will lead to crippling boredom. But I think that with our mastery of consciousness, that too will be a thing of the past. Why not take a vacation with a new orientation? How will bigotry and intolerance fare in a society where you can actually live someone else’s sex life—take a lifetime’s long walk in their sexuality?
Think of a world where experience is the new currency: where we’ll be able to know what it is to be, and love, as an entirely different person.
But why stay with human desire? A tweak of our minds and we could get aroused by the wind, the stars in the skies, music, or by creating a work of art.
Or, taking this into a new direction, how’d you like to see the world through completely innocent eyes? Software can be edited—or copied and deleted—in all kinds of interesting ways. You could be with your lover like it was that magical first time by putting a copy of those years on a virtual shelf and restore your mind to when you first met. Just think of the possibilities of creative and sensual amnesia.
But let’s not stop there. Once we bridge the software/meatware barrier we’ll have the possibility of uploading our minds ourselves into other bodies, even customized erotic ones.
We could spend a long time playing in this possible mental playground of the next century but let’s drop down a bit; to what could very well happen to our genitals.
Below the waist
First, a word about the rest of our bodies: just as huge steps are being made in the neurosciences, we are making equally staggering strides in biology.
From gene therapy to bio-printing, from cloning to advanced surgical techniques, we are fast approaching a time when our bodies will be almost as flexible as our upgraded minds.
Someone (I think it was me) once said that the future can be summed up as having options.
Looking back only a few years, limited mass production—and costly customized fabrication—meant that, to paraphrase Henry Ford on his Model T, you could have any color you wanted, as long it was black.
Soon, however, we’ll be able to quickly alter pretty much anything about our biological selves. Skin color, gender, and age could go from genetic destiny to personal choice. Life could become a form of art we can barely contemplate, where many will push the limits of not just sexuality but what it means to be human.
So let's get to our happy places: the genitals of the future.
Let’s face it, evolution is a wonderful thing, but when it comes to the playground of our sex organs there is definitely room for improvement.
Neurologically, we may be able to treat any part of our bodies as an extension of our genitals. Arousal from a fingertip, a nose, the palm of the hand—we’ll be able to remap our sexual body to any point we wish. And, again, we’ll be able to switch it off, change the frequency, or ramp it up to 11 without a thought.
As we gain more and more skill in reshaping our bodies, the whole concept of gender will more than likely vanish. Humans could create a whole new vocabulary to express the combinations of penis, vagina, urethra, breast, mouth, tongue, clitoris, anus, and the sex organs we, today, don’t even have names for.
Biological sexual response will be a matter of when and not —due to age or medical difficulties—if. We’ll be able to engorge, lubricate, dilate, or whatever we want whenever we want with just a thought. The headache of having the spirit willing but the flesh uncooperative will be long-forgotten.
Sticking with the antique definitions of male and female, though these too-narrow terms will be like talking about sock garters and television to coming generations. So let’s indulge in some playfully sexy speculations for the upcoming century.
For penis-preference humans, again, erection will be an easy, and variable option. As, more than likely, will be customization of length and thickness. Face it, various sizes don’t always work for certain activities. But in the coming decades that won’t be a problem. Think of it as putting the top up or down on a car—though those terms, too, might be obsolete in a few more years.
As we’ll have the whole of human biology to play with, why not do some mix and matching? Taste buds, for instance, could be placed anywhere (thank you, Adam Warren). Special glands could be created to ease—or enhance—all kinds of activities. There’s also no reason why we couldn’t add unique musculature to the male member to add wild new position possibilities. We could also add new nerve types there, changing the entire neurological landscape of the organ.
Reproduction would also be a matter of conscious decision and not biological imperative. The whole idea of birth control will be not preventing it, but making a conscious decision make it happen.
For those who prefer to have vaginas, the entire architecture is a possible playground. Nerves could be rerouted or increased in any part from interior to labia. Lubrication, again, would be a when and not a hope. Let’s not forget about taste buds, as well as streaming the whole menstrual cycle. I know a lot of people who would consider that an absolute priority.
The clitoris could equally benefit from some of that penile nerve tweaking and muscle manipulations. It doesn’t take a very polished crystal ball to see the potential in a full penis/clitoris hybrid.
Then there’s the sexual matching of technology and biology. Why not do with engineering what flesh and blood can’t? We’ll more than likely have implanted vibrators, neurological stimulators (where a touch could generate a world of new sensations in a partner), recording devices, artificial muscles, and worlds more.
The groundwork for this kind of technology is already out there. Right here on Future of Sex we’ve talked about both the development of prototype artificial genitals—as well as the homegrown biohacking movement where dedicated self-modifying hobbyists are taking important steps in becoming cyborgs, particularly sexual ones.
The eroticism of tomorrow
A century ago we were in the middle of the First World War: biplanes ruled the skies, the already-mentioned Model T was changing the world, and sex was as perilous as it was pleasurable. A person from that time, a century later, would barely recognize us.
Agreed, trying to see the future is mostly misses—against a few rare hits. But, if anything, I think this playful speculation is a bit too conservative for what we will be like in 2115.
It’s all a matter of time—plus, of course, desire.
And humans, I think we all can agree, certainly have a lot of that.
Image sources: Emil_95, Ashley Campbell, m_hweldon
