Sexual Humanity 2.0: Your Pleasure-ready Body in the Future of Sex

How mind-boggling breakthroughs may take us to new erotic heights. 

Recently we looked at what a day in the not too distant future might look like, focusing particularly on the erotic.

In that same spirit here is another bit of playful speculation, but this time on what our future physical selves might be like—based both on the pace of current technology as well as some imaginative musings.

Starting at the top

One of the most important changes will be in human consciousness itself: how we view the universe, our world, humanity, and even ourselves.

While we will eventually be able to augment our minds through cybernetic implants, that old staple of science fiction, it will take quite a few years for that to become commonplace. Mostly because, let’s face it, drilling a hole into your head just to access the Internet when you can do the very same thing with a smartphone is a bit silly—and risky.

What will allow us to literally change our minds will be a combination of medications, especially when they are made to perfectly mesh with our own DNA. Inklings of this possibility are showing themselves in emerging gene editing techniques like CRISPR as well as non-invasive deep brain stimulation, which is when you can affect the mind using skin surface contacts—no holes in the head required.

It may even be possible to create new kinds of mental structures, or even personality types: taking what was once a source of discomfort and turning it into a fascinating new way of thinking and living.

It may even be possible to turn on, turn up, turn down, or turn off arousal. Need to focus on some task? Then sublimate your erotic impulses into problem solving or creativity—or even connect an activity like being productive into a form of sexual thrill.

Want a wild day off? Then switch on your libido and dial it up to 11! You could even tweak what you find sexually attractive. What happens to sexual bigotry when anyone can be attracted to everyone and anyone?

This also has the potential of controlling sexual anxiety. Feeling nervous? With a metaphorical flick of the switch, you won’t be. Sure, there’s lots of room for abuse—from the perils of addiction to this technology being used without consent—but let’s hope that from this technology will also come a framework for understanding and preventing these kinds of things from ever happening.

Wearing the world

As far as interfaces go, wearables will be your gateway both to the world beyond and into your own mind—until the era of brain implants arrives. Until then, things like augmented reality glasses and contact lenses, the aforementioned deep brain stimulation devices, and electronic tattoos will allow us to control our homes, our minds, and connect our bodies via the web to anywhere and anyone in the world.

Access to this level of immediate communication and information would mean that you would be able to understand any language from Farsi to Songhay, both spoken as well as written. Hearing it, you’d receive an instantaneous translation via bone conduction. Looking at it, you’d see a translation into your language of choice.

Augmented reality would also give you the ability to understand the world as never before. Glance at a building and you could, if you wanted, know everywhere from its architect to who lives on the third floor. Need to repair your bike? The instructions would be right there in front of your eyes.

And what if you think that person over there looks amazingly hot? A look and you would be able to see that not only is that person into what you are, but is looking for someone to play with.

Worried about privacy? If all goes well, you would only share what you want to share. And if someone else wants to know what you are sexually into, they’d only be able to tell if they were into it, too.

You can be what you want to be

Much has been written about the average person of the future being an amalgam of what we erroneously call races. While it is true that we are mixing and matching like never before, this doesn’t take into account that, in just a few short years, things like melanin, epicanthic folds, hair color and texture, as well as the structures of the face and body will be completely changeable. Using, once again, gene editing technology as well as advanced plastic surgery techniques, you can choose your own physical form humanity’s vast array of possibilities.

The same is true with what we call gender and so-called secondary sexual characteristics. Our near-future human could have dark skin, epicanthic eyes, blond hair, six fingers, sensual breasts, and both a penis and a vagina. What would you call them? The answer: whatever they want to be called.

The basic shape of our bodies would also be just as flexible. Those living on space colonies might prefer to have extra hands instead of pretty useless feet. Others might choose to replace limbs with customizable tools, swapping them out for regular limbs when the job is finished.

In the area of genitalia, we will also have a staggering range of choices. Even though I just used the words penis and vagina, more than likely those words will be as outdated as the idea of race. Genitals, both artificial as well as biological, could be a phantasmagoria of shapes and uses—changed, even, as their user changes their sexual preference or interests.

One vision of the future

This is all just playful—and particularly hopeful—speculation. Who knows what will actually happen to us in the future. We may very well discover some new technological breakthrough that will change everything here, or suffer some major planetary setback.

But let’s hold onto the idea that as we become as advanced socially as we’ll eventually become technologically, that someday we will all outgrow bigotry, ignorance, and hate.

Here’s to the idea that we all will have the ability to become physically what we want to be—and that humanity will finally become a place of tolerance, acceptance and, most of all, love.

Image sources: m_hweldon, Lady Stromfield, Steve Johnson