Please join us at our inaugural panel in Sydney.

Calling all sex futurists! It’s time to gear up for our long-awaited, first Future of Sex meetup taking place on Thursday, November 13, in Sydney.

The free event will be held at Hub Sydney, Level 2, at 101 William St, Darlinghurst, NSW, starting at 6p.m. Click here for map.

Our fantastic group of panelists, Jacqueline Hellyer, Catharine Lumby, Scott O’Brien, and Mark Pesce, will guide us through the realm of human sexuality and its future. They’ll explore how technology is shaping who we are and what we are becoming.

We will explore the pleasurable, perhaps even unbelievable, new experiences that are waiting for us in the future. We plan to engage attendees in thought-provoking and lively discussions on topics such as remote intimacy and sex, augmented reality, virtual sex and, dare we say, crowd orgasms.

The meetup, which will be captured on video, starts with socializing from 6p.m. to 8p.m., with the panel discussion kicking off at 6:30.p.m, followed by more informal conversation.

We look forward to seeing you at the free event! Please register on our Meetup page if you can attend.

Meet the panel:

Scott O’Brien

Scott is one of the world’s leading experts in augmented reality, and the founder of Augmented Reality OMG. We’re excited to hear what he’ll have to say about the future of sex beyond the limits of the human body.

Will it be possible to download your celebrity crush as an operating system? Will your significant other really give you a “free pass” when it comes to sex with your favorite star, or was that just pillow talk?

Here Scott talks about augmented reality in front of the Sydney Opera House:

 

Jacqueline Hellyer

Jacqueline is one of Australia’s top authorities on sex and sexuality. She’s a sex therapist, coach, and educator known for her radio show The Tantric Lounge. She holds a Masters of Science in Sexual Health.

She names teledildonics, virtual sex, and quasi-holographics as “just a few of the technological innovations that could transform our sex lives.”

As more people become interested in the type of sex that transcends physical experience, she begs the question:

So where does love, connection, spirituality fit in with the techno-sex, and can the technology actually help us find more meaning in sex at all levels of our being—emotional, mental, spiritual and physical?

She also has advice for men on getting a “black belt in the bedroom.”

Mark Pesce

Mark is is a renowned futurist, inventor, and author. He’s one of the early pioneers in virtual reality. For seven years, he acted as a panelist and judge on the ABC’s hit series “The New Inventors.” His articles on technology and culture also regularly appear in WIRED, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and ABC’s The Drum.

Mark is fascinated by how sharing is affecting the way people learn. And he wonders why there isn’t a Wikipedia for sex just yet.

In the video below he speaks at the TEDx Talk in Canberra.

 

Catharine Lumby

Catharine is a regular media commentator on television, radio, as well as in print and online publications. Her research focuses on how social media is changing the way young people socialize and how technology is integrating into their romantic relationships.

Catherine, Professor of Media at Macquarie University, wants to explore how much technology affects human behaviour and whether the so-called panic over online adult content is justified.

In the video below, she talks to Studio 10 about teenage boys and pornography.

The Story of FutureofSex.Net

The seeds of the online magazine Future of Sex were planted back in 2006 when futurist Ross Dawson wrote an article about adult virtual worlds on his highly popular blog Trends in the Living Networks. He was fascinated by how new technologies were impacting human sexuality, and with the massive traffic to his post he discovered the depth of interest in what sex may become. This resulted in the launch of the FutureofSex.net publication in 2011 to explore this intriguing topic. The publication now explores an array of subjects related to sex technologies, including sex robots, remote sex, immersive adult entertainment, human augmentation, and virtual sex.

Ross Dawson is the publisher of Future of Sex and the editor is Jenna Owsianik, a writer and multimedia journalist based in Sydney, Australia.