Self-driving vehicles will put sex in the fast lane.

A report by Debbie Hopkins and Scott Cohen published in the Annals of Tourism Research has been getting a lot of press lately.

But their findings should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following developments in self-driving cars or has even a minimal understanding of human nature. Especially when it comes to sex.

Brothels on the go

Titled “Autonomous Vehicles And The Future Of Urban Tourism,” the Hopkins and Cohen paper strongly suggests that as self-driving technology develops, many people will take advantage of the mobile privacy it offers to intimate encounters.

The authors speculated primarily on how this anticipated trend will affect the tourism industry.

“It’s only a natural conclusion that sex in autonomous vehicles will become a phenomenon,” Cohen told The Washington Post.

The tourism professor at the University of Surrey, further added that this will lead to vehicles rapidly becoming the hip new place for sexual assignations.

And where there’s sex, there’ll be people offering pay-to-play services. Or, as Hopkins and Cohen put it in their paper:

Hotels-by-the-hour” are likely to be replaced by CAVs [Connected and Autonomous Vehicles] and this will have implications for urban tourism, as sex plays a central role in many tourism experiences.

A road already well-traveled

As mentioned above, similar predictions are far from novel. Back in 2016, we covered Barrie Kirk of the Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre Of Excellence who not only speculated that sex in these vehicles was inevitable .but it could also lead to serious problems.

The problems Kirk foresees, though, have little to do with the concerns around sexuality per se and more that passengers will make the assumption that their transportation is fully autonomous. This false sense of security could cause lovers to take their hands off the wheels and eyes off the road, putting themselves and other travelers at risk.

In fact, we’re already beginning to see this problem manifest with drivers mistaking “auto assist” for “self-driving” and getting into major accidents.

But when the bugs do get worked out, which some experts say could be in as little as ten years or less, autonomous vehicles will likely alter how, and where, we have sex.

A future full of mobile sex

Hopkins and Cohen delve a bit into this, speculating that these vehicles will become places for couples to have some needed privacy or for sex workers to ply their trade.

“It is just a small leap to imagine Amsterdam’s Red Light District ‘on the move,’” they write in their paper.

In 2017 we did a bit of future-casting ourselves on the subject of sex in self-driving cars. W envisioned a time when they might forge a new generation of exhibitionists who enjoy the thrill of showing off to other cars.

Plus, it's conceivable that when coupled with apps like Tinder or Grindr sexual playmates could come right to you—or you to them—when you mutually swipe in the same direction.

It might even be possible that mobile BDSM playspaces could become a thing: leather and latex decorated self-driving buses picking up or dropping off kinky players as they cruise the urban landscape.

Sex and autonomous cars

Old news or not, it’s still a positive sign that papers like “Autonomous Vehicles And The Future Of Urban Tourism” are getting attention: the possible ramifications of sex and technology are always worth discussing.

If anything, there needs to be more attention paid to the possible impact of autonomous vehicles on human sexuality and sex work.

As with new and disruptive technologies such as readily available birth control and the Internet, their arrival can be met with cultural shock. Without any warning or forethought, some people have a tendency to react with their guts and not their heads.

Which is never good, especially when it’s a technology that could benefit so many by giving them mobility, security, and even a new kind of sexual liberation.

Image sources: Automobile Italia