But will cheaper—and less engaging—AI voices win out?

In what could prove to be a turning point in the ongoing conflict between human performers and artificially generated ones, at least where explicit content is concerned, the audio erotica platform Quinn has started hiring an impressive roster of A-list celebrities to narrate their stories.

As reported by the UK-based Mirror, Andrew Scott, who portrayed the villainous Moriarty in the BBC Sherlock series, Grey’s Anatomy favorite Jesse Williams, Christopher Briney from The Summer I Turned Pretty, and The Hunger Games’ Tom Blyth are among Quinn’s recently acquired readers.

Quinn’s increasing popularity appears to match the rise of sites employing AI to give voice to their erotic tales, such as My Spicy Vanilla, which can also write as well as read user-customized sexy fiction. 

Meanwhile, Dipsea, Bloom, and Emjoy share Quinn’s preference for people over algorithms.  It’s difficult to say which approach may eventually dominate the audio erotica market—and whether AI or human readers will be excited or disappointed by the winner.

Tell me a dirty story

At first glance … Well, hearing today’s most sophisticated text-to-voice software systems still sounds less authentic.  

From missing nuances, mispronouncing words, and a distinct lack of performative zest to sounding distinctly mechanical if not flat-out bored, AI clearly has a long way to go before they’ll be able to pass any sort of verbal Turning Test easily.

Remember, AI-created content is still in its relative infancy, having only been released to the public a few years ago—and in that time, it’s made remarkable progress.  

RECOMMENDED READ: Will Snapchat’s AR Glasses Stifle Erotic Imagination or Open Exciting New Literary Possibilities?

Case in point: the emergence of Deepfake images, where it’s nearly impossible to tell the real from the artificially generated, was once a vague threat that national and local governments have been forced to outlaw.

So while Quinn and other audio erotica platforms may prefer human readers, there’s a very real possibility that, in the near future, might realize that AI has become just as good—and, more importantly, far less expensive.

Listen to my voice

It’s uncomfortable to realize AIs might become as good as human performers, and possibly even better, and that it is probably inevitable.

Sure, as with AI-generated erotica, the takeover isn’t exactly right around the corner, but then many people said the same about Deepfakes, companion chatbots, and many other miraculous innovations we’ve become—or maybe sometimes have become—used to.

But all these AI breakthroughs—and the many more yet to come—are tools.  And like every other one we’ve developed, they only work if they make doing something—or our lives—better.

You can hear it coming

The same, of course, is true with AI.  Right now, they’re obviously cheaper than hiring human readers—and more often than not, it shows.  So, until we can’t tell the difference, flesh-and-blood performers don’t have to worry about losing their jobs.  

Even so, when that day does arrive, it’s a safe bet they won’t be made completely obsolete, as radio didn’t kill Broadway, and television didn’t doom theaters. People still read despite the Internet, and performers will continue to regale us with their lusciously sexy voices.

Returning to whether this is going to be good or not for those of us who enjoy listening to steamy tales, it’s hard to predict.  Though what is highly probable is that, somewhere down the road, AI will get to the point where its voice and our human voices become completely indistinguishable.

But when this audio erotica singularity goes from when to now, it might show up bearing all sorts of sexy gifts.  

For example, with the artist’s consent, you might hear your choice of spicy tale narrated by your preferred star of stage and screen, including a simulated version of AI voices performing the dialogue.  

By the same token, you also may have the option to formulate your own mix of tone and timbre: a little bit of Cumberbatch, a smattering of Keith David, a smidge of Judy Dench, and viola, you’d have the ideal voice guaranteed to hit all your pleasure points.

Or, if you’d rather, you can always have your ears caressed by a bona fide human—the choice is, and forever will be, yours.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

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Seductive donation celebrates new wave of doll eroticism


The Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections—housing one of the most extensive collections of erotica in the world—recently accepted sixty resin plastic dolls used by the acclaimed miniatures photographer, for their recent exhibition, “Intimate Alchemy: David Levinthal’s XXX Polaroids,” at the Grunwald Gallery at Indiana University Bloomington. 

Claude Cookman, PhD., professor emeritus of photography at Indiana University and a former trustee of the Kinsey Institute, said Levinthal is known for “arranging toys, dolls, and model figures in fabricated settings, then animating those plastic objects through careful lighting and shallow focus.”

The event’s press release states, “The Kinsey Institute is the sole holder of the complete XXX series and this gift completes an already unique collection following a previous substantial gift of Levinthal’s original photography and doll figurines donated from acclaimed Houston-based art collector Don Sanders in 2017.”

Levinthal’s other sexuality-related series include Modern Romance, Hell’s Belles, and Bad Barbie.

I was plastic. I needed the work. 

The dolls used in Levinthal’s XXX series stand from 13-18 inches tall and were created from kits. An associate painted and assembled them. Levinthal then photographed them as if they were strippers, models, or sexworkers. 

But Levinthal is not the only photographer to be fascinated by the erotic possibilities of dolls. According to retailer VSDoll, sex doll photography can be a satisfying hobby or an artistic calling for those who enjoy them. 

According to their user guide to sex doll photography, these dolls offer, “endless poses and expressions,” “consistency in appearance,” “exploration of themes and fantasies,” and—perhaps more important for an amateur than a professional—“no need for model release forms.” 

RECOMMENDED READ: Off the Scale: Miniature Artificial Companions May Equal Large Pleasures

In fact, according to the VSDoll guide, “With sex dolls, there are no legal or ethical concerns, providing photographers with peace of mind and more freedom in their artistic pursuits.” 

The website cautions, “Approach sex doll photography with respect and sensitivity. Be aware that this niche may be controversial, and consider your audience when sharing your work. Strive for artistic expression while respecting boundaries.” 

The implication is that sex doll photographers who follow these guidelines will have greater opportunity to display their work in social media forums, communities, and websites and even in some stock photo websites.

However, one thing is certain: it’s going to be more expensive to photograph one or more full-sized sex dolls than it will be to work with dolls 18 inches or smaller!

Fantasy or reality: what’s in a doll?

Dolls, as fantasy creations, have always been potentially sexually fascinating—at least for some—so it is odd that Brenda Love’s groundbreaking 1992 Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices does not mention sex dolls or any other kind of doll. But this academic omission has certainly not deterred burgeoning consumer, manufacturer, and research interests. 

However, unlike artists and photographers who depict dolls as erotic icons, and the users who respond to them with fantasy desires, researchers in a 2018 study took a utilitarian view, “Sex dolls are a type of sex toy that represents full, rather than partial, bodies.”

In 2023, one of those same researchers, Nicola Döring, and her colleagues Kenneth R. Hanson and Roberto Walter, “collected the measures of all 757 full-body sex dolls marketed by the US retailer SexyRealSexDolls.com” in order to see how the new realistic dolls compared with actual human bodies. They concluded:

“Body measures from the US population were extracted from scientific literature. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed… All hypotheses were fully or partially confirmed, which indicated that sex dolls marketed in the USA are not realistic depictions of the US population but hypergendered, hypersexualized, and racially fetishized.”

This is not surprising, as the researchers admit, since sex dolls are toys explicitly designed to elicit sexual arousal and pleasure.

Arousal, not realism

This kind of exaggeration and focus is not unique to sex dolls. From Japanese Shunga paintings of enormous phalluses to the submissive purple prose of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, many forms of erotic expression have ignored standards of realism. In fact, the special collections at the Kinsey Institute most likely contain hundreds if not thousands of such examples. The point is arousal, not realism.

Besides, if sex dolls were held to realistic standards, there might be more confusion of the kind chronicled in a recent issue of Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology: a sex doll mistaken for a corpse in Germany and a corpse mistaken for a sex doll, also in Germany. 

The former is an example of the blight of public “sex doll dumping.” By the way, here’s an article on the right way to dispose of an unwanted sex doll.

Big or small, play with dolls and love it all

When I think back to my student days at San Francisco’s Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, I remember a number of wonderfully mutated Barbie and Ken dolls in display cases, playful representations of sexual and gender diversity. 

These were the creations of one of my instructors, Dr. Jerry Zientara, who was also the institute’s librarian. At the time, I didn’t quite get it, but now I look back with amusement and awe at his clever, miniaturized subversions of mainstream-approved, sex and gender stereotypes.

Like Levinthal’s photographs, I can only hope that one day these dolls—creations of a significant though little known figure in San Francisco’s many waves of sexual revolution—make their way into the Kinsey collection.

As for those of you who seek to expand your erotic and artistic horizons: go ahead, grab a doll, large or small, and begin to tell the visual stories that amuse and arouse you. You might find the world opens up to you in unexpected ways.

Image sources: A.R. Marsh using Ideogram.ai

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 appeared first on Future of Sex.

Escapism can take many interesting and frequently arousing forms

Content Warning: Dissociation from Physical Reality

The joint nests finger-thick on the ashtray, its smoke still warming your lungs, numbing your mind. You eye your dating accounts on the cellphone, no longer matching just scrolling through all the apps, the failed conversations. A celebration of your incompetence at finding a partner, even for one night.

Cannabis starts to take effect, numbing the part of your brain generating what you used to give.

#

Weed had always helped. When life got too much, the smoke carried your thoughts away into blissful detachment. But then you returned from that date—the Date—and weed could not help you. Weed gave you insomnia.

You first thought of it as a date, but they were already pitching it as the Date. A mysticism and uniqueness to it, because the girl was special. Not in any conventional way though. The Date was a service, and the girl a product of the new company, Build a Lover.

By the time the date was done, it was like a religion, and it was impossible for you not to capitalize the word in your head. The girl was divinity, because she had lived inside your mind, growing alongside you. The perfect partner, fine-tuned to your desires. Build a Lover bought your data, made the girl, and even though you knew you could never afford the subscription money, you went out with her, because they offered a free trial. Nice of them to do so, huh? Well, they did use your data after all.

But the trial was over with the Date, so you lost sleep, and the weed plunged you into a loop of intrusive thoughts. Because now you’d never see her again.

#

You tried bargaining with the tech lead, the project manager, but found no leeway. It made sense that such things were expensive. They had people to train the model of your perfect partner, but after the software was ready it had to sustain itself. 

Adaptive AI to process the immensity of information that clouds the real world, which needed stacks of graphic processing units that spanned a room larger than your apartment. Rent and electricity bills beyond your pay grade.

Instead they sold you on something more affordable, and that was when it hit you. They never meant for this corporeal robo-wife to be the product. The Date was the advertisement. They meant to sell you on a virtual version, a controlled environment where her personality would interact with you without having to filter the overwhelming noise of your analog world. 

Your life savings, for this VR version of a perfect waifu. But it was okay. They had an installment plan.

#

The joint, used up, drops into the ashtray. Surrounded by twelve screens, you lean back on the VR chair as electrodes from the armrest and back press against your skin. As the headset settles on your scalp, cold metal presses your temples and electric warmth hugs your brain—isolating thoughts, readying neurons for isekai download.

“Want me to massage your brain, master?” the anime girl says from the twelfth panel of your visor. Anime is simpler than 3D, less resources, lower cost. But that’s convenient, isn’t it? You prefer the anime, and more money was an excuse to buy extra girlfriends. Enough spare to get your own master class at coding romantic partners to perfection.

A massage would be more than welcome, sweetheart, you think (no need to speak, your waifus read your mind).

The rest of the panels are still loading, blinking spirals, then pixelated outlines, their contrast sharpening every moment, just as the real world fades away. Partners trained on your own data, nourished by neural networks fine-tuned to your soul.

Why communicate with humans, deal with rejection, heartbreak, disappointment, when digital surrogates fool your circuits to drug-like depths of divine delight?

Your awkward approach attempts are buried in the past. No more drinks spilled on your face, no giggles judging you for daring to punch up. You’ll never need to understand women, now that fem-algorithms have been refined to understand you. Harem-blessed, society isn’t relevant, only carnal desire.

Cannabis smoke licks out your palate, and then the sensation vanishes, your tongue neurons already synced and isekai’d. The warmth of vapors stolen with a wet kiss from your twelfth waifu.

In the VR setting of your visor, your keyboard appears at your command, replicating the world your body still resides in. You crack your knuckles, snap a nail you haven’t clipped in over four months. You hear the snap, but you don’t feel it—sex-digitized, implanted with circuits, your senses know no mortal pain.

As your fingers dance on the keyboard, programming your next wife, the pins digging your scalp tingle, sending pleasure down your spine.

It’s not just the twelfth, the others join her, but download isn’t enough. This world still clings to you, the life of struggle, disappointment. Of being unwanted by everyone. You’ve convinced yourself it is a lie, that the digital is all there is—but still it hurts. You want to let go.

In near-synchrony your waifus whisper: “Pressure will leave your shoulders, master. We’ll upload you entirely, when this massage is done.”

#

Have an erotic speculative fiction tale to tell?  If so, here’s what we’re looking for and how to send it our way: Call for Future of Sex Short Story Submissions

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post “As You Log Into Isekai Heaven”—an Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

Reprinted from The Conversation with the author’s permission

After deepfakes of Taylor Swift went viral on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Swifties sprung into action. They organized to report violations of X’s “Synthetic and Manipulated Media” policy and flooded the platform with real images of Swift in an attempt to alter X’s algorithm.

The incident renewed calls for federal legislation regarding deepfake erotica. But whether we need to “defeat” deepfakes by censoring and criminalizing it is up for debate—or at least it should be. 

As a criminologist and sexuality studies scholar with expertise in the legal regulation of sex and sexual expression, the push to conflate deepfakes with misogyny and sexual harm is concerning, as is the call for new criminal laws.

Are deepfakes sexual violence?

Deepfake refers to the use of artificially intelligent (AI) machine-learning applications to generate original but “fake” audio, images or videos that may appear authentic. Deepfake pornography (DFP) refers to products that are sexually explicit in nature. 

According to a 2023 report by cybersecurity firm Home Security Heroes, DFP makes up 98 per cent of all deepfake videos online, and 99 per cent of DFP features women. Notably, 94 percent of these women work in the entertainment industry. 

An earlier study of DFP by Deeptrace Labs found that of those in the entertainment industry, most of the 10 most frequently represented individuals were actresses from western countries, followed by South Korean K-pop singers.

Given their gendered, sexual and seemingly “non-consensual” nature, DFP has been widely described as gender-based sexual violence requiring greater civil and criminal regulation of both AI and deepfake porn producers. 

Others, however, suggest that deepfake erotica may be deeply constitutional sexual expression, and that new laws should be put off until more research about the impacts of pornographic deepfakes on those depicted, as well as on internet users, can be conducted. 

Deepfakes raise concerns about false representations—for instance, falsely depicting an individual as sexually active, into a certain type of sex or involved in the adult entertainment industry. Whether this constitutes sexual violence—even if a person is distressed by fake videos of them—is not self-evident.

Many valid reasons exist for why deepfakes may be created and shared, and why it should not be interpreted or criminalized as “image based sexual abuse” or “virtual rape.” These reasons include, but are not limited to the social value of sexual fantasy—including seemingly “deviant” fantasies—and the need to resist prison expansionism and the carceral state.

Need for new laws?

Deepfakes, as with the cheapfakes that preceded them, can be created for malicious purposes including harassment, spreading disinformation and extortion. In instances where the use of one’s image is deeply upsetting to the individual depicted, legal avenues such as civil privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy laws that address “false light” (making false or misleading claims about a person that cause harm to them) and take-down orders may help address their concerns. 

When it comes to deepfake adult content and minors, Canada’s child pornography and its Intimate Images provisions likely apply. And in cases where DFP images and videos are used to harass or extort individuals, laws already exist to address these harms. On or offline, however, there are reasons to resist pro-criminalization strategies.

Queer and sex-radical feminists have long established that even though sex and gender are related, theories of gender oppression cannot wholly explain sex and sexual politics. Importantly, anti-sexual violence feminists and anti-carceral scholars have pointed out the limits and harms of using criminal law to respond to sexual violence for sexual violence victims, the accused and society more broadly. 

Before we can determine whether sexual violence is the best framework for describing and responding to deepfakes, we need a better understanding of deepfake prosumers—those who produce, consume and share their creations—as well as the importance of sexual fantasy, at the individual and collective levels.

Deepfake prosumers

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to interview or conduct research with deepfake prosumers given how widely they are described as depraved, as the embodiment of “toxic geek masculinity,” and as driven by an interest in owning women’s bodies.

Research suggests, however, that many deepfake creators are hobbyists who are more interested in contributing “to the development of such technology as solving an intellectual puzzle… rather than as a way to trick or threaten people.” 

It’s likely that most deepfake prosumers are men, given what we know about the demographics of computer programmers and porn consumers.

Insights from clinical practice suggests that when men do create fake porn misogyny rarely serves as a key motivator. Clinical psychologist David J. Ley observes that more of these cases are “driven by feelings of loss, shame, hope, and fantasy than by misogyny and anger.” Similar to Photoshopped “porno collages,” deepfakes serve as a means to explore fantasies that are likely impossible to fulfill.

But is sexual fantasy a valid reason to create and share deepfake erotica on public and paid platforms? 

Sexual fantasy and deepfakes

Sexual fantasy is more complicated and more important to our sex lives and to our social well-being than people typically realize or acknowledge. For many, sexual fantasy is private and limited to their mind’s eye.

Others, however, see sexual fantasy as something to be manifested as written text, images or digital files, and publicly shared for free or for a fee. 

Critical race feminist scholars have demonstrated that sexual fantasy is both a product of and productive of our complex realities, but that a line can also be drawn between fantasy and reality given the important roles that fantasy plays in our individual and collective lives.

At the individual level, a study that surveyed 1,516 adult cis men and women about their sexual fantasies found that more than half of the respondents—51.7 percent of women and 61.9 percent of men—fantasized about sex with a celebrity.

Sexual fantasy research has also helped establish that few sexual fantasies are statistically unusual or rare. This includes fantasies which have previously been deemed perverted or atypical, such as those that involve violence or humiliation. These fantasies are not only common, but are also “unlikely to be revealing of actual behavior.”

According to Ley, reasons for publicly sharing sexual fantasies range from seeking approval, demonstrating technical prowess and playing with taboo to bonding with those who share the same interests or to arouse others in the way they are aroused so as to feel less alone for having these interests and desires. 

As legal scholar Andrew Gilden writes: 

“The actual process of coming to terms with one’s sexual identity often entails extensive fantasizing, experimentation, education, and social interaction. And these processes are often far less romantic, much less ‘dignified,’ and far less ‘PG’ than envisioned by the evolving legal narratives of sexuality.”

Consent and fantasy

Thinking about deepfake erotica through the lens of sexual fantasy also helps us make sense of the lack of consent in DFP. Consent does not factor into people’s sexual fantasies in the same ways as it does their physical sexual relations: I don’t need permission to fantasize about someone, but I do need permission to have sex with them. 

Consent is a primarily legal term that, at its most general, means voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity. The use of consent language to refer to the creative process of DFP as image-based sexual abuse or virtual rape shuts down a nuanced conversation about sexual harm and freedom. 

Expanding definitions

Ultimately, sexual fantasy cannot fully explain the phenomenon of deepfake porn. But failing to acknowledge the limits of gender-based sexual violence frameworks comes with its own harms, including the ever-growing definition of sex crime and the expansion of the carceral state.

We need to think carefully about the social and cultural motivations and intent of content creators, in addition to the potential effects of their creations. We need to consider whether expanding the scope of criminal law to address emotional harm in virtual spaces will bring about the changes we want to see, including the reduction of sexual violence. We also need to acknowledge that criminal law has largely failed to prevent, and indeed perpetuates, emotional and physical violence at a level that requires great awareness and care. 

Concerns about sexual autonomy should inform debates about emerging technologies, but alternative frameworks for making sense of and responding to deepfakes should be considered before we censor and criminalize deepfake adult content producers, consumers and products.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Deepfake Erotica Doesn’t Need New Laws, Which May Restrict Sexual Fantasies and Promote the Prison System appeared first on Future of Sex.

Celebrating the healing power of love, desire, and soaring above the clouds

Amanda Carlisle’s hand was gentle on the stick as the glider lofted soundlessly on thermals over the red cliffs to the north end of Bishop Valley. Gary had given her control a moment before and she was delighted to pilot the aircraft for a while as they made their long orbit after casting off from the tug.

Several times, they had flown over the warm spring countryside, their tandem glider a sleek, white confection of plastic, and she loved it all. Her job was a strange and varied one, and while not every client was such fun, Gary Maitland had been a new spice to life.

Afternoon sent warm air up the crags, lifted the glider thousands of feet, and the pilots cruised for an easy half-hour, swapping control, before Gary brought them back to a fast landing on the club’s grass strip. When the transparent hood hinged over, Amanda left her headset in the cockpit, climbed out with a stretch and smile, and threw her arms around the tall, rangy man who stepped out of the rear seat. “Thanks,” she whispered by his ear. “I’d really not done anything like this before we met.”

“Most things are more fun with the right company,” he said softly, hands on her waist, lips brushing her ear.

Time seemed to tumble forward then, past the clubhouse, past dinner and sunset, to their cabin on the slopes above the field—accommodation for air-ranch guests—then things moved in even-slower-than-normal time, and Amanda savored every moment.

This was always the way: the drive up by guest buggy, card-tap to access, the cool A/C interior, entertainment wall flipping on with multiple feeds, coffee maker on auto-standby… The news story of the day was about some new discovery on Europa, the deep exploration probe had been under the ice for weeks, sending back amazing images. But their eyes were only for each other, and Gary thumbed a remote to silence the auto-feeds as Amanda drew him into the bedroom, and in the light of rosy lamps they peeled out of jeans, cowboy boots, shirts…

Gary was a tough guy, good-looking, the sort in demand among women, both for his physical statistics and his success, and Amanda fitted the same bill in return, sleek, white-blond, a head shorter than Gary and ample in all the right places. In moments they were bare as babes, and she took the initiative, thrusting him back to the covers, to wrangle delightfully. She smothered him with kisses, worked down to his smooth chest, left a trail of love-bites and the warmth of massage down to his so-eager manhood, then went to work on him with all her skill.

Nothing was missing from her repertoire: she quickly had him groaning and perspiring, but before she could bring him too far along she eased off, lay back and offered him her own holy of holies to return the compliment. He went for it with delight, covered every inch of her most erogenous zone with kisses and licks, missing nothing, and she let herself go with a delicious climax. “One,” she said softly when she returned from she-space, then, with a grin, arranged him against pillows and came astride, to take him in to the roots and begin to ride. She knew he did not come easily in this position, which delayed the moment, the way they liked it best, and a few minutes later she gave a scream of fulfillment as she froze out, head flung back.

“Two,” she whispered, two fingers raised.. And so it went, every position and technique they knew, oral, manual, the works, over and over as the evening passed. They would pause for breath, take a quick shower together, have a drink and snack, then go back into another round of exquisite pleasure, until they were thoroughly exhausted. Eight, ten climaxes in a session were her norm, and she never left Gary with less than two, maybe three, for himself, as much as his physiology could deliver in the time.

A last shower, a nightcap, then they snuggled down under clean sheets, and in minutes she felt Gary’s breathing drop into sleep-pattern. With a long sigh, she reached to her right temple and felt for the warm patch which constituted the virtual disengage contact.

#

Amanda opened her eyes with a deep breath. She was an attractive woman, but not the one her partner had perceived. Her apartment was comfortable but nothing flashy. She stretched, tapping her headset pickup. The system screen, on an arm before her lie-back couch, showed a hospital room in which lay a withered body in white.

Gary Maitland had been left a quadriplegic in an air crash and his coma would last months yet, as synthetic enzymes worked their magic to re-anneal severed nerves. Feeding his mind, buried deep under electronically induced sleep, with good dreams buffered it against deterioration, and he was one of many in her charge.

A nurse appeared in the image, checking his brain function screen.

“Thank you, Miss Carlisle,” was the soft comment. “You always bring him the most wonderful dreams.”

“My pleasure,” she whispered. “’till next time.”

The link canceled and she pushed the screen aside, to stretch and head into her bathroom, drop her robe and take a quick shower, as cybersex had entirely real effects on the body.  It was the most unusual way for a psych PhD to make a living, but the life had its perks, and flying over that valley had become one of them.

Her next client was in another hospital on the other side of the country, a professional gambler before a bullet lodged in his neck sent him to a place from which medicine could not bring him back quickly. She settled into the couch and drew on the headset, loaded the “1925 Flapper” persona and phased with the feed from a digital speakeasy where a hot game awaited.

“Ready,” she whispered to the supervising nurse, and closed her eyes.

#

Have an erotic speculative fiction tale to tell?  If so, here’s what we’re looking for and how to send it our way: Call for Future of Sex Short Story Submissions

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post “Dreams of Flying”—an Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

Sexy stories plus cutting edge sextech equals infinitely arousing possibilities

Before reality went virtual, companions became artificial, and sex got together with tech, people enjoyed writing and reading explicit fiction.

Up against those titillating innovations, you’d think sexy stories and books would have lost at least some of their overwise stimulating appeal.  

Far from it! Thanks in part to the digital publishing revolution, erotic literature is flourishing—embracing sextech, ushering in what could very well be a golden age of interactive, immersive, and exciting adult entertainment.

It was a dark and stormy—

For most of its long history, erotica was something no one, at least openly, discussed.  Sure, it’s been and will no doubt remain immensely popular—not to mention profitable—but heaven forbid you get caught writing, selling, or even daring to read it.

Made worse by a failure to legally define it, even US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said he couldn’t but somehow would “Know it when I see it.”

Erotica would have stayed on the maybe-illegal, maybe-not fringes if it weren’t for the Internet and personal computers and then the stratospheric rise of smartphones and tablets.

Viola!  What felt like overnight, anyone could download and (ahem) enjoy all the explicit books and stories they wanted without anyone being the wiser.

Although the genre may have dipped a bit, likely due to market oversaturation, it shows no sign of losing its power to excite millions or perhaps billions of happy readers—numbers that may exponentially rise as erotica steadily becomes more than merely words on a page.

Tell me a story

We’re already seeing—or better to say hearing—how erotica is changing, i.e., the growing number of audio-erotica companies and platforms.  Some, like Bloom, use human readers, though AI-voiced stories may be the norm. 

As OhCleo has shown, a benefit to employing AI narrators is that users can select whatever voice pleases them the most.

Fun as it is to listen to a person or computer program read you a sexy story; the tech isn’t exactly advanced.  After all, back in its clandestine past, erotica was available on cassette—complete with plain brown paper packaging.

What we need, and what may be right around the corner, is a way to experience erotica like never before.

Can you feel me?

Once promising, now another of sextech’s many failures, B.Sensory’s fascinating approach involved embedding explicit stories—including, I’m proud to say, a few of my own—with special coding so at various points the reader’s Internet-connect smart sextoy would vibrationally highlight certain passages.

The company might be gone, yet the technology might return. AI would make coding fiction to activate sextech far easier than having to do everything by hand.

Your book, your way

As we recently covered, AI might eventually replace flesh-and-blood erotica authors like yours truly.  

In all fairness, that’s not liable to happen for at least a decade or more, as like the Internet hasn’t shut down Broadway or digital publishing made books or magazines extinct, AI-authored erotica may become one more entertainment option.

What I’m excited about is the intersection of AI, VR, and a whole bunch of other futuristic initials with erotica’s universal appeal.

Tales of a sexual tomorrow

For example, take AI’s media generation capabilities and add in next-gen virtual reality gear—not forgetting full-sensory haptic tech—so we’d have our choice of reading or physically experiencing lines like “their skin was bathed in luminous skein of perspiration.” 

If the thought of the writing turning into something beyond putting one word after another gives you the cold chills, rest assured, as AI won’t drive human authors to extinction.  This type of technologically enhanced erotica will be a choice for those who want it—or not—for people who prefer their sexy stories the old fashioned way.

Personally, I find telling stories thrilling, with or without visual, tactile or AI assistance, for when it comes to creation erotica, greater possibilities to explore means more opportunities for personal as well as professional growth.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

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