Lickable Screens Taste Like the Future of Sex Tech
Yummy technology serves up a banquet of sweet and savory erotic possibilities.
Professor Homei Miyashita of Meiji University has developed an innovative method to allow people to taste as well as see what’s on a computer screen.
Using a base of concentrated sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami flavors, his technology can reproduce a variety of tastes which are then sprayed onto a hygienic surface for a user to (ahem) lick.
According to Reuters, Miyashita envisions his TTTV, for “Taste the TV” could lessen the isolation felt by many during the pandemic by providing a way to savor a world of flavorful experiences while remaining safely at home.
Pour Some Sugar on Me
This isn’t the first tasteful project Miyashita has worked on. Two years ago, we covered another of his projects that also employed a combination of building block flavors but delivered the artificial flavor to the user’s tongue via electrophoresis.
Lickable spray, chemical stimulating our taste buds, or by devices we can barely imagine, reproducing favors will have a huge impact on the sextech industry—and might even play a major role in how we, as a species, evolve sexually.
Watermelon in Easter Hay
Grandiose? Probably, but hear me out. Because of our forward-facing eyes, we have a tendency to first and sometimes only see the world around us, making it easy to forget how much our other senses help us experience it.
They’re also what’s missing from so-called immersive technologies like virtual reality, which is why despite their ultra-high-resolution graphics, they too often have a disturbing sense of unreality.
But add touch, smell, and, of course, taste, and you’re there: a true immersiveness that could end up being a ticket to a new and limitless space filled with equally endless erotic possibilities.
I don’t know about you, but my mind is thoroughly and pleasantly boggled by the possibilities. I wasn’t kidding when I brought up sexual evolution, as achieving an immersive tech singularity would mean we could explore gender, orientation, kink, and everything else as much or as little as we want.
And perhaps using what we learn there about ourselves and the people around to grow as a person—and as a species.
Related Read: Taste and Touch Are the Next Frontier for Virtual Reality Porn
Cheeseburger in Paradise
More down to earth, consider what a distant cousin of Miyashita’s lickable screen could do for sextech.
Tasty as well as tactile devices are pretty obvious, but why not an entirely new branch of smartphone-supported pleasure devices that’d let you sample an endlessly moveable feast of sexual flavors—or give you a chance to cook up our own erotic recipes?
Unless you enjoy the taste of silicone, sexbots would also benefit by being tasty.
For example, a companion’s artificial intelligence could adjust their flavors accordingly by monitoring activities like meals with them, how much or little exercise they join in with, bathed or not, or whatever else they share with their partners.
Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
If the technology continues to progress, eventually, we’ll be able to use it on ourselves, so our bodies—or more than likely just our fun bits—can taste like everything from a hot fudge sundae to Kansas City Barbecue.
Then there’s the idea of using it inside rather than out by enhancing, augmenting, or replacing our existing taste buds. It could even be an effective treatment for people with sensory overload concerns or who struggle with any number of neurological illnesses.
Apples and Oranges
Fooling around with ideas like this is always fun, with a bonus when the technology you’re speculating about isn’t science fiction but actual, practical science fact.
Like as we can create ultra-realistic visual illusions, in a few short years, we’ll likely be able to technologically do the same with our other senses.
Before the immersive tech singularity I mentioned arrives, irreparably dissolving the wall between the real and unreal, let’s pledge to try and use it to understand, empathize, and love our fellow humans.
Because if we can pull that off, our future will be a very tasty one indeed.
Image Sources: Reuters, 明治大学 宮下研究室