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Home > Virtual Sex & Entertainment > Sex in the Metaverse: A New Space with Old Problems

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Home›Virtual Sex & Entertainment›Sex in the Metaverse: A New Space with Old Problems

Sex in the Metaverse: A New Space with Old Problems

By M. Christian
June 19, 2022
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Will virtual social platforms help or hinder sexual expression? 

A decorative image of a woman sitting in a canopy wearing a virtual reality headset. She's surrounded by pillows and twinkly lights.

Whether their developers were ready for it or not, sex has already come to the metaverse.

It may not look like the sex we’re used to, especially as many avatars currently lack lower extremities. But this lack of genitals hasn’t prevented people from finding unique ways to erotically interact with one another.

Unfortunately, this includes non-consensual sex. 

What does this mean to virtual social platforms, and how might the companies behind them react as the metaverse evolves?

To each their own metaverse

Coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, a metaverse is another take on William Gibson’s cyberspace. It’s a virtual representation of the Internet people jack into to do business, play games, socialize, and have sex.

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is one of several companies aiming to do the same. In the process, they’ve garnered good and bad press, such as the United States government ordering a metaverse casino to cease selling NFTs for failing to disclose its connection to the Russian government.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is working on its own version. Though for them, it is less trying to design an entire metaverse from scratch and more expanding on their already well-known Mesh collaboration platform.

Related Read: What Role Will Sexuality Play in the Future of the Metaverse?

“Don’t pretend you didn’t love it”

Last year, an arguably more disturbing incident took place in Meta. After logging on, Nina Jane Patel said she was almost immediately sexually assaulted by a group of male-voiced avatars. 

Patel writes, “As I tried to get away, they yelled, ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t love it and ‘Go rub yourself off to the photo.’”

Vice also reported a beta tester of Horizon Worlds, Meta’s first metaverse attempt, was similarly accosted. About her experience, she wrote, “Sexual harassment is no joke on the regular internet, but being in VR adds another layer that makes the event more intense.”

When Meta finally responded to the incident, they claimed it was due to the beta tester’s failing to use the platform’s interaction-blocking feature. A statement Vice pointed out as textbook victim-blaming. 

Virtually new sex

It’s possible Meta and other social media companies’ inability to deal with inappropriate sexual activity stems from their failure to grasp how imaginative people can be when it comes to sex. 

Not that the industry’s track record was good to begin with, though. Looking at Meta, their unwillingness or inability to prevent the spread of misinformation, hate speech, and criminal activity while blocking access to LGBTQIA support groups and sexual health resources is well known.

But companies have at least tried to address the issue. TechTarget noted that Meta has implemented a system to keep avatars from getting too close to one another. While Microsoft has disabled their AltspaceVR hub to attempt to curb sexual harassment. 

The metaverse needs new policies

To paraphrase that line from Jurassic Park, sex, virtual or otherwise, will always find a way.

Instead of consistently trying and failing to police their sites, metaverse companies should be encouraged to understand the difference between consensual and non-consensual sex.  

Rather than relying on searches for sexual words or phrases and automatically blocking whoever uses them, companies could instead set up a system that considers the context. For example, when used in conjunction with violent language versus when using them is mutually agreed upon.  

Regrettably, social media companies aren’t exactly eager to reinvent their moderation policies. Or at least not without outside pressure, that is. 

If companies continue to be thoughtless, their metaverses will likely collapse into chaotic and frustrating messes—virtual environments where healthy sexual behavior is suppressed while toxic behavior is allowed to thrive.

The most effective way to prevent this is to make them accept real and not virtual reality: Sex is here to stay and they have a responsibility to make sure it’s safe and consensual.

Image sources: Barbara Zandoval

M. Christian

M.Christian (they/them) loves nothing better than exploring the intersections of sex and technology—and speculating on the future of both. A highly regarded erotica writer they have six novels,12 collections, 100+ short stories, and 25 anthologies as an editor to their name. Their non-fiction regularly appears in many sites, but they're most proud of being a regular contributor to Future of Sex.

Of their erotic fiction, Tristan Taormino said that “M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy—there's nothing [they] can't write about… and brilliantly.”

Reflecting their unique ability to sympathetically and convincingly write for a range of genders and sexual orientations, their stories have appeared in multiple editions of Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, The Mammoth Books of Erotica, and others. Their collection of gay erotic fiction, Dirty Words, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

While a majority of their stories have been collected into books like Dirty Words, their fondness for combining sex and science fiction is clearly evident in collections that include Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, Skin Effect Effect, Bachelor Machine, and Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian.

As a novelist, M.Christian’s versatility is on full display with Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes, Painted Doll; and the somewhat controversial queer BDSM/horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth, and Me2.

M.Christian has worked on the industry’s production side as an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books and as a Publisher for Digital Parchment Services. The latter dedicated to celebrating the works of science-fiction legends such as William Rotsler, Jerome Bixby, Jody Scott, Arthur Byron Cover, Ernest Hogan, and James Van Hise.

Covering topics like BDSM safety, sexual education, senior sexuality concerns, queer and gender issues, plus reviewing a variety of sex tech products, M.Christian’s non-fiction has appeared on sites like Kinkly, Tickle.Life, Sexpert, Queer Majority, Sex for Every Body, and—of course—their ongoing work for Future of Sex.

If there’s anything M.Christian enjoys more than writing, it’s teaching. A featured presenter, sometimes with their friend Ralph Greco Jr, at national sex and BDSM events, they have lectured on kink play (with an emphasis on safety), polyamory, boosting sexual creativity, and erotica writing--for beginners or those wanting to go pro.

M.Christian is a cohost on two popular sex-education podcasts: Love’s Outer Limits with Dr. Amy Marsh and Licking Non-Vanilla with Ralph Greco, Jr.
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