The Week In Sex Tech – AR Porn Goes Backwards, Taiwan Cracks Down On Deepfake Porn, VR Can Treat Sexual Aversion Disorder

A Step Back For AR Porn, But The Future Still Looks Imminent

Fans of AR porn will have been dismayed to see that top VR porn site Badoink has dropped its experimental AR app from its home page. ‘BadoinkAR’ was launched late last year, and has been in demo mode since then. Hopefully the decision to drop it is only temporary and the project has not been abandoned alltogether. One of the only other AR apps available – AR3X – has also apparently stalled, with its home page now not displaying any of their digital AR models, but rather requiring an email for ‘free access’. I intend to chase up both Badoink and AR3X to establish what their plans are for AR porn next year.

Despite this, it seems that AR porn is even more of an inevitability than ever before. At the end of the month, NReal and Verizon will introduce the very first AR glasses on to the market in the USA. The NReal Light will retail at $599 and work tethered to a high end Android smartphone. Further, there have been more rumours that Apple’s long awaited AR/VR headset is very close to lift-off, with most pundits expecting it to be released next year. Facebook, or Meta as they are now branded, are already introducing AR to their Oculus Quest 2 VR headset (using the device’s B&W ‘pass through’ camera), and recently announced a much more sophisticated device that will have much greater AR (and VR) capabilities – Project Cambria, which is expected to be released next year too.

Taiwan Introduces Draconian Anti-Deepfake Porn Laws

Despite an apparent threat of invasion from mainland China, Taiwanese politicians found time this week to unveil perhaps the most draconian anti-deepfake porn bill yet. Making or distributing such material for commercial gain will be a crime that warrants a 7 year jail term. Individuals caught making deepfake porn at home for their own private use will ‘only’ risk five year prison sentences. The law and the stiff punishments for transgressions may have been prompted by politicians becoming the victim of deepfake porn.

The proposals are in response to the arrest last month of Taiwanese YouTuber Chu Yu-chen (朱玉宸), who is suspected of creating and selling pornographic videos that were digitally altered to include the likenesses of famous politicians.

The drafts have been forwarded to the Executive Yuan for review before they are sent to the legislature for approval, Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2021/11/19/2003768137

Virtual Reality Could Treat Sexual Aversion

Researchers at a university in Montreal have put forward a paper expressing the belief that immersive VR could be an effective way to treat ‘sexual aversion’, by allowing patients to be exposed to sexual situations in a safe environment. Quoting a Dutch study from 2006 that found that sexual aversion – a fear and avoidance of sexual contact – is suffered by up to 30% of the population, the sexologists point out that the disorder is as common as depression and general anxiety disorders. Virtual reality could be used as a form of guided exposure therapy.

For instance, situations commonly feared by individuals with sexual aversions, such as sexual assault, failure or rejection, or feeling trapped in a sexual encounter, do not actually happen in VR. VR would not only allow them to overcome fears but also to learn new sexual skills to use in real-world situations — skills that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to develop. Individuals in treatment could then apply these learnings to real-world intimate situations.

Further, although people’s minds and bodies behave as though the virtual environment in which they are immersed is real, individuals are more willing to face difficult situations in VR than in the real world because they are aware that the former is fictional, and therefore safer.

The research team then go on to describe a study that they performed in December 2020 that compared the differeing responses in a virtual reality sexual environment between those with a sexual aversion disorder, and those without the disorder.

In December 2020, we collected data that allowed us to compare sexually aversive and non-aversive individuals. Participants were immersed in a virtual environment simulating a typical intimate interaction, which involved a fictional character engaging in sexual behaviors throughout six scenes. Throughout the scenes, participants were gradually exposed to the character’s flirting, nudity, masturbation, and orgasm. Our findings suggest VR could represent a promising avenue for treating sexual aversion.

https://thenextweb.com/news/immersive-help-ditch-your-sex-therapist-syndication