I don’t know about you folks but I frequently blurt out “It’s 2018! How do we not have teleportation/jet packs/time travel etc yet?!” Basically I feel like movies and books sold us a bill of goods about what the future would be like and the “future” hasn’t delivered it. I know I’m being a bit unfair here considering I walk around with what amounts to a fully functional computer in my pocket while computers used to look like this… honestly, the future is pretty much here.
As a sex writer, I have kind of conflicted feelings about my own industry and its movement towards the future. Often it feels like we are super focused on making the most futuristic sex toys ever, everything is going to be SUPER INNOVATIVE (sometimes they even are)! Other times though it feels like one step forward, two steps back. We keep being promised new and exciting condoms and birth control only for nothing to really happen (anyone remember the Origami Condom? Sad trombone!). We evolve exciting new technology to make hooking up easier and, well, let’s face it, often we are our own worst enemies there…unsolicited dick pics are why we can’t have nice things. Then there is the whole long-distance teledildonics thing that just makes me want to yell “stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen!” So I feel like the sex world is this funny combination of racing to the future and trapped in the mid-nineties.
OV Doll
The area that has moved leaps and bounds forward in my time covering this beat has got to be the sex dolls. My title is a nod to “well, of course the thing we have figured out is gorgeous, realistic toys to put penises in!” but what’s funny about that is that typically in sex toy world, toys for penises and prostates often get the shaft (so much pun intended) with development lagging far behind their vaginal counterparts. So, while I dramatically tease that bloggers will continue to throw ourselves valiantly on the Oras, Sqweels, and the Sasis while you get customizable things that look like real people!! It’s FINE! I’m actually kind of into it… Ideologically. Don’t get me wrong, I still think sex dolls have miles to go. I’d love to see them available in multiple genders, and races, with actually differing body types, you know, that kind of thing but I think, as much as I feel right now, this market has come so far, history will show it to still be in its infancy and perhaps one day we will see dolls as diverse as people.
I’m optimistic about this happening for two reasons. The first is something my friend Ducky likes to say that I’m paraphrasing: “Give people a thing and they will try to have sex with it”. With that understanding, I think folks will just keep aiming for more and more realistic sex dolls. For dolls that fit everyone’s desires. The second reason I’m so optimistic is a very “JoEllen” reason. That is to say, I’ve found a way to make the conversation less sexy: I see here some interesting therapeutic applications that I haven’t seen anyone talking about. While people write articles fretting about what items like this mean for “human connection” I can’t help but think that this could be a great sexual outlet for people who can’t or don’t wish to actually have a relationship with another person (yes, that’s a totally valid choice). While people may be shocked and repulsed by the child-sized dolls, I think of people struggling with pedophilia, a term often used interchangeably with child molestation but actually a different thing and how that product could be helpful for them. Basically I think that, in addition to being a fun consumer product, realistic sex dolls could actually be a helpful product.
In the last couple of years sex dolls certainly have become way more realistic. Sex with fake people may be on its way to more bedrooms than ever. Word on the street (and by street I mean internet) is that sex robots are coming and (if we can keep them from turning on us) that the sex we have with them will be good, no, like really good, like resulting in a whole new kind of orgasm, or something…I’m not holding my breath on this one.
This post contains a link sponsored by OVDoll. The opinions in it are, as always, my own.
