Sex toys the draw at tech show

Virtual adult recreational products described as ‘mind-blowing’

LAS VEGAS: From the printing press and the VCR to virtual reality sex, adult entertainment has always been a major catalyst driving innovation and reshaping technology for the benefit of the porn pioneer.

And for the thousands of tech nerds at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, that means the intelligent toasters and AI vacuum cleaners are having to make room for the sex toys of the future.

Among the innovations at this year’s get-together, run by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), are an augmented strip club complete with virtual pole dancers and a “personal massager” you can operate from your smart watch.

The market for sex products such as vibrators and lubricant is projected to grow to US$37.2bil (RM152.75bil) globally by the year 2022, according to British sex toy retailer MysteryVibe.

“It’s not strange to want a more satisfying sex life, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you need technology to help you achieve that,” the company’s co-founder Stephanie Alys said.

The firm was at CES to show off a product designed for the discerning gentleman –a snug, collar-like device named “Tenuto” which, in musical notation, refers to holding on slightly longer than you normally would.

Meanwhile startup OhMiBod was showing off a vibrator operated via an app on Apple smart watches.

Naughty America’s “Strip Club” taps into capabilities on smartphones or tablets to let people overlay virtual male or female stripper holograms on the world around them.

“It’s mind-blowing,” Naughty America chief executive Andreas Hronopoulos said.

“You can bring a full stripper into a room, on a pole, and she is there. No tipping necessary.”

A virtual reality option lets people use the headgear to visit faux strip joints from a first-person perspective.

“I think of this more as a leisure product, where magazines are going to go – you sit back, relax, drop the holograms in place and play with them,” Hronopoulos said.

A robotic, hands-free vibrator named Ose that uses micro-robotic technology to mimic the sensation of a human mouth won a CES Innovation Award this year.

But it had the honor stripped and found itself controversially banned from the exhibition floor after it was deemed to have broken the rules.

“Society needs to drop the taboo around sex and sexuality -- it’s a part of life and health that absolutely should be part of mainstream discourse,” Lora DiCarlo founder Lora Haddock said in an open letter to the CTA.

“You never know how technology can be used, the future of healthcare might well be in the patent for a sex toy.” — AFP

You never know how technology can be used, the future of healthcare might well be in the patent for a sex toy.

Lora Haddock