In the future we may be able to wear electronic circuits on our
skin, which can record signals from our nervous system during sex
and allow us to replay the sensory experience at a later date,
according to futurologist Ian Pearson.
Pearson describes a future (by 2030) where sensors will be
sophisticated enough to detect and map the collection of stimuli
that create certain sensory experiences -- be it someone shaking
your hand, hugging you, or having sex with you. The idea is that by
stimulating your nervous system in exactly the same way -- with the
appropriate pressure, warmth and motion -- you can recreate the
experience. People might use this sort of technology when they are
separated from their partners or, more likely, when they don't have
one (which, really, would make this story more about the future
of masturbation than sex).
Pearson told Wired.co.uk: "We could record vast libraries of the
sensory experiences of celebrity porn stars and be able to
experience how they actually feel."
Further down the line, Pearson believes that you would be able
to cut out the need to stimulate the nerve endings and implant a
chip into the brain that could recreate the sensations. "Then it
might be as easy as Ctrl-Shift-O for an orgasm," he explains.
If you have the ability to map and record sensations, then you
can decouple them from physical activity. This means that you could
experience the sensations of having sex just by touching a device
and that would stimulate the relevant nerve endings.
Once you have decoupled the sensations from the physical
activity, it could be possible to feel what other people
experience. "A man might be able to feel the sensations of a woman
he is having sex with as well as his own, in order to eliminate
guess work," Pearson suggests.
This thinking seems more like a thought experiment than a
practicable future, and it raises many questions. Will it ever be
possible to mimic the full sensory experience of sex in a
satisfactory way? Would stimulating the same parts of the brain in
another person create the same sensory experience? What, if
anything, would it mean to map the female sensory experience onto
the male brain?
Pearson hasn't plucked these ideas completely out of then air,
however. Instead he has tried to extrapolate from technologies that
are available to us now. He cites the recent UC Berkeley experiment that was able to capture
visual activity in the human brain and reconstruct it as digital
video clips as a precursor to our ability to recreate entire
sensory experiences. Other trends that tap into this
sensors and wearable electronics.
But if, by 2030, Pearson's future sex thinking transpires to be
correct, he offers the world a warning: "If we make this
disconnection between physical activity and pleasure, we may forget
about the relationship side completely."
Pearson will be talking about the future of sex, sleep and
play at the If
Conference at the Royal Geographical Society in London on