The future looks bright but Vice’s writers do not.
What about virtual rape?
https://archive.is/01hEG#selection-2383.0-2399.299
Tori Black lies naked on a cushioned ottoman, flat on her back. Her legs are spread wide. She’s enclosed in what looks like a makeshift dressing room, ensconced by white curtains, with 44 cameras pointed straight at her vulva.
“Do you want me to pose my vagina in any type of way?” she asks.“Hold on,” someone shouts from offstage.
“Can you spread your legs a little wider?”
“These vagina lips! They are unruly!” Black hollers back from behind the curtain.
A small team of men sit behind a series of monitors on the other side of that curtain, scanning the results of Black’s work.We’re in a rundown industrial area on the outskirts of Toronto in what looks—from the outside—like a derelict building. It was once home to the local Knights of Columbus chapter and after that, it was a church. Now the building is home to Holodexxx, a company that makes virtual reality pornography.
So ignoring the first part, the gist is that a company’s making virtual reality porn. Sounds great, doesn’t it? With shit like the Occulus Rift and whatever competitors might arise, virtual reality is starting to heat up but how can a bunch of turbo feminists complain? Let’s read on!
Black is here to create her virtual avatar. The final product will perform in an adult video game, where players can “live out their sexual fantasies.” Though Black doesn’t perform anymore, she’s still one of the most well-known names in the industry, and today, she’s freezing her 27-year-old self in time forever.
Is there any inherent benefit to making your vidya gayme avatar without any clothes on? The next time I restart Fallout 4 I should go through the character creation process in the nude? Just asking.
Black’s nose is so stuffed up she can barely breathe. And yet, surrounded by the Holodexxx team and a VICE camera crew, she is totally unfazed at being both the target of so many cameras and the only naked person in the room. Some of us try hard not to stare at her exposed labia, but I get the strong sense that she really doesn’t care either way.
She wouldn’t be a very good porn star if she was iffy about people seeing her naked.
“People are always asking me, ‘How are you so comfortable being naked?” she says, as though reading my ever-awkward thoughts.“Well,” she says, looking at a nonexistent watch on her naked wrist,
“I’ve been naked for about a decade now. That’s how."She goes through every pose one might reasonably desire a sex partner to strike. She squats low. She sticks her butt out and throws a sassy glare over her shoulder, one finger in her mouth. She kneels on all fours, tooching her booty. [sic]
Black is not the first porn star to be reborn into the virtual world. People are already using VR machines for sexual purposes. VICE made a doc exploring that in 2014. But the advent of VR, as with any major new technology, raises a number of questions: What about consent?
What about consent? It’s not real. It’s a virtual avatar. It’s no more immoral to live out your sexual fantasies with it than it is to force Pokemon to fight each other.
How will real-world boundaries be respected in a virtual realm?
There are no real world boundaries in a virtual realm because it’s not real.
What are the implications here for human-to-human physical intimacy?
Some people either suck at getting sex in real life or don’t feel like perusing it so they have virtual reality as an alternative. At the end of the day it looks like it’s going to be slightly more realistic porn but nothing on the level of Star Trek or whatnot…despite the company being called Holodexxx but I digress.
But hey, you at least asked a question that can’t be immediately answered in all satisfaction by saying it’s not real so give yourself a pat on the back!
What happens to an avatar if the system is hacked? And does that matter?
The same thing that might happen to your Minecraft avatar if Mojang is hacked or your Fallout avatar if Bethesda is hacked. They might fuck up a lot of things and that really sucks considering all the time and work they put into it.
But considering your previous questions as to whether or not a video game character can consent or not, I’m just going to tell you right now that as far as morality is concerned, it doesn’t matter. You’re not hurting any actual people or at least not in the way you might think.
But first, here’s how the game works. One puts on a virtual headset like Avegant Glyph or the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift—which, for the record, does not condone the use of adult content on its system, but won’t block it either. Right now, the game is designed such that the player has two controllers which they use as hands to do what they will to the performers in the game. In time, teledildonics will be part of the equation, too.
So it really is just a super advanced video game. If you’ve ever squashed a goomba in the Mario games or shot an NPC or other player in Call of Duty, that has about as much moral implications as the crap he’s talking about.
The people who will be game characters are scanned by standing in the custom-made VR rig, which is just 112 Canon Rebels mounted on various poles in a shape vaguely resembling a square. The cameras snap their subject from every angle, and through a relatively quick editing process, turn the person into a 3D version of themselves.
The Holodexxx team ambitiously claims that, soon, virtual reality will be even more ubiquitous than the cell phone, but are still unclear on when that will happen. One team member says 10 years, another says 20.
I’ll take that bet m8. Let’s hope Moore’s law works as well for holographic technology as it did for computers.
Who Is This Game For?
Horny people.
The men who run this company are Morgan Young, Craig Alguire, and Chris Abell.
Two of three guys have the same initials and then there’s just Morgan Young totally ruining the flow.
They’ve been working on Holodexxx for the past eight months or so. Young and Alguire come from the gaming world, and Abell has a background in film. They started their current operation with 12 cameras total, until Abell, their creative director, came on board and bought an additional 60 cameras. They were set up in Young’s bedroom until the rig got too big for that arrangement to be practical. Then, they all quit their jobs to make VR porn full-time.
Just goes to show where having the knowledge of something needed to make a market everyone was thinking about into a reality can take you.
They’ve caught on quick. They give clear directives: "Alright, pouting in 3, 2, 1!” is the kind of thing Abell often shouts from behind the monitor.
Abell is responsible for writing the 200-or-so lines of script. They include a lot of instructions women use when they want their partner to climax, like “harder” and “faster” and “fuck me.”
Fallout 4 has taught me that quantity doesn’t equal quality. I just hope we don’t have to do that bullshit “Choose one of four words as your character response!”
The lines lead me to wonder who this game is really for.
It’s a porn game. Those lines fit idea like a glove.
Thus far, all but one of the performers scanned have been regular-sized women.
When being on the forefront of a whole possible section of an entertainment industry, you’re going to want to present something that will attract the most people possible. Contrary to what you might think if you’re neck deep in Tumblr shit, people like regular-sized women. It seems to be what the majority of men like.
They come from a variety of racial backgrounds, but all have the classic porn performer shape.
Why would a porn game want models with “the classic porn performer shape”?
Right now, the avatars can be edited to have bigger breasts or butts, but can’t be made thicker across the board without damaging the realistic quality of the imaging.
Must be fat shaming rather than a limit to what technology can do at the time.
One man has been scanned, but I ask the team whether there will be more focus put on entertaining women, and whether plus-sized, queer and trans people will also be scanned.
I don’t get this trans shit. So you’re one sex and you want to be another or fuck someone who’s supposed to be one sex but is supposed to be another…then why not just use a stock male or female and the player can pretend its trans? And on the same note, would there be any restrictions on who the avatars can fuck? Is there anything preventing Tori Black’s avatar from being fucked by a female player or whatnot?
Makes no sense.
Morgan Young says representing all bodies, genders, and orientations is important as the game develops.
“We have an opportunity right now to potentially reset how the industry moves forward,” he says. “We’re three young dudes. We don’t want to come across as chauvinist. We’re making a very concerted effort to make sure that everyone’s represented equally.”
One day people might not have to come off as so spineless when answering these questions. Today is not that day.
Young says this is a good opportunity for people to gain more agency over their identity.“I think there’s going to be almost like a renaissance. People are going to be able to explore their sexuality in a way that they’ve never been able to before.”
“It’s crazy too, because people may not choose to represent themselves the way that they are in the real world in a VR space,”
Congratulations, you’ve just described everyone who plays an RPG game where you can make your character ever.
he says. “You know, I might talk to you and you like lizards, and you’re a big lizard. And I’m an ice cream cone. But if that’s how I choose to represent myself as an avatar, then so be it.
And we can still step into a space and have an exciting, interactive and intimate connection with each other.”[You can] assume the body you like, assume the gender you like, the race you like, and be yourself and explore sexuality. It’s amazing; it’s what we’re on this planet to do.“
I can finally be the Apache Attack Helicopter that I always sexually identified as!
Abell adds that those who might be experiencing sexual blocks can break them down in the relative safety of the virtual landscape. If someone wants to experiment with group sex but is too scared, for example, or if they’re older and haven’t had sex, they can try it in the game first.
While the game can play a major role in helping an individual validate themselves, it can also make an existing relationship between two people that much more powerful. Games like this can, for example, bring a new dimension to long distance relationships. Through the use of teledildonics, people can get each other off from afar.
A Look into the Ethics of This Metaverse
It’s. Not. Real.
While VR porn has its upsides—"safe” exploration of uncharted sexual desires, the ability to have sex with a long distance partner using teledildonics, and even just a more interactive way to watch porn—there are ethical questions that come into play as well. How do we ensure a porn performer’s boundaries are not crossed in the virtual world?
You’re free to fuck the combinations of 0s and 1s whenever you want. You’re not free to fuck the combination of cells whenever you want. Hypothesis that the universe itself is a hologram not withstanding.
To what degree does this matter?
The same one about whether Call of Duty causes school shooting. None.
What happens if someone hacks the game and gains control over someone’s avatar?
Then, like when it would happen to anyone else’s avatar in any other game, that is something that would need to be handled but once again, I doubt you’re thinking about this in the same way I am.
What about virtual rape?
It’s a VIDEO GAME. You can’t legit rape people in video games, you retard. Any more than logging onto a server in Minecraft and slaughtering everyone trying to build their houses is ‘virtual murder’. The only difference is realism but so far, despite video games in general becoming more realistic, there’s no connection between gaming and real world crimes at all.
What? Do you want to bring this up to the UN?
It’s a fucking game, dude. Calm yourself.
Holodexxx says the hacking question is a risk everyone involved in the industry will have to take. Music and films get hacked, and this game is as susceptible as anything else.
“It’s something that we can’t do too much about,” Young says. “There’s really not too much a small start-up can do to prevent that.” He says they’ll put in reasonable measures to protect themselves (and the avatars), but in the long run, it’s a gamble for everyone.
While the company can’t ensure the safety of its avatars forever, Young explains that any boundaries the performers want respected within the game will be observed (though they do try to hire people based on their openness to being put in a variety of sexual scenarios).
“We’re dealing with someone’s likeness, and it’s no longer just an approximation of what this person looks like. It really is them. It’s photo real…there’s a human being behind that avatar.” As a result, he wants to make sure everyone feels comfortable. This means that if a performer doesn’t do a specific act in real life, the game will restrict that action in the virtual life too.
Well that’s unfortunate. I seems the next grand step in this industry will be being able to custom make avatars.
So far, the company hasn’t come up against any obstacles in this regard.In a similar vein, one can’t help but wonder about the life cycle of these avatars. After their exclusivity contract with Holodexxx is up, what happens to the them?
They get deleted. They’re virtual characters in a video game. No matter how realistic they may seem, they’re just video game characters. Come back when they have artificial intelligence that can pass a Turing Test.
Do they become zombies? Is there a wasteland of unemployed avatars out there in another world?
Jesus, dude. They’re a combination of files, meshes, animations, and coding. Them being deleted is no more impactful than what happens to Mario when you turn off a nintendo console.
Are they being tied up and blindfolded or enslaved? Young says he doesn’t have an answer.
I really wish video game devs could call journalists retards.
“I don’t know where the technology will be in five years—it’s hard to say.” He says the best the company can do is make the effort to protect its performers in the long run.
I ask Black what she thinks, whether she needs her real world boundaries to apply in virtual land.
“I don’t care what my avatar does,” she says, “because my avatar isn’t who I am. So yeah, all the things that you want me to do that I decline, go ahead and have my avatar do them and be like, 'Hey, look! She finally did it!’ I’ll be like yeah, great. It didn’t cross any of my boundaries because it’s all in the computer… I’m completely disconnected.”
Finally. Someone who isn’t spinless or stupid.
She says the virtual porn landscape is a place for exploration, and those who are uncomfortable with the idea of lack of consent just shouldn’t get involved with it. But if VR is the future of porn, I ask, what are people to do? Her answer? “Find a new career.
"It’s a harsh response, but Black may be right that that is pretty much the only option to ensure complete control.
As technology progresses, some jobs become totally obsolete. No one’s manufacturing buggy whips anymore. Real porn might still stick around for a long while even with VR because it still will be a much simpler option to take by virtue of not needing this game nor the equipment.
I’m still worried about the ethics here, though.
Read a book.
So I get in touch with Sonya Barnett, a sex educator and feminist activist
You already ruined it, son.
who also makes porn, to see if she’ll share her thoughts on some of the potential ethical fallout here. She says she’s not sure there’s a way to ensure real-world boundaries are observed in the virtual realm.
That’s because it’s the virtual realm. Have the option to block people and move on with your lives and stop worrying about the feelings of video game characters.
"As much as I want to say that having someone create an avatar of you/a porn star/a celebrity/a neighbor—or abuse one that already exists—is something that needs to be policed,”
A feminist advocating for people’s actions to be policed. Who wouldda thought? No one tell her about rule 34 and the fact that there’s a shit ton of it about real people both alive and dead.
she tells me, “people do that kind of thing already with virtual beings: they fantasize about others all the time, whether they watch a porn scene on continued repeat, or jack off to print magazines, or photos, or dolls.”
And no one’s been hurt by that. No one’s gone out and raped anyone because a doll didn’t say no.
While some virtual communities self-police unethical behavior by flagging, that can be impossible in a private-use VR world.
It’s possible to report private servers in games.
Ideally, Barnett explains, algorithms could be used to prevent the abuse—or creation—of other people’s avatars. But she’s not convinced that’s possible, or that it would eradicate unethical use.
It likely isn’t. People look similar and people can have the exact same names.
“Also problematic
If you ever doubted she was a feminist before.
is that the onus is put on the person who wants to prohibit use of their image, who has to then create restrictions for those algorithms to work. It’s like creating a 'publication ban’ on your image.”
All that’s left are more questions. Barnett lists hers off:
“[If] a person is using or abusing an avatar in private, just how much danger is the real live version of that person in?
How about instead you ask what’s the likelihood that someone who had an avatar made of them in a video game is going to be abused in real life and seek out close examples of that already happening to determine it.
I can point to several minecraft avatars of real people who haven’t been brutally murdered. There’s probably many other games where someone made the avatar of a celebrity that hasn’t affected them? How many “punch Bieber in the face!” flash games exist online only for no physical harm to come to the boy? Or for Obama or Bush or any politician?
Perhaps you’re talking about people making avatars of friends (or not so much friends) and whatnot but in case there could be a reporting feature. If someone’s doing that, they’re going to use their real name and their face. If there’s a system where that person can report a certain avatar and then send the mods a picture of themselves as proof that the avatar is supposed to be based on them, then that avatar could be deleted. All of this of course would be private.
However, public figures like celebrities likely wouldn’t get that luxury for the same reason Obama isn’t table to take down all those photoshops of him hanging out with Osama with people calling him a terrorist.
This of course is all ignoring the fact that so far you have a selection of some avatars that are essentially 3d scanned porn stars with the ability to change the size of their..assets. Custom made avatars seems like a ways off. Alas even if the game comes out I wouldn’t be able to make my waifu come to life but the hope is real.
Could a virtual realm be a safe space for people to play out their worst fantasies?
The devs already said it could. Which better for it to be in a video game than real life.
A similar question arises in regards to pedophiles using animated or illustrated content vs the photographing of actual children,
Considering how much time, work, and technology it takes to do this, I don’t think you have to worry about children any time soon. The three guys in charge seem a bit spineless but they aren’t pedophiles. If it advances to the point where more people can easily do this and people do start forcing kids to go through this, it would be handled like any other case of child pornography. The virtual reality aspect wouldn’t change the fact that kids are being abused.
If it’s some cartoony avatar of a child like some anime bitch you can never tell what age they are, then I’ve got news for you son. Of all the possible things that are within the real world: that ain’t one of them.
or even those who engage in rape fantasy play.
People do that in real life. It’s a fucking fetish and key words: fantasy and play. People will probably do it in the video game as well and to that I say oh fucking well. If people aren’t being raped in real life (which video games have a track record of 0 instances of them causes real world rape) then there’s no fucking issue. Again, you can do everything else in video games already. Want to steal shit? Murder people? Set them on fire and piss it out? Go ahead.
Is there harm in any of these cases if no actual person is on the receiving end?”
No.
Thus far, the answers remain unclear to everyone involved.
No they’re pretty clear. The answer is no. If this is just video game shit and no one’s being raped in real life and there aren’t any actual kids being forced to model for a bunch of pedophiles, then no, no one’s being harmed because two horny nerds want to have a rape play in a virtual world designed to allow people to live out their sexual fantasies without risk of harming real people.
Nervous semi-luddites like myself have been heard expressing consternation about the potential fallout when it comes to real human intimacy.
Porn hasn’t killed human fucking yet.
If people can enter a game and “fuck” famous porn stars with bodies deemed “perfect” by Western beauty standards, will they bother to seek out connections with others?
Many people will for the same reason it’s possible to watch POV porn with a fleshlight in your hands and people still seek others out. Also there’s the fact that sexual connections can arise from other connections. Friend with benefits. A couple in love. Etc.
At this point, Barnett is not concerned that VR activity will replace the need for real physical intimacy. For people who may not have access to a flesh and blood partner, she says “a virtual partner for many is better than no partner at all.”
Young believes that the game will enhance, not detract from, intimacy between people. People made the same argument, he says, with the birth of the cell phone and the internet. He sees VR as an extension of social media.
"I don’t see [VR experimentation] being a blockade, like a one-off thing you do by yourself in the seclusion of your home. I think this is going to be a persistent online, multi-player experience. You’ll log into the metaverse and this is where people will spend their time.”
I want to be there for the largest virtual orgy in history.
In other words, why not have a virtual orgy with the people of your choice rather than watching a passive 2D version?
Will 3D ever beat 2D? Waifuists declare end of the world!
I think I just wrote the premise for a Kotaku article.
What Next?
Despite people’s fears, Young says VR is already “too big to fail.”
He thinks that average household use will be quite common by about 2018. People will use the headsets, he predicts, not just for entertainment at home, but “outside, on public transit, as the headsets become slimmer and more refined, ergonomic and powerful. It’ll be like putting on a pair of sunglasses. You’ll step out into the world and you might be in a virtual world.”
Sounds like a cool future, m8.
I tell him it wigs me out to imagine everyone wandering around with their freak goggles on living in a world where they’re on virtual acid. What will we be seeing if we’re not occupying the physical world? How will we not get run over or something?
You know how you can totally zone out from the world by just paying attention only to your cellphone screen or newspaper or book or whatnot? It’s probably going to be like that.
The problems might not be new but there will be a new way to cause those problems. And this is assuming technology would even allow that to happen in the near future and these people aren’t stepping way ahead of themselves.
I ask how he’s so serene in the face of all this. He says it’ll just be “another method to leverage human connectivity.”
This calms me down. But at the end of the 12-hour shoot day, just when I’ve started to ease into the idea of this technology not being utterly terrifying, he adds under his breath:
“Say goodbye to reality as you know it.”
Don’t be a bitch, dude. This is the kind of development the people want.
So the next time you think of using that blue turtle shell in Mario Kart or naming your rival in Pokemon ‘assface’. Ask yourself, how does the video game character feel?
