Erotic Aspects of Everyday Life as a Challenge for Ubiquitous Computing

Abstract

Thus, the potential reorientation instantiated in the aesthetic turn is one that breaks fundamentally with the hegemonic status of technical rationality. As an example of a residual category this paper looks into the interplay between information technology and erotic aspects of everyday life. IT AND THE EROTIC ASPECTS OF EVERYDAY LIFETelevision is an obvious example of a technology that can be both a disabler and an enabler depending on the situation of use. A recent study (Politiken, 16 September 2006) has suggested that TV in the bedroom reduces the sexual activities; at the same time many couples with small children tell that TV-programs for children in Sunday mornings have been an important help for maintaining sexual activity. A similar duality might be in play with respect to cell phone text messaging. On the one hand the constant availability to people from outside, e.g. the workplace, may disrupt intimacy; on the other hand the option to exchange erotic messages during the workday may be a turn on.We suggest that technologies in the home setting (and elsewhere) in relation erotic life can be analyzed in terms of a tension between being enablers and disablers. Most approaches to technology mediated erotic activity in the past seem to have centered around futuristic concepts such as cyber sex, where sexual activities would be carried out in virtual reality with the users hooked up via direct stimulation of erogenous zones. In contrast, we aim to look into the erotic, and sexual practice, as examples of aspects of life not directly designed for in the development of information technology, but still changed massively with ubiquitous computing, i.e. as technology is becoming present in the private and intimate sphere. Sometimes the effects of the new technologies are positive, but most often it seems that the effect of these workplace centric technologies invading private life is that intimacy is jeopardized. In particular, it is rarely an issue of debate or concern how a new ubiquitous computing technology influence erotic aspects of everyday life. This is a problem, as it seems to be the case that many of the new technologies entering into the private space (in combination with an intensified working life) are significant factors in making sexual life difficult for many couples today. In particular some of the technologies existing, or being introduced or inserted into, the home setting contribute to a reduction of erotic space. 1Technologies in the home develop at a high pace. Therefore, a counter discourse is needed -a discourse focusing on technologies and aspects of technologies that can reopen the erotic space in the home. The aim of this paper is to begin this discourse. The phenomena we focus on are in a spectrum from the erotic atmosphere (or ambience) via the light flirt, to the concrete conditions for realizing the sexual intercourse. EROTICISM AS AN ANALYTICAL CATEGORYThe erotic dimension is characterized by immediacy, unmediatedness, and it seems to be opposed to the hermeneutic in large part...