Making out with the world and valuing relationships with humans

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This paper aims to analyze the effects of the introduction of teledildos on our sexual lives according to postphenomenology and mediation theory. Digital technologies are getting very intimate by mediating even our sexual intercourse, as in the case of teledildonics. According to postphenomenology and mediation theory, technologies are never neutral, but they change how we live and how we relate to the world around us. Thus, we need to ask how these intimate technologies are going to affect us in the way we live our intimacy and relationships. This paper will show how teledildonics will allow human beings to have sexual intercourse with every object around by turning them into sexually interactive "quasi-others", and how this change will affect the way we give meanings and values to love and sex in general. The first part of this paper will show the introduction of teledildonics will affect how we perceive the world around us and how we are tempted by it. The second part will highlight how even the meanings and values we give to sex and love will be shaped according to the new potentialities provided by teledildos.</jats:p>

Curiosity and other attitudes towards sex robots: Results of an online survey

“…As an alternative sex partner, sex robots create new avenues of concern for jealous partners (Szczuka and Kramer, 2018). It is suggested that even less humanoid sexual technologies may shape the way we give meanings and values to love and sex in general (Liberati, 2020), and that the availability of sex robots seems to possess the potential to modify cultural morals (Bergen, 2020). Researchers have explored the possibility that men could find sex robots more attractive partners than humans (Szczuka & Kramer, 2017a;2017b), and that humans can fall in love with their sex robot (Viik, 2020).…”

Virtual Reality Pornography: a Review of Health-Related Opportunities and Challenges

“…The sample was mostly comprised of women (> 60%), with 17% of participants identifying as men and 21.5% as non-binary. Participants were recruited from a previous SA study and through social media in France High-SA participants showed increased discomfort as a factor of time exposed to VR pornographic performance by a synthetic actor Subjective measures of discomfort were increased significantly in high-SA participants through increased exposure to a synthetic character displaying erotic behaviours in a virtual room Liberati [ 38 ] Non-empirical Phenomenological assessment of teledildonic possibilities Teledildonics have the potential to re-shape our living body and, in so doing, re-shape our affections as well as our perception of the world Teledildonics provide tactual sensations that simulate part of a subject’s body as being relocated in another place, enabling a subject to ‘connect’ and to ‘play’ with a second subject as if they were actually in the same place at the same time, in other words, to engage in remote sexual activity Liberati [ 39 ] Non-empirical Critical analysis of the effects of the introduction of teledildonics on sexual lives according to postphenomenology and mediation theory Teledildonic use will have a transformative effect on the scope and range of human sexual relations and human-object sexual relations Teledildonics will allow human beings to have sexual intercourse with every object around by turning them into sexually interactive ‘quasi-others’. This will affect the way we give meanings and values to love and sex in general Marcotte et al [ 37 ] Empirical quantitative Survey of 8004 American adults, mean age 44.05, 47.8% male, 51.2% female, 1% other People with mental health struggles may be drawn to interactive, digital forms of sexual behaviour as a means of alleviating symptoms through distraction or self-soothing People with higher anxiety and depression were more likely to engage in sextech.…”

Digital Intimacy in China and Japan

“…At the same time, it has been studied how technologies like condoms and teledildonics shape the values we give to sexual intercourse by providing the ability to imbue the act with values like trust. Since condoms “protect” the lovers during intercourse, the decision to use or not to use the condom makes the different trust we have towards the lover visible (Ley & Rambukkana, 2021 ; Liberati, 2020 ).…”

“…From the interest in the "informational" connotation where the data processed were the most relevant elements in the analysis of digital technologies (Floridi, 2014), now the development focuses on the relation digital technologies have to our emotions. For example, digital technologies become more bodily related by being "always-on," mounted on us, and intimate (Bell et al, 2003;Fredette et al, 2012), and they are so intimate it is possible to think of people having sexual intercourse with and through digital technologies like in the case of sex robots and teledildonics (Behrendt, 2020;Levy, 2009;Liberati, 2018c;Mackenzie, 2018;Sparrow, 2019Sparrow, , 2020Rigotti, 2020;Weiss, 2020;Fosch-Villaronga & Poulsen, 2020;Liberati, 2017Liberati, , 2020Balistreri, 2018). However, even if these technologies are clearly becoming intertwined with our intimate life, their effects on our society are not clear, and it is not clear also the framework we can use to analyze these effects.…”