Submitted by admin on Fri, 2006-03-24 09:00. ::
Best Way to Date: Collaborate? Secrets to Cybersex Success Serving Up Porn in HD Over IP Ins and Outs of Teledildonics Was It Good for You, Too?
I'm in bed, enveloped in pillows, laptop keeping my bare legs warm and the dog snoring at my feet. My plan is to download some Grooves into my Je Joue programmable vibrator, then set the computer aside and apply myself to half an hour of product analysis.
But this has been a crazy week. Three journalists have interviewed me for their stories, and I've conducted two interviews of my own. I've commuted 400 miles to be on-site during a crunch period at the "day job," and frankly, I don't feel up to a Je Joue test drive tonight.
Instead, I switch off the lights, snuggle deep down under the covers, and think about sex tech in general. Next week is Sex Drive's three-year anniversary, and if someone had told me back then that I'd be downloading and even programming my own patterns into a $300 "sensual intelligence" device, I'd have been delighted but doubtful.
It's not that I thought such things were impossible. But at the time, consumers had barely a glimmer of the potential for sex gadgets and internet convergence. Sex tech was for freaks, geeks and pedophiles, and anything kinkier than online dating elicited self-conscious giggles, not serious consideration.
I should have remembered how quickly things change in cyberspace. In three years, sex tech has come of age and extended its reach far beyond techies, early adopters and porn fans.
In March 2003, Sinulate Entertainment had just brought what I consider the first viable internet-enabled sex toy system to a consumer market; it was fairly easy to use and reasonably priced. High Joy launched about a year later.
Slashdong , the do-it-yourself teledildonics blog, and its proprietor qDot, had yet to become famous. The effect of blogs on relationships (and careers) was just starting to gain notice. The rush to try online dating, now that the stigma had melted away, was at its peak.
Webcam cybersex became more common as broadband internet access finally penetrated communities that previously suffered from dialup. Before that, we made do with our stuttering video and frequent freeze frames, of course. But video chat, with dozens of cams on your screen at once, could not flourish until most people had a fast connection.
Syndication was just starting to get simple enough for the masses (although even now, at least half my friends don't know what a feed is or how to subscribe to one, and think RSS is some form of carpal tunnel inflammation). Sex podcasts were a glimmer in a few bloggers' eyes.
If 20,000 people in China were using their webcams for cybersex, we had not heard about it yet. Show-n-tell was still in the middle of researching her webAffairs documentary .
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