Navigating the Ethical Terrain of Virtual Sex: Implications and Insights

Essay, Pages 10 (2289 words)

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With its simple access comes a cumulative number of people who are utilising technological advancements i.e. Virtual Reality for some electronic satisfaction.

But have we ever reflected on how the virtual sex revolution could affect the future of candor, communication, and intimacy in relationships? Sometimes, though, the virtual sex draws a person away from their partner. Sometimes it can promote dishonesty, deception and secretness.

For those who meet in the digital world -something that is as conventional today as meeting in a romantic restaurant - virtual sex possibly creates an opportunity to open a door- a door that they may have not known existed.

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Just like any other form of human communication, sexual connection is evolving.

Perusals have suggested that people portray their sexual desires with liberty via virtual sex, which might not be the circumstance with sexual communications in reality. Enabling the experience to be a precursor for the authentic thing, the initial openness might lead to incremented openness when the sexual deed occurs.

It's facile to access, and you can do it as often as you optate - morning, noon, and night, and you can do it in the privacy of your own place of residence. But is there such a thing as too much virtual sex?

A plethora of people are engaging in virtual sex, but for people who are doing it customarily or are superseding their intimate relationships for virtual sex, we're verbalizing about people who have intimacy issues. By consistently culling an electronic device over the authentic deal -- whether it's for sex or for human interaction in general -- one can sense the quandaries that might arise.

When you are utilising a 3D model to achieve sexual intimacy with a stranger who you never get acquainted with, you are not achieving true intimacy. And if you are utilizing that on a customary substructure, it's obviating you from getting sexual and emotional intimacy in your life. Anytime you prefer to have virtual sex to authentic human company – for example if a friend calls you up and asks you to dinner and you opt not to go because you'd rather engage in virtual sex -that's when you're headed for trouble.

And then, of course, comes the question - is virtual sex cheating? When one person in an espousement is going to technology to attain their sex desires, it erodes the intimacy in the espousement. Does it additionally erode a person's sense of faithfulness? It's cheating if your spouse considers it cheating. It's hard to give a blanket definition of cheating, because it's predicated on the morals and credences of the espousement. But what matters is: does your spouse consider it cheating? For some, engaging in high-tech-relationship treason is just as unforgivable as the authentic thing. For others, maybe it can be overlooked. Whether any orgasm-seeking deportment outside the relationship constitutes cheating is up to a couple. And so each relationship defines it on their own terms. Some would verbally express virtual sex is sexually arousing, so it is a failure to keep the acquiescent. Others would articulate, if there isn't any physical contact, ‘it's all fictional’ and ‘it doesn't nuisance me’.

BadoinkVR Virtual Sexology

Utilising VR technology and teledildonic connectivity, this cutting edge VR experience is aimed at enhancing sexual pleasure and performance.

Experiment: Is there really a noticeable difference in the experience between watching porn on a PC monitor or smartphone versus a 360-degree experience?

Aim: To investigate whether there is a significant difference in the experience between watching 2D porn- on a PC monitor or smartphone and virtual reality giving you a 360-degree experience. The results of the PC and VR test were then compared to get a holistic understanding of how virtual reality porn compares to more orthodox methods.

Age Range of Test Subjects: Between the ages of 18 and 45, with an average age of 27.

Procedure: They were taken to an isolated room and were provided with an eight-minute porn video on a flat-screen monitor to watch. As they viewed the video, an electroencephalogram (EEG), a contrivance worn on the head, took quantifications of encephalon activity. When the video ended, each person did a diversion test until their brain activity returned to normal levels. They then watched the same porn video again—this time, in virtual reality.

Independent Variable: Dimensions of the video displayed

Controlled Variable: To keep the findings consistent, they were asked not to masturbate.

Dependent Variable: The EEG accumulated readings on three different quantifications to determine the emotional and cognitive reactions of the subjects, including arousal (level of excitement), motivation (level of interest), and cognitive load (level of mental processing).

Results and Data Representation

Average Cognitive Load Overtime for PC and VR

Similar patterns have emerged on both PC and VR, which suggests that there isn’t much complexity in understanding whether in a 2D or 3D environment.

VR porn incremented the average cognitive load. This betokens participants worked harder to comprehend information when visually examining in VR compared to a monitor (2D environment).

However the peaks of cognitive load occurred at different times for both environments. For PC it is approximately occurred at 325 seconds and for VR it approximately occurred at 375 seconds. The delay in reaching that peak, could signify the delayed thought changes present in the brain.

Average Motivation Overtime for PC and VR

The level of motivation that VR begins with is greater than that of the one with the 2D experience. The level of interest at the beginning for VR is 1.18 times larger than that of the 2D version.

Motivation Levels:

1. VR= 0.56

2. PC (2D)=0.475

((0.56-0.475) ÷0.475) x 100 =17.9 %

The level of motivation that VR ends with is greater than that of the one with the 2D experience. The level of interest at the end for VR is 1.18 times larger than that of the 2D version.

Motivation Levels:

3. VR= 0.65

4. PC (2D)=0.55

((0.65-0.55) ÷0.55) x 100 =18.2 %

Even though VR begins with a higher level of motivation than PC, at one instance it does have the lowest level of motivation when the graph slumps in the middle. There is also a slump in the other graph (PC), however, the slump is greater for VR. This is probably because VR immerses the user in the environment, therefore when there was a scene which didn’t particularly interest the user, the reaction would be extreme.

The overall percentage increase in the motivation level is greater for VR than the PC, which shows that VR is probably a more effective tool than the orthodox version.

VR= ((0.65-0.56) ÷0.56) x 100 =16.1 %
PC= ((0.55-0.475) ÷0.475) x 100 =15.8 %

A similar trend is followed in both VR and the PC graphs, however the VR scores were higher on average. This suggests VR produced a more positive experience overall.

Both PC and VR start at an arousal level of 0.45, however for PC, as soon as the clip begins the arousal level decreases, however for VR, the arousal level is maintained and slightly increased up to approximately 50 seconds. The initial slight increase in arousal level displays that the users were probably excited and mesmerized due to being in the immersive and interactive session.

Average Arousal Overtime for PC and VR

The size of one of the waves in the VR graph is greater than the sizes of the waves in the PC graph, which suggests that the level of excitement was more spread out in some circumstances than in PC, therefore shows that the excitement created was more long-lasting and effective.

Arousal, or the emotional intensity participants felt when watching, was nearly identical for VR and PC. As you can see in the graph above, arousal fluctuated throughout the video, but the level of emotional response participants felt didn’t increase when they put on a VR headset.

Conclusion

The capacity to look around within your liberty in the 3D environment increases arousal and exhilaration. Interactivity within the virtual 3D environment intensifies the emotional experience and engenders a high sense of participation and allure.
The 3D environment coerced the participants to withstand a significantly higher level of mental processing, however scientists at Neurons have reassured that as you continue to use VR devices, your cognitive loading will decrease, because users who had already used VR devices had a lower cognitive loading in comparison to new users.
Participants have a peak in arousal at the beginning of the video and when these timings were linked back to the clip, it established that this peak rise was present ‘right before the performer takes off her clothes’. There is a rise in pleasure in anticipation of the performer disrobing.
One of the highest peaks in arousal and excitement is the first moment when the performer has penetration. In perspective of the entire video, this is one of the predominantly intense moments. The VR also showed that making eye contact with the female actress resulted in a rise in arousal and motivation, which wasn’t the case with the 2D porn.
There is a steady increase in arousal as the performers build to the erotic moments. ‘Ejaculation yields the most intense and enjoyable experience, as well as proved to be the most crucial moment in the video’.
The levels of motivation and arousal were low and when cross-checked with the video it showed that ‘choking sounds during oral sex yields a negative response, participants found it unappealing. In general, oral sex yields the most neutral response’.

Moral Sexual Dimensions in Virtual Reality

Disputing the ‘Reality’ of Virtual Reality Pornography through the Story Completion Method- Experiment

Aim: To investigate using the story completion method to see the different personalities of users in virtual reality porn.

Procedure: Participants were given with the following scenario:

Jack starts up his new virtual reality headset and positions it carefully over his head. He isn’t quite sure what to expect. He’s about to have his very first virtual reality porn experience…

No details are given about Jack, other than he is a ‘man’ because perusals in 2017 established that men are the primary consumer of pornography. Using the scenario, participants were asked to decide the pathway of the situation using their imagination and were presented with a large dialogue box to write their thoughts. Participants were asked to spend around 10 mins writing their story.

Through a process of thematic analysis, 2 main themes transpired throughout the stories. One of the themes that was presented predominantly was how some participants painted Jack’s experience as something impending perfection, a continuous smooth event that was “beyond his wildest dreams”, and aspects of the event suggest that it delivered a flawless experience. This divine atmosphere sometimes crossed the boundaries, almost treacherously, which delves into the second theme- a perilous experience. Here we consider some of the limitations caused by this idealised image of perfection to some and most importantly how the experience was sometimes perceived as something, risky, unstable or hazardous.

In conclusion, the minor number of participants limits us from coming to a comprehensive decision— but the results do signify certain types of potential circumstances people might want out of their pornographic virtual reality experiences.

This apparent existence of this portentous element in personality that is as empowering as the beautiful, lavishing scenarios that people illustrated is what signifies the possibilities of ethical dimensions reaching out of hands. Sexual exploitation of women already visually perceived in conventional porn could be escalated in a virtual reality world, which was vividly evident from the experiment as there are no boundaries, rules or limits therefore users could do things they might not otherwise be capable of doing with their partners in their actual relationships.

In today’s society, we are living in condition where we are fixated with body image and the digital industry does not differ in any way, creating the perfect virtual woman to satisfy their customers- VR porn has the capacity to bring this situation to its zenith. VR offers the opportunity to promote from being simply a spectator to being a participant. Findings from the research has displayed that there are possibilities for creating 3D models of real life people, raising questions over what consent means in VR experiences.

Portraying men as authoritative and superior; while women are acquiescent and subservient. Clip after clip of degrading submission makes it start to seem normal- but is it really? Establishing an exemplar scenario for disproportionate power subtleties in relationships and the steady approval of any form of aggression against women.

‘’If a user created a VR version of their real life girlfriend, for example, would they do things to her that they knew she would refuse in the real world?’’ Possibly, would the user be taking revenge on their real partner for not letting them do such ‘pleasing’ things they might have wanted to do?

Advancements in technology has been rapidly increasing and people born recently will have been more exposed to the internet and most importantly other technologies and means of communication that may be introduced at that period. Anonymity, affordability, and accessibility influences the distribution of sexually explicit material swamped on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and revenge porn is a mounting spectacle, where sexually explicit content is uploaded to online platforms for the purpose of being shared. Given the cyber world has integrated many aspects of reality, it is only fitting that this would be elongated to convivial elements of interaction and by proxy to the sexual dimensions of lives.

Composed with the convenience of 3D imaging tools and the upsurge in DIY porn, there are possibilities of scenarios such as the ones described in the research- highly explicit and violent acts towards virtual partners- could become a reality, and models based on real people are used in VR pornographic settings could develop to be the future form of revenge porn.