Adult-themed VR games and apps. The idea isn’t groundbreaking – in fact, it’s almost expected. And adult VR is becoming more popular by the day. Now, to be fair, virtual porn-themed content is not new to gaming at all – with hugely popular franchises like The Witcher; Grand Theft Auto and Dragon Age having included adult content for years. Not to mention all the lewd mods available for games like The Sims and Skyrim.
And who else to lead this industry than our good friends over in Japan. With leading adult-themed industries like Hentai and sex dolls/robots, it was only a matter of time before they took it to a VR level. Hentai has already made its way into VR – with fans being able to.. play (ahem).. with some of their favourite anime characters. This concept in itself isn’t really new either – as anime-style adult games have been big in Japan for years.
As you might have heard, a Japanese adult VR festival was held back in June. The event drew huge crowds but the venue they had wasn’t big enough for all the people who decided to show up, which led to the authorities stepping in to break up the huge crowd and the festival closing early. And they had some really weird inventions and games too. We’re not going to show you any here – but you can check out the whole thing over at Kotaku.
No matter which way you look at it, the adult industry is a money making machine – there’s no justifiable reason for VR to not get in on the action too. Indeed, there’s no stopping this hormone-inducing frenzy train, and already some companies have emerged to lead the Adult VR industry. The XXX big gun, Pornhub, has a big selection of VR content available and newcomer to the block, VRPorn, has gained a large following within a short amount of time.
So the era of Adult VR has come and it’s definitely going to be huuuuuge (No I couldn’t resist).
The potentially negative side to adult VR
But clearly, there may be some downsides to this development as well. There’s even a Reddit thread on the possible negative effects of VR porn. Also, a lot of research has been done on the possible side-effects of porn, but most studies are inconclusive due to preemptive bias or researchers having a hard time finding men who have never watched porn (no kidding) – which means no comparisons can be done. Still, some negative effects will logically follow the rise of Adult themed VR:
-Porn and sexual addiction is a real thing – with more and more people reporting this type of addiction each year. This begs the question of how much addiction VR porn will cause – as it has the ability to feel more real than the normal type does.
-Also, (and this has already been happening with advertising, movies and porn leading the way) virtual reality might increase the distance between men’s expectations of women and reality. Porn is chock-full of unrealistic standards and beautiful women. VR will be no exception – with the ability to create hyper-realistic, exceptionally beautiful women – men’s expectations might evolve with it.
-With VR bringing a more sophisticated element to the adult scene, like immersiveness, presence and new ‘toys’, the line between what’s acceptable and what isn’t gets blurry. Especially since VR is designed to trick your perceptual systems at a low level (before sensory information hits the level of consciousness) which actually leads to the wearer feeling present. Watching adult content is one thing – but actually being present and participating is something else entirely. When people in relationships watch (and take part in) adult VR content, when does it start to resemble adultery?
Whatever your stance on the matter – adult-themed VR isn’t going to go away. And as for where (and how far) the industry goes from here? Your guess is as good as mine.
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