what was the most important thing you
learned about sex before you did it use
a condom maybe avoid pregnancy if you
had good sex education perhaps you
learned about the importance of consent
or something about love and
relationships but how many of you
learned about pleasure
that sex no matter how you have it
should actually kind of be enjoyable sex
and masturbation are as old as humanity
itself and yet it’s only recently that
we started to have an open discussion
about pleasure now sex education when
you’re very young focuses on things like
STI is pregnancy what should go where
and when and we call this the plumbing
and Prevention model it basically gives
you the ingredients that you need to
avoid complete disaster but it doesn’t
really give you anything to aspire to
and then as we get older sex advice in
the media focuses on apps rather than
pleasure here’s five new positions to
try or ten different ways to give a
blowjob and so we focus on what we
should be doing rather than how we
should be feeling and it’s bizarre right
I mean imagine if we treated food the
same way that we treat sex if you were
taught that eating is about taking
something putting in your mouth chewing
it and swallowing it and things in the
media focused around different
techniques for chewing or ten different
ways to hold a knife and fork without
any of the context of the joy that food
brings people or the different people
have different tastes now the pleasure
we get from food is not from chewing and
swallowing just like the pleasure we get
from sex is not about what goes where
and when sex isn’t about actions
it’s about sensations and connections
with other people so what does this mean
for the future of sex and the way that
we develop new technology for pleasure
after all when you hear about some weird
new sex toy or an
or a sex robot that will fulfill your
every desire often the stories focus on
what is going to happen this thing will
squeeze or vibrate or it will connect
with your pornography and one of these
features might be quite fun what is
important isn’t actually what that sex
SEC does what’s important is how it
feels and how it makes you explore the
different meanings of pleasure to you
now three years ago I started a company
called mystery vibe and as part of my
work I researched trends in sex and
pleasure and I travel across the world
and I talk to so many different people
about sex it’s a hard life but time and
time again some of the same trends keep
coming back and I keep having
conversations about them first off we
are trying to seek a more realistic
depiction of what life is really like
in every aspect of our lives whether
it’s seeing photography in the media
that hasn’t been photoshopped or in
period adverts seeing red blood instead
of that weird blue liquid that you
always see and secondly the way we’re
talking about gender is changing and
dramatically we used to say men like it
this way women like it this way and
they’ll never enjoy the same stuff but
everywhere I go we’re starting to see
more things that are gender less
genderless fashion even genderless sex
toys and the thread running through all
the research that I’ve been doing and
all the conversations I’ve been having
is that people don’t want to be labeled
anymore
they want to look at things look at
products look at companies and work out
exactly how those things work for them
as people so as we start to look more
towards sex how can we bring that idea
into sex and Technology well I’d argue
to understand this we need to look at it
very differently to how we’re looking at
other industries often the products or
services or companies that are very
successful find a problem and they
propose some kind of neat solution so
problem I’m in a new city I have no idea
where to go
and taxis are kind of expensive solution
uber or lyft or problem I want to watch
my favorite TV show but I hate waiting
every week for a new episodes come out
solution is Netflix but with sex that
falls into a horribly old-school trap
its plumbing and Prevention the solution
and problem approach simply does not
work when it comes to sex because
pleasure isn’t a problem that needs to
be solved and that’s where our sex
education system is falling down it
treats sex as a problem and it offers
you a list of tips or advice and how to
solve it in fact when it comes to the
bedroom the most important role that
technology is going to play is in
helping us discover now one of my
favorite examples when it comes to this
is virtual reality and at the moment
virtual reality is only really used as
something to make pornography better see
it in 3d rather than 2d and at its most
advanced you can connect some kind of
product up to your headset so you can
feel what you’re seeing but in the
future as the price of this technology
comes down we’ll start to see more
real-time interactions
now while people use this as an example
of how to people over a long distance
could stay connected and enjoy things
together a really interesting question
for me is what if we could have full
romantic and sexual relationships
entirely in virtual spaces so you could
put your headset on you could connect to
that with someone else and you could go
on a date you could go to the cinema you
could go for a walk on Mars if you
wanted to and you could have sex now if
we are having these relationships in
purely virtual spaces we can start
asking different questions it’s not
about how does this virtual reality work
yes I put my headset on I connect up and
go we can start asking questions like
how will my criteria for compatibility
change after all if I’m never going to
meet this purse
in real life does it even matter what
they look like does it matter what hair
color they have or eye color or face
shape or body shape or even gender does
it matter what gender you have in
virtual reality you could have sex as
someone with a completely different body
shape or gender and so we start asking
ourselves different questions what do I
find sexy about someone’s behavior what
are their erotic qualities beyond the
physical now I’m not just trying to
update the old phrase personality is
more important than looks but the real
thing that this helps us discover is why
technology it doesn’t matter what it
does it doesn’t matter that you can
connect it up to someone else what
matters is how it helps you question
where you get your pleasure from what
you desire and how you see your humanity
and your identity so how do we push
forward from this how do we make sure
that the products and the technologies
that we’re developing in the future are
helping us to ask more questions rather
than telling us what to do and giving us
instructions and assuming that everyone
is exactly the same well three years ago
when we started our company mystery vibe
we thought we’d found a problem and the
problem was that technology was creating
this barrier to intimacy
you know how it is these days we are
constantly bombarded by text by
notifications by emails by whatsapp by
Facebook and it becomes very difficult
to switch off from your technology and
switch onto your partner or the people
around you for some people their phone
is the last thing they touch at night
and the first thing they touch in the
morning but the more we started to think
about this the more we started to
question is technology really the
problem here after all your phone could
be used for something pleasurable you
could watch a piece of erotica with your
partner or you can use an app that could
explore different kinds of kinks or
fetishes so just as technology can help
you send an email at 11:00 p.m. when
something is going awfully wrong and
your boss is chasing and chasing you it
also means that you can connect with
people in places
and in ways that you never would have
been able to before and when your
parents or your grandparents tell you to
put your phone down and have a real
conversation with real people in the
real world they don’t understand that
that’s exactly what you’re doing
technology is fundamentally about
relationships and so it’s sex tech job
to facilitate these relationships to
make it easier to connect with your
partner and to make it easier to connect
with the desires and the different
pleasures that you might find I mean
after all when you go through your life
and as you get older what you desire and
what you find pleasurable will change it
will change depending on your mood
depending on the person you’re with
depending on what food you eat in that
day and any number of other factors so
that old-school instruction LED idea of
sex and sex education is slowly
disappearing and in its place
sex technology will help us facilitate
conversations to engage more in
sexuality what it means to be human what
it means to be intimate and so the next
time you read that story about that
crazy new sex toy or that app or that
robot instead of asking what does it do
ask how does it make me feel how will it
help me explore my desire and my
pleasure in the future and perhaps the
next time you’re in bed with your
partner instead of asking what should I
do ask them how do you want me to make
you feel thank you
you
learned about sex before you did it use
a condom maybe avoid pregnancy if you
had good sex education perhaps you
learned about the importance of consent
or something about love and
relationships but how many of you
learned about pleasure
that sex no matter how you have it
should actually kind of be enjoyable sex
and masturbation are as old as humanity
itself and yet it’s only recently that
we started to have an open discussion
about pleasure now sex education when
you’re very young focuses on things like
STI is pregnancy what should go where
and when and we call this the plumbing
and Prevention model it basically gives
you the ingredients that you need to
avoid complete disaster but it doesn’t
really give you anything to aspire to
and then as we get older sex advice in
the media focuses on apps rather than
pleasure here’s five new positions to
try or ten different ways to give a
blowjob and so we focus on what we
should be doing rather than how we
should be feeling and it’s bizarre right
I mean imagine if we treated food the
same way that we treat sex if you were
taught that eating is about taking
something putting in your mouth chewing
it and swallowing it and things in the
media focused around different
techniques for chewing or ten different
ways to hold a knife and fork without
any of the context of the joy that food
brings people or the different people
have different tastes now the pleasure
we get from food is not from chewing and
swallowing just like the pleasure we get
from sex is not about what goes where
and when sex isn’t about actions
it’s about sensations and connections
with other people so what does this mean
for the future of sex and the way that
we develop new technology for pleasure
after all when you hear about some weird
new sex toy or an
or a sex robot that will fulfill your
every desire often the stories focus on
what is going to happen this thing will
squeeze or vibrate or it will connect
with your pornography and one of these
features might be quite fun what is
important isn’t actually what that sex
SEC does what’s important is how it
feels and how it makes you explore the
different meanings of pleasure to you
now three years ago I started a company
called mystery vibe and as part of my
work I researched trends in sex and
pleasure and I travel across the world
and I talk to so many different people
about sex it’s a hard life but time and
time again some of the same trends keep
coming back and I keep having
conversations about them first off we
are trying to seek a more realistic
depiction of what life is really like
in every aspect of our lives whether
it’s seeing photography in the media
that hasn’t been photoshopped or in
period adverts seeing red blood instead
of that weird blue liquid that you
always see and secondly the way we’re
talking about gender is changing and
dramatically we used to say men like it
this way women like it this way and
they’ll never enjoy the same stuff but
everywhere I go we’re starting to see
more things that are gender less
genderless fashion even genderless sex
toys and the thread running through all
the research that I’ve been doing and
all the conversations I’ve been having
is that people don’t want to be labeled
anymore
they want to look at things look at
products look at companies and work out
exactly how those things work for them
as people so as we start to look more
towards sex how can we bring that idea
into sex and Technology well I’d argue
to understand this we need to look at it
very differently to how we’re looking at
other industries often the products or
services or companies that are very
successful find a problem and they
propose some kind of neat solution so
problem I’m in a new city I have no idea
where to go
and taxis are kind of expensive solution
uber or lyft or problem I want to watch
my favorite TV show but I hate waiting
every week for a new episodes come out
solution is Netflix but with sex that
falls into a horribly old-school trap
its plumbing and Prevention the solution
and problem approach simply does not
work when it comes to sex because
pleasure isn’t a problem that needs to
be solved and that’s where our sex
education system is falling down it
treats sex as a problem and it offers
you a list of tips or advice and how to
solve it in fact when it comes to the
bedroom the most important role that
technology is going to play is in
helping us discover now one of my
favorite examples when it comes to this
is virtual reality and at the moment
virtual reality is only really used as
something to make pornography better see
it in 3d rather than 2d and at its most
advanced you can connect some kind of
product up to your headset so you can
feel what you’re seeing but in the
future as the price of this technology
comes down we’ll start to see more
real-time interactions
now while people use this as an example
of how to people over a long distance
could stay connected and enjoy things
together a really interesting question
for me is what if we could have full
romantic and sexual relationships
entirely in virtual spaces so you could
put your headset on you could connect to
that with someone else and you could go
on a date you could go to the cinema you
could go for a walk on Mars if you
wanted to and you could have sex now if
we are having these relationships in
purely virtual spaces we can start
asking different questions it’s not
about how does this virtual reality work
yes I put my headset on I connect up and
go we can start asking questions like
how will my criteria for compatibility
change after all if I’m never going to
meet this purse
in real life does it even matter what
they look like does it matter what hair
color they have or eye color or face
shape or body shape or even gender does
it matter what gender you have in
virtual reality you could have sex as
someone with a completely different body
shape or gender and so we start asking
ourselves different questions what do I
find sexy about someone’s behavior what
are their erotic qualities beyond the
physical now I’m not just trying to
update the old phrase personality is
more important than looks but the real
thing that this helps us discover is why
technology it doesn’t matter what it
does it doesn’t matter that you can
connect it up to someone else what
matters is how it helps you question
where you get your pleasure from what
you desire and how you see your humanity
and your identity so how do we push
forward from this how do we make sure
that the products and the technologies
that we’re developing in the future are
helping us to ask more questions rather
than telling us what to do and giving us
instructions and assuming that everyone
is exactly the same well three years ago
when we started our company mystery vibe
we thought we’d found a problem and the
problem was that technology was creating
this barrier to intimacy
you know how it is these days we are
constantly bombarded by text by
notifications by emails by whatsapp by
Facebook and it becomes very difficult
to switch off from your technology and
switch onto your partner or the people
around you for some people their phone
is the last thing they touch at night
and the first thing they touch in the
morning but the more we started to think
about this the more we started to
question is technology really the
problem here after all your phone could
be used for something pleasurable you
could watch a piece of erotica with your
partner or you can use an app that could
explore different kinds of kinks or
fetishes so just as technology can help
you send an email at 11:00 p.m. when
something is going awfully wrong and
your boss is chasing and chasing you it
also means that you can connect with
people in places
and in ways that you never would have
been able to before and when your
parents or your grandparents tell you to
put your phone down and have a real
conversation with real people in the
real world they don’t understand that
that’s exactly what you’re doing
technology is fundamentally about
relationships and so it’s sex tech job
to facilitate these relationships to
make it easier to connect with your
partner and to make it easier to connect
with the desires and the different
pleasures that you might find I mean
after all when you go through your life
and as you get older what you desire and
what you find pleasurable will change it
will change depending on your mood
depending on the person you’re with
depending on what food you eat in that
day and any number of other factors so
that old-school instruction LED idea of
sex and sex education is slowly
disappearing and in its place
sex technology will help us facilitate
conversations to engage more in
sexuality what it means to be human what
it means to be intimate and so the next
time you read that story about that
crazy new sex toy or that app or that
robot instead of asking what does it do
ask how does it make me feel how will it
help me explore my desire and my
pleasure in the future and perhaps the
next time you’re in bed with your
partner instead of asking what should I
do ask them how do you want me to make
you feel thank you
you
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