From Virtual Sex to No Sex?

Just found an article from the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies by Dr. James Hughes (a transhumanist ethicist who has a whole bunch of cool articles, check that link for them) about the neuroethics of virtual sex. Much of the beginning of the article actually references some of my writing here on slashdong, and I found it through my referrers. I was all giddy that someone had written me up in IEEE somewhere then realized that was a T not an E and got all pouty, but continued reading anyways.

And now I wanna go curl up in a corner and rock back and forth while crying for a while, I think.

But the equipment has been so crude that it has not provided a very interesting experience for many. In about ten years however I’m sure that Wii-sex will be quite popular.

Agreed. Equipment totally sucks. (I'm not kidding here. I'm never one to defend our current teledildonics technology, nor am I saying I'm doing much to advance it. I just make the easy stuff and hook it up to the silly stuff). However, I'll ask again... Why does everyone love the Wii-sex idea so much?

Eventually we will be able to directly stimulate the parts of the brain that desire specific partners or experiences. In the future we will be able to specifically turn off sexual thoughts about children, and turn on appropriate sexual thoughts about adults. We will be able to make gays straight, and straights gay, and everything in between. There will be no more necessity for sexual boredom between long term partners. We will be able to wire ourselves to only desire sex with our spouses, to only desire it in-body, and to desire it according to an agreed upon frequency. Or we can turn off our jealousy, and turn up our libidos, if we have agreed to a polyamorous lifestyle.

... Man, what the fuck are we gonna do for sitcoms on TV when this happens?

In all seriousness though, there'd have been a time when I would've knocked this whole article off as fucking nonsense (possibly earlier this morning even, before I took all the cold medicine I'm on right now). However, 2 years down the road, spending all my time working on or in virtual worlds and watching how people are innovating in sex tech, all I can do is stand by the side of the road, crack open a beer, and say "Yup."