Future Sex Magazine came out in the era of Mondo 2000 and the beginning of Wired, that early 90's period where pastels meant cyber. It covered sex and technology in a time when even just covering technology in a cultural sense was a fairly new thing. It's basically the San Francisco I wanted to move to, not the San Francisco I got.

Anyways, there's not much information left out there about the magazine itself. This sucks. We need the history available.

With this in mind, I've set out to try and get all of 7 issues digitized. Luckily, famicoman on Internet Archive (fair warning: clicking that link can kill hours if you like tech zines) has already started working on the same thing! The above picture is his collection of the zines, and he's already got Issue 5 scanned and available on Internet Archive. I've managed to pick up issues 4 and 7, and will be working on getting those scanned over the next couple of weeks.

The one issue neither of us have is Issue 1. From what little information I could find, it sounds like Issue 1 was more of a trial run of the idea versus the more on-topic later issues, but for completeness sake I'd like to get it scanned anyways. If anyone reading this has a copy, please email tips at metafetish.com and we'll see what we can figure out.

All currently scanned issues of Future Sex can be found at the Metafetish Future Sex Archive Project Index

Sex tech news time!

• Forget Sex Robots, Virtual Reality Changes Everything - SexToyDB

  • Tigerlily at SexToyDB goes over why the current infatuation with sex robots is silly when we're just starting to explore the much more achievable realm of VR.

• Cam Girls are Charging Clients to Control Their Vibrators Over The Internet - Motherboard

  • Great article from last October by Lux, on cam models using interactive toys, including references to the now defunct but awesome when it existed Real Touch. Many cam models are now using Chaturbate plugins for controlling toys like the OhMiBod. I'm working on Chaturbate plugins too (the paid interactivity aspect is insanely interesting to me), hopefully will have some information up on those soon.

• How sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll are creating the next big tech companies - TechCrunch

  • TechCrunch does market analysis on the idea of "ViceTech", tech companies trying to capitalize on taboo subjects. Not sure I agree with all their points, but it's interesting to think about nonetheless.

• Do we need sex tech to demystify the female orgasm? - The Guardian

  • Covers the new OMGYES service, which provides information from multiple science and social sources on the female orgasm and how to improve it, while wrapping it up in a nice interface.

• Sexperts Agree: Mix High-Tech And Low Key For A Blissful 2016 - Forbes

  • 'cause when I think sex, I think Forbes Magazine. Only click that if you don't have an adblockers, because, you know, fuck Forbes. Annnnnnnyways, representatives for Babyland, Good Vibrations, and Spectrum go over the current highlights of the industry, like the WeVibe 4, the Pulse 2, and offerings from Minna and Lelo.

Let's see who's getting money today.

• My Vibe Our Vibe Smart Sextoy Sharing Platform
  • 0% (US$0 raised / ~US$62808 needed) in 7 days, 33 days left

• Lioness Vibrator
  • 183% (US$91525 raised / US$50000 needed) in 29 days, 11 days left.

• VirtuaDolls
  • 115% (US$57494 raised / US$50000 needed) in 33 days, 7 days left.

Can't seem to find any new campaigns this week. Pleasepleaseplease fix your crappy search, indiegogo.

News.

• Cybersex - Amiga Computing (1994)

  • This one comes via one of my favorite subreddits, r/oculusnsfw. It's another mid-90s take on the future of hi-tech sex.

• 20th Century Visions of Future Sex - Flashbak

  • I'm rather enjoying this whole retro theme thing lately. Here's another article on visions of the future of sex throughout the 20th century, going as far back as 1928.

• The Curious Sext Lives of Chat Bots - Engadget

  • The Fabulous Mr. Trout hits on chat bots.

• Winners of the 1 Hour Design Challenge for Future Sex - Core77

  • The Core77 Design Site has a content to design what sex toys will look like in 2050. 2050 is gonna be some creepy shit. This is part of a larger Future of Sex and Tech Series they did over the course of February.

• Melbourne's RMIT University runs design course on how to make sex toys - Sydney Morning Herald

  • Turns out that one of the judges for the content mentioned above was Industrial Design Professor Judith Glover, who is now teaching a university course on sex toy design at RMIT in Australia. Neat!

• Silicon Valley's Very Confusing Relationship With Sex - Motherboard

  • Lux covers the issues with trying to get sex related content through the digital App Store/Crowdfunding Site/Advertising gates.

• This UC Berkeley-invented Vibrator May Change How You Have Sex - Seattle PI

  • Clickbaity title, but good article about the Lioness Toy currently tearing it up on Indiegogo.

That's it for this week's SavedYouAClick of sex tech.

Making these posts would be about a million times easier if Indiegogo's search capabilities weren't complete shit, ya know?

• The Booty 2.0
  • 6% (US$1174 raised / US$20000 needed) in 16 days, 24 days left.
  • News/Thoughts: Ok, so, this isn't exactly sex tech. And it's a preorder campaign, not crowdfunding. However, let me draw your attention to this line from the campaign copy: "The Booty 2.0 is made from a unique rubber not found amongst North American flesh toys." Now just fucking try and convince me this isn't a plot by aliens to take over the men of Earth via a fucktube. Seriously. "Unique rubber"? "FLESH TOYS"?

• My Vibe Our Vibe Smart Sextoy Sharing Platform
  • 0% (US$0 raised / ~US$62808 needed) in 0 days, 60? days left
  • News/Thoughts: Campaign copy tl;dr: "How would you like a toy that does everything every other toy on the market does! We're gonna do that! Here's some UI we put together in Paint Shop Pro in 3 minutes and we promise they're be hardware. We tracked pirates once, which means we're qualified to make tech sex now!"

• Lioness Vibrator
  • 169% (US$84637 raised / US$50000 needed) in 21 days, 19 days left.

• VirtuaDolls
  • 103% (US$51572 raised / US$50000 needed) in 25 days, 15 days left.

• Blewit
  • 350% ($70588/$20000), campaign over

• World's Most Realistic Affordable Sex Doll
  • 0% ($0/$25000) in 17 days, 24 days left.