09-01-2016, 01:48 PM
VR porn is here and it's scary how realistic it is
by Raymond Wong
by Raymond Wong
I've tried a lot of different virtual reality experiences. Some good, some extraordinarily amazing, and some terrible. But mostly good.
I've never, however, tried VR porn. So when Naughty America, one of the U.S.'s largest pornography production companies, invited me to try out VR porn for myself at CES, I wasn't sure what to expect.
Would I merely be a spectator in a room watching people get freaky? Or would I actually be having VR sex?
As the Naughty America title screen faded away, I found myself transported into a bedroom. Kneeling before me was a female porn star who was seductively talking dirty to me. I looked down and saw some guy's muscular body. Well, that's not mine, I thought to myself. I was confused. Whose body was this? Then I realized, I was now this guy.
The porn star brought in another female friend, and the next thing I knew, they were both naked and performing oral sex on this VR guy, err, me, turning the party into a raunchy threesome.
Even though I was conscious that the two porn stars weren't actually there and that the guy's body wasn't really mine, I still thought they were real. The more the porn girls jiggled their breasts in my face and rubbed their butts against me, the more I internalized being the VR porn guy. I felt my face get flushed as they showed me their, ahem, skills.
Things got really weird, that's all I'm going to say.
One thing I noticed about Naughty America's VR porn videos was the limited field of view. I could only really look forwards since the videos only support 180-degrees of head tracking and not a full 360-degrees like other VR experiences. If I turned my head too far to the left and right, and up and down, I could only see black.
At first I was bothered by this, but as I laid down in a hotel bedroom and the VR world inched closer to my eyes, the black borders disappeared. The male torso in the VR video finally felt like it was mine and the female porn stars working their moves felt more lifelike.
A Naughty America spokesperson told me all of its VR porn videos are 180-degree POV experiences. Because why would you want to look in any direction but in front of you when you're having VR sex? Good point.
During another VR porn video, a porn star leaned in so close to lock lips with me that I recoiled back because her VR presence felt so real. In a different VR porn video, where I dropped into a female body, a male porn star who was thrusting into "me" was so up in my personal space, I swear I smelled his armpits. There wasn't, of course, any smell.
At the moment, Naughty America only has around two dozen VR porn videos for its subscribers to experience. Ian Paul, the company's chief information officer, told me they're producing one to two new VR porn videos every week. That's not a whole lot of VR porn content to watch right now, but as more users become more interested in VR porn, Naughty America will ramp up production accordingly to meet demand.
I'm an advocate for all new technologies that push video mediums to the next level, and after trying out VR porn, I don't think anyone who experiences it will be able to go back to 2D porn. It's that realistic.