Will we still be boning when we're all plugged in to computers, Matrix-style, experiencing the world in a virtual way? Will our robot avatars be bumping uglies? And what about porn? H+ Magazine has assembled some of the leading minds in the radical tech community to get their thoughts on the issue. A few selections below:

Conventional sex will likely persist in a transhumanist future, but only as a small subset of a much larger space of pleasurable activities which have been deliberately engineered. The connection between certain activities and the sensation of pleasure lies entirely in our cognitive architecture, which we
will eventually manipulate at will. It's probably less complex than we think - many drugs can directly stimulate the pleasure center, and these are much simpler than brain-to-computer interfaces. - Michael Anissimov

Anything that has persisted for hundreds of millions of years clearly has high survival value. Transhumanism seeks to enhance the positive aspects of the human condition, so love and sex are unlikely to be abandoned. Differences? Yes. Sex for procreation will be separated from sex for pleasure. Polyamorism will be the norm. After all if "I" have uploaded, duplicated myself and exist as self-similar copies in cyberspaces co-existent with realspace, where does the "self" end and the "other" begin? - Extropia DaSilva

The experience of gaining pleasure via in some sense merging with another being... that will probably survive the Singularity, but will likely be customizable into various forms, which may end up bearing little resemblance to "sex" as we know it today... - Ben Goertzel.

The primary purpose of the Singularity will be seen, after the fact, to be Awesome Sex. There will be exponentially more sex, with exponentially more interfaces, and with exponentially more measures of pleasure. - Alex Lightman

Exosex, sex outside the biological body, would be simulated in virtuality, much like Second Life or Skype and other digital formats where sex is enhanced, extended, digitized, and synthetic. It would be more real than real - a hyper-real experience.

Endosex, sex within the body or form, would exist even if the posthuman is so-called disembodied or, better, a distributed collection of selves (multiselves) co-existing on multiple platforms, including biological personas, virtual avatar personas or other types of forms in different substrates and platforms. - Natasha Vita-More

So there you have it: sex will maybe, probably, definitely still exist; and will be exactly like nothing we've ever experienced before. Also, we'll be doing it all the time, with everyone. So, uh, win?

For the full article, check out h+'s digitial edition (link below).

· h+ Magazine Fall 2009 Digital Edition (hplusmagazine.com)
· Thumbnail star: Futuristic Sasha Grey (hustlercash.com)

· My Young Friends (myyoungfriends.com)

· Rude Virtual (rudevirtual.com)

After Immersion won its lawsuit against Sony, Internet Services sued them, looking for a cut of the $90 million verdict. But now, halfway through the trial, the lawyer for Internet Services wants off the case and filed a motion to remove himself. So they are now suing him too, in order to force him to stay.

What does all of this have to do with orgasms? Well for starters, if you want to build and sell any sort of vibrating cybersex device, this one company can and probably will sue you for patent infringement unless you license their technology first. (Even a patent lawyer who makes his living doing this stuff doesn't want to work for them anymore, though he won't say why.) If you care about where your next buzz comes from—and who might stand to profit from it—these links might be worth a read.

· Keker & Van Nest wants to get away from client with cybersex patent rights (The Prior Art)
· Who Says Patent Lawsuits Aren't Sexy? (techdirt.com, via gadgets.boingboing.net)
· Immersion vibrates more than your games? (slashdong.org)
· Thumbnail via Slashdong

"Click Me" is their new weekly feature looking at sex purely in the online world, and while the topics so far seem very Cybering 101 (finding a partner, a fetish, a Second Life), we suppose any newspaper willing to dedicate valuable space to the wildly popular, but under-appreciated virtual realms deserves some credit. (No0bs need love too.) Can it stay interesting and relevant for beginners and expert cyberfuckers? Can it (or should it) ever replace the soft fleshy pleasures of a traditional sex column? Only time and our new custom made VR goggles will tell.

· "Work Those Pink Panties: Exploring Fetishes Through Cybersex" (villagevoice.com)

Previously: Lusty Lady's Last Hurrah

We've been on internet longer than we care to think about, but we do enjoy the occasional look back at the history of this Earth-shaking medium—all the way back to the dark ages of 1997! Remember when the webcam was a young and vibrant technology seeking to unite the globe, and all our heads were filled with dreams of someday making love to Cindy Crawford over an interactive broadband virtual reality sex machine? Hal Pink at Tramp Stamp Studios has unearthed this dusty documentary footage from the early days of teledildonics (when he wasn't even Pink yet) where he reveals the ancient voodoo magic of remote-controlled cockrings to a wide-eyed British TV host. As we look back at the state of the art in vibrating eggs and video web chats from all those ages ago we can't help but think, "Wow ... look how far we haven't come in ten years." Seriously, aren't these pretty much the same options we have today? Where are our VR goggles and pulsating body suits and fleshy, photorealistic cyberbabes? This video could have been shot last week, and we'd hardly be able to tell the difference. Snap to it, geeks! We're not going to live forever ... unless you've been working on a solution for that instead?

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· Dildonics!? (trampstampstudios.com, video via veoh.com)

Previously: Vortex Vibrations: Vacuuming Your Way To A Better Orgasm, OhMiBod's BodiTalk: Reach Out And Fuck Someone, Sex Toy TechWatch: Introducing Twitterdildonics, Porn Vegas Dispatch: Virtual Holes and Virtual Sticks, Xbox's Vibration Sensation, Morning Wood: A Little Dab'll Do Ya, What Porn Stars Like About Porn