- Coleen Singer at Sssh.com
Normally, I'm not one to sound alarms, traipse about ‘raising awareness,' or encourage people to panic over new developments in technology. For example, while a lot of people are up in arms over the potential for doctors and parents to play God by genetically engineering so-called "designer children," I've already started planning the baby room for my first iguana/human hybrid son. (My husband and I are still fighting over names, though; he favors "Stanley" while I prefer "Iggy" – for reasons both poetic and symbolic).
There is one area of technological development that has me concerned, however, and it's one that comes in part from my own career stomping ground of the adult entertainment industry: virtual reality porn. And with the news that Facebook has acquired Oculus, you can bet that virtual reality development is about to be propelled forward at breakneck speed, powered by a billion unified Likes.
As it currently stands, virtual reality porn is of no threat to anything – including traditional, two-dimensional porn videos. At this point, highly realistic and immersive virtual porn is merely an aspiration, but should it ever become readily-available on the consumer market, we're in serious, dire trouble as a species.
Why?
Ask yourself this: Once they can get a thoroughly realistic blowjob from a virtual woman (or man) of their own construction, built to their precise sexual specifications, without ever getting off their couch, do you really expect men to ever leave the house again?
I've seen the way my husband looks at Scarlett Johansson; once it's possible to conjure her up 24/7 for an on-demand quickie, I just know that bastard is going to recede into his man-cave, emerging only occasionally to order another pizza and take a leak.
Once truly immersive virtual reality porn has been perfected, Home Depot, Auto Zone and Sports Authority will go bankrupt in a matter of weeks. The President of the United States will lock himself inside the safe room at Camp David with a virtual brothel of his ideal women, and refuse to take phone calls from anybody but the head of his Secret Service detail – and he'll only do that when he runs out of lube and reefer!
On the bright side, from Philadelphia to Prague and Topeka to Timbuktu, women everywhere suddenly will find themselves in charge of everything. With a little clever fiddling, we might even be able to undo some of the damage men have done to human society and our surrounding environment – or at least toss out all their filthy, "lucky" NBA team jerseys and crappy arena-rock band memorabilia without them making a peep. (Serious question here: How did fucking Kansas concert posters ever become "collectable" in the first place? Is that just a lie he tells me to so I won't wad up that hideous thing and pitch it in the nearest Dumpster?)
On the other hand, it means I'll have to scoop up the dog crap and change the litter box myself, and I'll probably never buy a jar of pickles again, because the damn thing would just languish endlessly in the fridge, hermetically sealed and waiting in vain for some big, hairy-knuckled mitt to twist free its stubborn lid.
Mariticide will become far more common, but since the all-female juries will be largely sympathetic to the plight of Virtual Porn Widows, convictions will be rare. Test tube babies will become the norm – although I'd prefer not to think about how sperm collection is going to work once men are all glued to their Barcaloungers, getting a perpetual, rotating half-and-half from the Kate Upton triplets.
As you can see, virtual porn must be stopped. It is a looming, lustful and ruinous technology, straight from the Cyberdyne Systems catalog – like Skynet with a raging boner. These particular machines won't kill humans, just enslave approximately half of us and reduce that segment of the population to bowls of horny, sedentary jello (one that really doesn't pay attention when the women-folk are talking).
Go ahead and laugh ladies, but remember the words of Sarah Connor — "There's no fate but the one we make" – and recognize that right now, Facebook is probably working a whole lot harder to shape that high-tech, interconnected, semen-stained future than we are.
About Coleen Singer
Coleen Singer is a writer, photographer, film editor and all-around geeky gal at Sssh.com, where she often waxes eloquent about sex, porn, sex toys, censorship, the literary and pandering evils of Fifty Shades of Grey and other topics not likely to be found on the Pulitzer Prize shortlist. She is also the editor and curator of EroticScribes.com. When she is not doing all of the above, Singer is an amateur stock-car racer and enjoys modifying vintage 1970s cars for the racetrack. Oh, she also likes porn.