Virtual sex is not just science fiction

The movie “Demolition Man” depicted a future in which lovers no longer had physical sex but instead donned headgear that generated a touchless virtual reality encounter.

While that “vir-sex” depicted in the 1993 Sylvester Stallone-Sandra Bullock flick remains science fiction, technology is unquestionably creeping into the bedroom. Virtual reality goggles and devices that reproduce the touch of lips or other body parts can provide a simulation of sex, and companies are building electronics for a variety of related applications.

“This is a space that was ripe for innovation,” said Dr. Leah Millheiser, chief scientific officer at Nuelle, a Mountain View startup that sells a device for enhancing women’s experiences.

“Demolition Man” was set in 2032, when Bullock’s character, Lenina Huxley, informs Stallone’s character, John Spartan, that the fear of sexually transmitted diseases led to society skipping physical sex in favor of an artificial form produced by “high alpha waves,” generating virtual intercourse in their minds.

“That scene really sums up where this technology is ultimately heading,” said Bradley Phillips, managing director of an online porn company in Amsterdam. “They were able to capture the way sexuality is changing in one simple scene.”

Existing technology can’t create brain sex, but adult-entertainment ventures are exploring the potential of virtual reality, especially video shot from the point of view of one of the actors that can make the viewer almost believe he or she is participating in the scene.

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Phillips also noted that some sex toys use haptic feedback technology to artificially simulate touch and feel sensations. The technology, already available in smartphones, is also widely used in video game controllers and movie theater seats; vibrations are timed to the on-screen action.

A Japanese video game maker has taken that a step further with “Let’s Play with Nanai,” which combines haptic feedback with a smartphone’s motion sensors, VR goggles and an optional sex doll. A less salacious device, introduced by a Singapore firm in December, is the Kissenger, an artificial silicon lip that plugs into a smartphone and transmits kisses across distances.

Phillips envisioned a day when more refined combinations of those devices could create a “separation between sexuality and intimacy.”

“In the future, you’ll be able to fulfill your sexual desires with a person without creating the requirement that you’ll need to feel intimate toward someone at all,” he said. “You’ll be able to have a sexual relationship with someone you don’t know, and you’ll be able to reserve your intimacy for years later for someone you really care about.”

Hernando Chaves, a Beverly Hills marriage and family therapist, said technologies like virtual reality can actually enrich relationships.

Last year, Chaves worked with BaDoink, a Rochester, N.Y., adult video company, to create a virtual reality series to train viewers in better bedroom techniques, including deep breathing and muscle-tightening exercises.

VR technology is already used to treat the fear of spiders, help athletes practice or speed the recovery of amputees. It can likewise help couples address relationship concerns privately at home, Chaves said.

“We’re hoping that it can reinforce a lot of what sex therapists do,” he said.

Moreover, he said, VR could help overcome hangups. “There are a lot of people struggling with confidence issues, with sexual anxieties and with guilt over social constructs like religions,” he said.

Nuelle, founded in 2012, is selling the Fiera, a device designed to help women overcome the anxiety of not feeling in the mood for sex when their partner is ready. The Mountain View company says the Fiera, which sells for $199, or $249 with a remote control, is only designed to “jump-start” sex drive, not cause an orgasm — like the Orgasmatron in Woody Allen's 1973 sci-fi comedy “Sleeper” — or replace a personal relationship.

The product, which looks like a computer mouse, uses a combination of gentle suction and vibration. It was designed by obstetrician/gynecologists for women at time when there are more sexual technology and drugs available for men, said Nuelle’s Millheiser, who is also a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford and founder of the university’s Female Sexual Medicine Program.

“When couples are not engaging in sexual intimacy, it causes stress in a relationship,” she said. “When women don’t desire sex, not only does it impact the relationship, it also personally impacts the woman. She has issues with body image. There’s a fear that her partner will leave her for someone else.”

Yet with any technology, what’s important is not the hardware or software, but how it improves our lives, said Chaves, also a human sexuality professor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa (Orange County).

“Technology can both harm and help relationships,” he said. “It’s about finding a balance. It’s up to consumers to use it in (a) way that it’s enhancing their world and isn’t done to detract from their personal relationships.”

So the future of love may not be the ruthlessly efficient intimacy of “Demolition Man” or “Sleeper.”

It’s human nature to want “to touch, to cuddle, to be close,” Chaves said. “People still want that physical contact.”