The evolution of technology has always been fueled by people’s desires. From the very first erotic motion picture filmed in the 1890s to 2019 where virtual reality has started to become more commonplace, tech has been the driving force to turn our dreams into reality.
New technology has opened doors within the adult industry, both virtually and in the real world. It’s brought the technology of love — or lust — to your fingertips with just a click of a button, so now you can easily find your fetish fix online. People have realized they can also make a buck gaming, and gaming on many platforms has birthed animated porn. Yes, it’s a real thing; people can make money banging pixels too.
One thing is for sure: technology has changed not only how people meet, but also the underlying sex drive that comes with the rush of semi-anonymous lust.
The rise of home computers over the years and the dawn of the internet brought about a seemingly endless stream of adult-themed content, but not everyone got their first taste of it by surfing the web. So where did people get their rocks off once they plugged in and connected? For many, it may have begun with adult text-based role-play in kinky-titled chat rooms.
One thing is for sure: technology has changed not only how people meet, but also the underlying sex drive that comes with the rush of semi-anonymous lust. Like it or not, the desire for sex has been and always will be the force behind a multitude of technological advances, and it has also changed so many things today, especially relationships. Tech has shaped not only how we communicate, but also how we create and shape our online world.
Brain Sex: Just Your Type
From the early days, around 1988, when Internet Relay Chat channels were popular, to 1991 when AOL brought the internet to the masses, once people figured out they could get online and meet others, both locally and from around the world, they jumped on the chance to connect in a non-threatening environment.
None of the typical feelings of worry or dread that we were so accustomed to in the dating scene happened online, because you were just a name in a room and could communicate freely and easily with people. Your first impression was literally what your screen name was and how you ultimately typed “hello” in the chat room.
In the beginning, it was a world where you were nothing more than a screen name and, if you were lucky, a short written profile. If your intent was to be “someone else,” then you could make up your online persona and pretend to be the fictional person or character that you created. General chat rooms quickly evolved into niche-specific places where other like-minded people would gather and chat about their similar interests.
Of course, this was not limited to “vanilla” chat about gardening. Very quickly, adult-based chat rooms started appearing, where text chat morphed into online, text-based, sex role-play also called “cybering” or “cyber sex.” At one point, on both IRC and AOL, you could find thousands of chatrooms catering to every type of adult fantasy and fetish just by searching for your kink. Not much has changed from those early days, except the where and how of role-play has been given a massive tech overhaul. Don’t worry, though, for those fans of “brain sex,” text-based role-play is still very popular and has only become more advanced and detailed.
Pull Up a Seat at the Table
So, what if you wanted to combine some adult role-play with, say, gaming? OK, that was, and still is, possible too, with the emergence of role-playing games that had players of both sexes pulling up a seat at the table — literally. It wasn’t written role-play, though; it was live-action gaming. When people hear the term, “role-playing games,” they usually think of Dungeons & Dragons.
D&D was probably the very first well-known RPG of its kind, launching back in 1974 as a tabletop game, but that didn’t stop some players from spicing it up by adding sex to their conquests and doing it by a dice roll. Whether you were a Ranger or a Rogue, some pretty intense storylines could be developed and the players dictated the outcomes, whether by verbal storytelling or Live-Action Role-Play hookups.
If elves and mages aren’t your thing, not to worry: many more RPGs launched after D&D’s success. In 1991, White Wolf Publishing came out with the tabletop RPG “Vampire: The Masquerade.” Now you could have kindred sex with eternal mates and bask in the glory of everlasting lust. The vampire theme in current games is still very popular too. Technology and people’s drive for fulfilling and living out their fantasies has brought real-world desires into the virtual world.
The Best of Both Worlds
So, what if you want more, but not live-action and not literally face to face? How about the best of both worlds? Fantasy with a face — not a problem. The days of online text-only chat rooms evolved into 3D worlds, and the technology was right there to facilitate this evolution. Now, your every dream and fantasy can come true with the creation of virtual worlds, coupled with online gaming. That’s not to say that all online games have adult aspects to them, but if it’s even slightly possible then you can just about guarantee that someone has hacked or modded a game to give it a bit of an adult spin.
Virtually Yours
Online gaming in general has made its mark by offering an endless supply of storylines and adventures, but there are different types of “virtual worlds” online that you might want to be aware of. Most people are probably familiar with or know about Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games such as World of Warcraft. These games are comprised of a world set up and defined by the game creator, and the player is simply a guest inside their world. In basically all MMOs, there is a set of objectives that players must complete to advance. You basically follow along a predetermined storyline to gain experience and move throughout the game.
With the advent of online gaming, MMOs have become one new way for people from all over the world to meet, team up to achieve the game’s goal and, along the way, also make some new friends. MMOs often have incredibly sexy avatars, 3D characters perfect for fantasy fulfillment that allow men to be women and women to be men. You heard it right: it’s a well-known fact that in the beginning of gaming, and even today, a large majority of female characters were actually men behind the avatar. However, as a woman who’s always been into gaming, I’ll admit I’ve played both female and male characters in games as well, and as long as there was the ability to chat directly with another player, you could role-play too and expand upon the game’s pre-set boundaries.
So, what does any of this have to do with sex and the adult industry?
Now that 3D gaming has become the norm, you’ll find that avatars/characters have taken on a life of their own and so have the people behind them. You may be wondering: why is that happening? It’s simple. Sexy, nerdy women, and men too, have found that the primarily male audiences will pay them money, usually in the form of donations, to watch them play games. Websites like Twitch have become the launching point for player interaction where gamers record themselves and their gameplay picture-in-picture and talk about the game. It’s allowed them to create a massive following of fans and admirers — and the sexier you are, the more money you can make. How does that transfer into the adult industry? Well, programs like Fraps, Screencast-O-Matic and Filmora Scrn enable capturing what’s happening on your computer into a video that you can then edit and post online — or sell online. That capability leads to wanting more control over your avatar. So, if you want to be an active participant controlling your avatar in a virtual world of sex and storylines, you can do that too!
If You Can Imagine It, You Can Do It
You can break out of the boundaries set up by someone else’s game design in an MMORPG by stepping into virtual worlds like Second Life (SecondLife.com), which was created in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Labs. Second Life has, as a by-product of its very existence, created a whole new realm of “adult fun” for people from all over the world to enjoy. The Second Life platform is a 3D virtual world which allows players to create their own avatars and construct their own world for free, enabling them to build and write scripts to animate their creations or even import their own 3D assets to modify the world in which they live.
Don’t misunderstand. Second Life is not an MMO, a dating site, an online game or an app. It’s a virtual world that mimics real life, all the way down to making money. People have become millionaires from Second Life. Check out this article in Fortune: “Anshe Chung: First Virtual Millionaire” and this article from PC Games: “$3000-a-week in sex beds: The story of a Second Life furniture magnate.” Second Life allows a user to literally be anything or anyone and to do anything and everything with very few boundaries or limitations. If you can imagine it, you can do it in Second Life.
Second Life wasn’t created for virtual sex, but it spawned a whole new world where sex plays a major role, and people figured out a way to film it and profit from too, such as Machinima-style productions. Animation porn has a massive following, whether it’s Hentai, which literally translates to “pervert” and is a catchall name for anime porn, or XXX animation. The better the animation and graphics, the kinkier and more “real” the action can be for the people behind the avatars. The ever-present desire to watch another person in an erotic setting has always been titillating. Not much has changed, but the platform has transcended from live actors in adult films to avatars, which has opened the doors to every fantasy you could ever have coming to “life” in a virtual world.
Oh Yeah! Mod Me Baby!
Remember I said that if a game can be hacked or modded to make it adult, then someone will do it? Game mods have been around forever. If game code can be accessed and changed then someone is looking for a way to add steamy updates to their gameplay. Whether it is simply removing fixed clothing on avatars so everyone is naked or adding sex animations, coders and hackers will find a way to do it to spice up a game.
Of course, companies also came out with purely sex-themed games of their own where no mods were necessary, but there was always something a bit special about the rush it gave you when you found a hack and could finally pixel-bump in your favorite game.
Which is exactly what happened to The Sims 4 when a game mod called WickedWhims, aka WickedWoohoo, was released by LoversLab (LoversLab.com). It turned the blissfully bland and slightly boring world of The Sims into a sex-fest where you can get it on with just about anyone you come across. So if Second Life doesn’t tickle your fancy, there’s always The Sims to make sure you get modded, baby!
I Want More! What's Next?
If you’re thinking that you want more and you’re wondering what’s next, you have an explosion of VR options hitting the net and bringing the virtual world even closer to reality.
Gaming systems now offer VR headsets so your gameplay is fully immersive, and of course, adult websites have been popping up as well, featuring all-virtual-reality content you can access with any headset. With companies like Second Life unveiling a VR world called Sansar (Sansar.com), you can be certain it will get turned into a virtual-sex den of debauchery once people get a taste of what’s available and what they can do or create. Soon, even more companies will be pushing the limits on the VR frontier to take it to the next level. Facebook has Oculus now and they aren’t the only ones looking for the next best thing; VR may become the new social network if someone can figure out how to get it going.
It’s definitely something to keep an eye on and if you’re looking for more information, there’s an interesting article on PCGamer you can check out: “Exploring VR MMOs in search of the ‘Ready Player One’ experience.” Speaking of which, the VR-inspired movie “Ready Player One” has grossed more than $500 million. The market is there for the reality of fantasy, so if you are already teasing your fans and followers or even banging pixels, why not record it and then make some money while you’re at it, too? You can sell your clips yourself and make some money — it’s easy.
Happy cybering!
Sara E. is a writer for Clips4Sale.com who has been involved in online text-based roleplay and RP gaming since the early '90s. Getting her start on IRC and AOL, she has moved through almost every online platform and gaming console looking for the best of the best in RPGs. In early 2011, she found love online in Second Life. Married since 2013, she and her husband both still enjoy gaming online, currently playing on an emulation server for SWGLegends and also gaming on a PS4. Recently, they’ve started delving into VR with Oculus Quest and are looking forward to seeing where this new technology will take everyone.
