CYERSPACE — While some sex researchers such as Juliana Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington, dream of a future where “a multi-sensual experience of virtual sex” is possible, developers like Steve Rhodes, Brad Abram, and Allen Stein are working to make the future possibilities into present realities.The three men are some of the pioneers in the growing and increasingly effective field of teledildonics, a term coined by Norwegian media artist, Stahl Stenslie, and introduced to the public in 1993 when he presented his cyberSM project. His goal was to create a real-time cyberspace experience between two remotely located participants, via full body cyber suits that sent and received visual, auditory, and tactile sensations.

Things have come a long way since Stenslie’s assistants donned their suits and used what Stein, mastermind behind the Thrillhammer, estimates was likely to be 14.4kbs modems in order to get their sensory message across. Today not only Stein’s industrial strength cybersex machines, but also the more portable devices available from Rhodes’ Sinulate Entertainment and Abram’s XStream3D Multimedia move at the speed of broadband – and don’t require a full body cyber suit in order to accomplish their orgasmic goals.

Each teledildonic experience is profoundly different, yet each shares a common purpose: to increase the ability of people to experience sexual pleasure without need of the immediate physical proximity of another human being. Whether the motivation is sexual pleasure while single, maintaining or sharing sexual intimacy during temporary or long-term partnered separations, overcoming physical limitations, or just trying something new and very, very different, each cyber sex toy provides an option, although none can yet provide anything comparable to a human/human tryst.

Rhodes’ Sinulate vibrators and sex toys have already connected thousands of people via the internet during the past three years. “People who use it are just blown away,” Rhodes observes. “This is not something that just that lunatic fringe does.”

Abram’s XStream3D Multimedia works via another route. The company’s Virtually Jenna software drives both the imagination of the participant as well as the sensations experienced by the body thanks to a hardware device that stimulates the genitals in response to an animated Jenna Jameson’s behavior. “Sex toys is a huge business,” he observes. Even without the genital stimulator, Abram’s online sex game has been played by several hundred thousand people. The Vancouver, Canada-based entrepreneur anticipates the hardware add-on pack to become increasingly popular with consumers.

Stein’s Thrillhammer uses two-way, real-time video conferencing, and a fully padded recliner that allows riders to ease back and enjoy the powerful sensations coursing through their body via a vibration and pistoning “pleasure device,” thanks to the ministrations of online or otherwise remote operators. According to a workshop paper Stein will present at the University of Montreal next week, one of the earlier Thrillhammer models, the EC01 has “traveled the globe and allowed porn stars, amateur models, prostitutes, and possibly your next-door neighbor to make an honest buck by allowing the world to reach out and touch them from afar.”

According to Stein, the Thrillhammer was one of the first commercial applications of teledildonics – and the future of this branch of the science of pleasure depends upon the various players on the cyber orgasm field finding a way to “make toys that play well with each others’ technologies and interfacing them to the users using those devices.” Stein proposes that the open source project called the SeXBox project be seriously considered as a model for expansion of the still developing teledildonics industry. He envisions a common, seamless, open source platform that would allow all developers to create and deploy easily and mutually usable software interfaces for sexual gratification using a middleware solution that would work with all business models and backend technologies, and which would include an e-commerce system that permits communication with the open source users in a secure and stable environment. Ultimately, Stein would like to see “A system that pushes for standardization in web-controlled sex toys. A directory, so users may find one another on various platforms, interact, and when all is said and done – have an orgasm.”

Toward that end, Stein is developing a multi-platform teledildonic relay and auditing service that would permit every teledildonic user, regardless of his or her toy’s corporate affiliation, to use the same basic technological power. The way he sees the future, Heiman’s dream of a more realistic sensual experience is far more likely to happen when prices subsequently drop and researchers can finally develop true cybersensual experiences.