Ela Darling is an adult entertainer who is collaborating to create Holographic 3D VR Porn with a couple of technologists that she met on Reddit. Porn and VR is something that is often cited as something as an inevitability, but I suspect that the ultimate strengths and direction of where VR porn goes is likely going to surprise a lot of people. Specifically, Ela sees that one of the strengths of VR porn is that there’s going to be a lot more interactive experiences that are more about cultivating intimacy and emotional immersion.
You can check out some of the actual video on demand VR experiences on Ela’s VRTube.xxx (NSFW). They did some early experiments with 360-degree video, but found that it both felt a bit creepy and that there was an entire world around you that really wasn’t all that interesting to take a look at. So they decided to use the Kinect V2 in order to capture the depth data, and create a 3D hologram from that information. You can check out this WIRED article about VR Porn to learn more about Ela and her partners.
Porn and VR is often cited as a marriage made in heaven, and somewhat as an inevitability. Perhaps it will be inevitable, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a sure bet after talking to Ela about the economics of the porn industry. Adult entertainers have suffered from the rise of torrent piracy and Tube sites where there’s a bit of a cabal of large-scale porn producers who use TubeSites to promote their paid sites and turn a blind eye towards pirated material. This has made it harder to make a sustainable living within the adult film industry, and cultivated an environment where a lot of people in the target VR demographic has been conditioned to not ever have to pay for porn.
Ela cites the cam world or interactive experiences with adult entertainers through web cams as a viable way to make a living in the industry. This type of interaction tends to focus more on emotional intimacy and interactive engagement rather than objectively watching sex acts. It’s from this experience that Ela has found a real desire and need for intimacy within the porn industry, and sees that VR porn has the possibility to start to provide interactive and gasified interactions that go beyond skipping right to the sex.
She talks about her dating simulation experiment where the user has to court and seduce the performer by choosing amongst four different options for what to say. If you’re too forward, then you lose and game over. But if you’re able to successfully navigate this interactive portion, then you’ll learn more about the adult performer and then be treated to a sexy scene at the end. In the end, the type of immersion that VR provides has the opportunity to provide some of these more engaging experiences that go beyond what you’d be able to experience within a 2D film.
Ela and I also discuss some of the implications of VR porn, and what it might mean to relationships for men to have interactive VR cam experiences with adult performers. Given that VR experiences can feel more like actual memories, then will be there new lines in terms of what’s considered “cheating?” Ela says that this is a conversation that people need to have within their relationships in order to explore what’s acceptable and not acceptable. She says that porn is often treated as the scapegoat for failed marriages, but that porn is merely a symptom of a relationship dynamic where there’s fundamental lack of clear communication about sex. If the existence of VR porn inspires a lot of couples to have a candid conversation about sex and porn and their agreements around that, then that’s going to be a lot better than treating as a taboo topic that needs to be hidden and felt ashamed of.
There’s a lot of interesting new technologies with teledildonics and the possibility of how technology could help enhance the physical experience of either 1:1 intimate and erotic encounters between long-distance lovers, as well as interactive porn experiences. People often cite porn as one of the technological innovators by looking at the history of the VHS vs. Beta max, the rise of streaming video on the Internet, as well as online payment systems to be able to pay for porn cites. But Ela actually agrees with Palmer Luckey in that Porn has lost that competitive edge to gaming. It’s not because of porn that we have VR headsets. It’s because of gaming. And if anything, porn is going to be following the market leaders of which VR gaming platform is going to be the most compelling rather than driving the market decisions.
If anything, porn may suffer being shut out of being accepted onto some of the walled garden platforms, and there may need to be technological hacks like Mark Schramm’s SideLoadVR signature injector in order to get porn applications to run on devices like the GearVR.
One area that will be interesting to watch in the realm of VR porn is how kink communities adopt the technologies and how much haptic feedback might be able to be included within various sensation play experiences. There’s a large psychological component that can be involved with kink that plays with power dynamics, and there doesn’t necessarily even need to have physical sex involved. It’s these types of more social interactions that could lend themselves really well to playing various different fantasies and kink scenes within a virtual environment.
Finally, Ela talks about some of the future applications of VR in terms of education and medical experiences. She also sees that VR porn could actually been seen a therapeutic application of VR to help provide more intimacy and reduce levels of isolation and loneliness.
VR porn will certainly continue to be part of of the VR landscape, and I personally will be interested to see what types of surprising insights that VR porn will provide. Just as you can’t take a 2D film or 2D game and just do a port to VR and expect it to be a compelling experiences. Instead, the best practice is to look at the strengths of the VR medium and build something from the ground up. It sounds like Ela and her VRTube.xxx team are early pioneers on that journey, and I’d expect that there’s going to be a lot of interesting surprising results from that journey. For example, if you would have told me that VR porn would result in the cultivation of deeper intimacy and perhaps better sex in real life, then that would’ve been really surprising for me to hear. But yet, that’s what seems to be the direction that Ela and her team are going.
Of course, the world of pornography and adult entertainment is a huge and vast world. It’s likely that there will be a whole new range of new and different experiences that people create that are genre-busting and truly innovative. One of the best places to track the latest trends and developments in this realm is probably over at the OculusNSFW subreddit.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.
[00:00:12.077] Ela Darling: My name is Ella Darling, and I am an adult film performer and producer, and I'm making VR porn.
[00:00:19.362] Kent Bye: Great. And so how did this come about for you to get into this thing?
[00:00:23.221] Ela Darling: I've always been interested in VR. Last year, my business partners contacted me. We talked about shooting VR porn. I found them on Reddit and they decided to fly me out and we shot some really cool, like really preliminary stuff. And I was hooked and I was really into it and they were really happy with the work that I did and my knowledge of the adult industry. So they invited me to be a partner and yeah, they do all the tech stuff and all the coding and I do all the adult side of things and the production and media and stuff like that.
[00:00:52.897] Kent Bye: So yeah, maybe you could just first start with the more technological aspects, and we'll get more into the more social aspects later. But first, what makes this different than a 2D experience?
[00:01:02.482] Ela Darling: So we're shooting holographic porn. I'm using a Kinect V2 shooting infrared and I'm capturing the performer's body in space, like in a set capture space. And then I place them in a digitally rendered environment created in Unity. So when you're watching it, you're in like a room, like a bedroom that looks like a video game kind of, but the person in front of you is an actual person. It's an actual video capture. It's not an avatar. It's not animated. It's the actual performer. I'm also using like recognizable porn stars, which a lot of the other VR porn companies don't seem to be doing. I think it's because I'm one of the only people like in the adult industry and porn background who's getting into it. But it's cool because I basically just work with my friends and hire my friends and we shoot for trade instead of big amounts of money, which is where a lot of people end up spending their budget for porn.
[00:01:51.706] Kent Bye: I see. And so I guess, what is your own personal visceral experience of experiencing porn in 3D versus 2D?
[00:01:59.533] Ela Darling: So for me it's really weird because most of the porn I've seen has been of myself and I don't watch my own porn typically so it's been really really unsettling like on a visceral level because it's so immersive and it's so unlike anything I've ever experienced or created before. It's really cool watching my friends like watching the porn that I make of my friends is really my friend Arabelle is just awesome I shot a hologram of her she's on my site and she's just got these really good performance. I'm not going to talk about her tits, I guess. She's just gorgeous and it's really cool. It's so realistic. It's so much better and more engaging and engrossing than regular porn, I think.
[00:02:41.106] Kent Bye: A lot of people, when they hear about VR, they're like, oh yeah, what about porn? They always ask me about that. Like, what do you think about that? And I'm like, yeah, it's probably going to be a thing for sure. But a lot of people that I've talked to as well say that Porn has been the thing that has been driving innovation and driving the scalability of the internet. So from your perspective of like contextualizing porn within the technological lens.
[00:03:05.132] Ela Darling: So that's an interesting point that you bring up. This is something that a lot of people point to. They talk about how porn basically drove, like pushed VHS over Betamax and all these other online payment and streaming video. Like porn had a strong hand in those things. That was back in like the golden era of porn. Porn today is, it's just not the same porn industry that it once was. And yesterday at the first panel, Palmer Luckey, Mentioned that porn isn't really pushing anything anymore. And that's actually pretty accurate. I think gaming is the thing that's pushing it We don't have VR headsets because of porn we have VR headsets because of gaming and I don't even think porn is gonna be the one that really Decides who's gonna come out on top in that realm I think whoever comes out on top is who adult film are going to start producing for like they're just gonna produce for those specs and but it is a big deal and people are really interested in it and people really want it and You know three times yesterday in that panel adult foam was brought up like my question and someone else's question both dealt with porn and it's something that people absolutely have interest in and I understand that companies have to kind of shy away from it because of their corporate connections bullshit, whatever but it's happening, you know
[00:04:18.121] Kent Bye: Well, I guess in the larger adult film industry, what has been happening with piracy and the business models, there seems to be a lot of disruption over the years of making even a sustainable living as an adult film entertainer.
[00:04:31.765] Ela Darling: Your lips to God's ears. Holy shit. It's, yeah, it's tough. It can be really tough to be in porn right now. The average porn star's career first coming into the industry right now, I think is three months. That's three months of your life for something that is going to permanently impact you for the rest of your life. You know, it's an experience that you're never going to not have again. You will always have been a sex worker. You will always have that, like in 25 years, if you're working at a school, they might fire you, which has happened multiple times in the past couple of years where people have left it far in their past. So it's kind of strange. There's not as much money in it because of piracy, because of torrent sites, and because of tube sites. And the unfortunate reality is that the tube sites are largely created by big players in our own industry. And it's like a self-promotion tool for them, but it also hurts everybody else whose content is not put on there willingly. So that's really, really hurt porn. And these days, just with the way that our culture has progressed and evolved to consume media, people in, like, my target demographic, even, are appalled at the idea of having to pay for porn. Which is why VR porn, I think, is something that people do want to pay for because it's more like a game experience. But paying for porn, are you kidding me? I can get that online for free. Which is why there's not as much porn and there's not as many porn stars these days.
[00:05:49.278] Kent Bye: And so to that point of having a sustainable business model, is it a subscription? What do people pay? How does it make money and how is it sustainable in a culture where everybody just expects porn to be free?
[00:05:59.819] Ela Darling: Right, so it's a bigger experience than regular 2D porn, and because the market isn't saturated, I think people are willing to pay a small amount for the experience. People seem to be willing to pay much less than I would have expected, because I still sell my regular porn on Cliffs for Sale, which is an aggregate where producers can just create a VOD store. And people don't seem to want to do a subscription model. I've observed other subscription models in this industry, and it just seems like because you produce so little and you have so few updates per month, let's say, if you post one update that people don't like, they feel shortchanged a bit. So we're doing VOD. Basically, you download our demo, which gives you the player and a little demo hologram and an intro hologram. Like, I'll introduce you to our player, and then I do, like, a solar masturbation scene. And then you can buy hologram sets on our site for $5 each. We also just launched a dating app, like a dating simulator, which right now is totally PG-13. So when you download that, you get the environment, which is very much like coffee without words. And you get a date. So it's like a game. It's actually interactive. And it's like you're on a date with me. I introduce myself, and you ask questions. And if you're too forward too quickly, she Blows you off basically and if you say the right things and if you build a rapport then at the end She like let's go on another date with you and you can buy other dates on our site Which will be more expansive and if you win those ones it'll end in like sexy solar masturbation or something Maybe girl girl if I can shoot it correctly
[00:07:24.610] Kent Bye: So that's interesting in terms of just introducing more social interactions as a way to build intimacy or as a part of the game. So what sort of interactions are you having? Because I know in Coffee Without Words, it was a lot about you look at somebody and they're either looking away or it's using the concept of eye contact as a powerful way of connecting within VR. So like you said, you're interacting. So if you're too forward, like, how are people speaking? Is there natural language? Like, how's the input? And then how are you making the interactive?
[00:07:53.239] Ela Darling: So basically you have like four text options and you select which one you want to say. Though it does track your eyes, so if you stare at her tits, she'll call you out on it. If you just stare off into space, she'll like clear her throat and get your attention. I say she, it's me, but it's not me. I feel weird saying me because it's like a hologram. think it's really gonna work and I think people are really gonna like it especially for porn because a trend that I've noticed in porn is that over the past couple of years as revenues for DVDs and video sales have gone down the cam industry has maintained a very steady place in the market and cam girls can make a very decent living just camming whereas porn stars these days who people think of as I mean people think we're loaded for some reason which we're not as Paychecks for that disappear you can always go on cam and make money on cam And I think it's because people want intimacy if they just wanted to see it like when you're on cam You're basically offering like a girlfriend experience. It's a very personal situation I've been on cam for two hours people paying me $10 a minute for two hours and just to talk and not take my clothes off. And this isn't even a unique experience. Lots of cam girls have that experience. So what that says to me is that people are willing to pay for intimacy. They don't really care to pay for just sex. So in this situation, I think the dating app, which gives you another level of intimacy in that immersive situation, I don't know, I think it really holds a lot of interest for people. And the people that I'm intending on having on the site, and I can't say their names yet, But they're really big names, like really big-name porn stars, and I'm a huge fan of them. I think the idea of being able to go on a date with this big-name porn star and get to know her, because she's very interesting and articulate and intelligent, people are going to fucking love it. And then if they win the game, they get to see a sexy VR porn experience with this person. I think it's going to blow people's minds.
[00:09:40.298] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think that's the thing that I'm really interested in terms of, like, the medium of VR. Like, what makes it unique? Because I think that there's a certain amount of distance and objectification that can happen in 2D. That in VR, it may actually be creepy or weird or just feel, like, not right, you know? Like, there's a certain distance that we have and a certain amount of violence we can see in 2D movies, but that, if we're yet immersed into a VR environment, That same level of violence, you know, in this whole London heist experience with the Sony Morpheus where I'm shooting people, I actually was like, had this visceral experience. My body was like, I've shot people in 2D games, but I've never shot anybody in 3D like this that felt so real with having my hands in the game. And so I feel like there's something about porn that just in the 2D representation of it actually isn't good sex or it's not even enjoyable sex for the women. It may be visually pleasing for the men but actually as a sexual experience may be actually horrible for the women. So I'm really curious like how VR may actually change the way that we experience these types of adult film experiences.
[00:10:45.183] Ela Darling: When you say horrible for the women, do you mean the female VR consumers or do you mean the women that are on screen?
[00:10:51.986] Kent Bye: I mean the things that get women aroused and having a really enjoyable experience may be completely different than what's conveyed in porn.
[00:11:00.940] Ela Darling: I think first of all it depends on the porn you're watching and it depends on the performer and the director and the company like some of it clearly is not enjoyable and I don't actually watch much porn because the stuff that I like is made by my friends and it feels weird watching my friends because I just get really excited and forget to jerk off but um you know I was shooting our second iteration of camera equipment was the 360 rig and I shot a scene on it the way I would shoot a regular scene. Me and my friend Sovereign Sire, it was this cute little lesbian scene thing. And watching it was so awkward and so uncomfortable and it certainly wasn't because the women weren't having a good time because I was there and we were. It was because it felt voyeuristic and not in a sexy way. It felt like I was standing in a room watching two people have sex and like you can only see what the camera's kind of pointing at and you've got 360 degrees so there's a bunch of shit going on around you that is completely uninteresting. And it just felt like watching like a security video and it wasn't enjoyable and it didn't feel intimate. It just felt a little alienating. And I already feel alienated if I'm like alone in my apartment putting on a VR headset. So that's like not an experience I'm trying to amplify at that point. And it didn't work. That was when I realized, and I should have realized sooner, that this medium takes an entirely new narrative approach. You have to tell stories in a completely new way. It's just, you can't take the ideas of 2D porn and shove them here, because they just don't work.
[00:12:27.988] Kent Bye: Yeah, and that's what I would expect, that they just wouldn't translate, that there's something about even 2D films that trying to put the same experience in a VR experience just also doesn't translate. So there's something very unique in the medium. So what do you think are the key foundational components that you think would make a good erotic virtual reality experience?
[00:12:48.073] Ela Darling: I think intimacy is the key element. I think establishing an intimacy and feeling close to the performer in front of you because people could thrive in a more voyeuristic sense and I think the POV style porn is pretty good, but I think before you get to the POV style, I think if you had the opportunity to learn about the model and connect with them on a certain level, I think that's going to bring a whole new level to the experience.
[00:13:14.432] Kent Bye: And do you foresee Teledildonics technology being a part of the adult film industry? Or is this something that you think that's going to be more for, I've heard accounts of like someone who's in the military maybe stationed in Afghanistan and they may be using this technology to make a connection with each other. But yet that same technology could be used in the context of using an adult entertainer. And what are the boundaries in terms of that and what's cheating?
[00:13:40.893] Ela Darling: Oh, what's cheating is defined only within your own personal relationship. That's not for me to say. But I could go to the store and buy a fleshlight version of the vaginas of many of my friends. So I could theoretically go and buy, let's say, Tanya Tate's fleshlight, then go home and watch a scene with Tanya Tate and jerk off to a thing that is a mold of her vagina. And that's pretty cool. Is that cheating? Does it make it more cheating because it's in 3D? Is it more cheating if you're watching 3D VR pre-recorded content? Or if you're camming 2D cam-to-cam with a real cam girl who's live right there? Like, is that more? Like, who knows? I feel like we put a lot of stress on the things that bring us pleasure, and I think that's a bummer.
[00:14:28.522] Kent Bye: It reminds me of just in the context of the world of polyamory, they have a lot of agreements. And so, you know, whether or not that's within the context of agreement, I think is something to be negotiated. And I think in monogamous relationships, they don't necessarily have that culture of having agreements and being able to discuss like what people are actually comfortable with, because there's no room for negotiation. I feel like though that VR and these more engaging intimate connections start to blur the line of the distance between a 2D experience versus what actually feels like real experience in your mind?
[00:15:01.356] Ela Darling: You know what? I hope it does, because you're absolutely right. The polyamory community does have a culture of discussion and agreement and pretty strong consent culture, which I think is really great, because they're talking about it. And I think discussing something is the best way to eliminate the risk of it harming you or harming a situation or a relationship. And so this makes people have a discussion about what they feel comfortable with and what's right for them and what works in their relationship and they wouldn't have otherwise communicated that with each other. Freaking awesome. People need to talk to each other. People need to communicate with their partners. I think that's a big issue. Like when people blame porn for like breaking up marriages, it's like, no, no, if someone is spending that much time watching porn, there's something broken in the marriage itself, you know? Like, I just wish people would talk to each other more about sex and just didn't feel so taboo and repressed about it. Repression is so, in my opinion, repression is dangerous.
[00:15:52.199] Kent Bye: Well, I think there's an unintended consequence of this discussion, which is the impact of the actual entertainer. Because if you know that someone is willingly violating an agreement, then do you participate in an exchange that is very intimate? Knowing that someone's not living in integrity to their agreements and that I think has a burden emotional burden That would far exceed what we may have seen in a 2d exchange And so there's a lot of considerations in terms of what you as a performer wouldn't need to set forth being like, you know What you need to be clear with your partner before you're engaging in this because this is way different Are you talking about like in a 3d VR like live cam situation?
[00:16:30.890] Ela Darling: I You know, that is something that I've always maintained is not my goddamn business. Your relationship, your agreements, those are between you and your partner. And if you're violating it, it's not my issue. It's not my problem. You have some issues in your relationship that you need to address. Honesty, like everything good comes from honesty. In sex work in general, we're faced with this. And to be a sex worker, you have to let go of responsibility of other people's relationships and other people's issues. Like, if someone is doing something that violates the terms of their relationship, I am not the one violating those terms of the relationship because I'm not in that social contract. That's not something I'm a part of and so I can't bear that burden on behalf of someone else like if you're violating the terms of your relationship like that falls on you and you can't Push that responsibility on to other people because they are not the one who made a vow to someone, you know yeah, I think that makes sense and I guess that's just a part of the the cost of being in that work is to deal with that but I would just say that it doesn't just go away is something that you have to process and deal with in some way and
[00:17:39.617] Kent Bye: I would think. I mean, unless you can just sort of stuff it. I don't know how you deal with it.
[00:17:44.340] Ela Darling: Okay, so if someone's camming with me and their partner doesn't want them to watch porn or whatever, like, I don't fucking know what to say to that. That sucks for you. And if this is something that is really important to you, then you need to negotiate that with your partner or leave the relationship. But in my experience when it's more one-on-one with like a longer term Like we're emailing or we're skyping every week or something like that or they come to my I don't cam anymore But when I used to come if they would like be a very consistent customer We would talk about their life and my life We would talk about our lives and what's going on and if it became apparent that this was a harmful scenario for them I would end it. Do you know what financial domination is? Okay, so financial domination, it's a form of BDSM where dudes, and this is, I promise you, is a thing, dudes get off on, like, girls using them for money and making them pay for shit and, like, giving girls money and buying them things. That's why porn stars have wishlists, because our fans actually do get off on buying us shit. So, I had a financial sub for a little while, and it became apparent to me that the situation was not actually good for him. And so I made him give me his bank account information. I registered him on a site called Mint, which is like a financial management site, which breaks down all of the spending. And I was like, so look at these things you're spending money on. You need to get your shit together and stop wasting your money on fucking fast food and stop living in your mom's basement because you're not happy there. And you have all the means to get your life together. So why the fuck don't you do it? I had my shit together more than you do when I was 16 like why are you spending money on me who you know this is just a financial exchange like why are you wasting your money on this you need to like prioritize your life and I kind of cut him off and then the next day he emailed me it was like yeah you're right I do need to get my shit together I'm so sorry I think I need to end this relationship I think I need to end this it was like fuck yeah dude get your shit do it hell yeah I mean I lost a client but like he got his life together and that's fucking priceless. There was another guy who like we started skyping and then he wanted to like buy my lingerie which is very common but he wanted to buy it so that he could like leave it in his bedroom so his wife would see it and get jealous and angry because he felt hurt by her and this was like some weird passive-aggressive way of hurting her back. like if you tell me you're doing that I'm gonna tell you not to and just like don't be a dick and if Engaging with me is hurting your life. I'm gonna make you stop like that's I think the responsibility of someone who's I mean in a BDSM role like the Dom's Responsibility is to make sure that the sub isn't giving more of themselves than they actually can So I guess if that relates if that I don't know
[00:20:20.590] Kent Bye: No, it sort of confirms my suspicion that there's an emotional burden that you'd have to just basically cut it off. Otherwise, it's going to take its toll. So I guess there seems to be all sorts of issues that I think would be new in this 3D medium in terms of agreements and consent. And when someone's not living in integrity to their agreements, then there could be a very real impact that goes beyond what has been traditionally in just the cam world. I just expect that that would be a dynamic that would be part of the culture that even just to maintain the emotional like sanity of these entertainers.
[00:20:52.927] Ela Darling: Most of the people I know just come to terms with the fact that other people's choices are not their responsibility and they just don't bear that burden. And I don't think they should. It's hard not to sometimes, but for the most part, all of the, I mostly know women in the industry. So when I say women, it's just because that's my experience. Most of the women I know, that's part of the job and it's not something that concerns them, you know?
[00:21:16.727] Kent Bye: Well, you brought up the issue of kink. And I feel like a lot of the different sensation play dynamics that would rely on a lot of haptic feedback to even work in a virtual environment, there's certainly a lot of psychological domination, submissive power dynamics of power differential dynamics that could be played out within a virtual environment just as well as a real environment. And I'm curious if that's something that you've also thought about or thinking about exploring in terms of how to bring some of these situations or scenes within the context of a virtual environment?
[00:21:48.957] Ela Darling: I don't know much about haptics. I don't know how far along we are. I think it's going to take a little more time before we can get to something that would feel very genuine and feel very, like, fulfilling, I guess. But I did shoot a really cool BDSM scene. Unfortunately, it was on the, like, just a two GoPro setup. So that was, like, the first iteration of our camera, and we just didn't go with the content because we weren't happy with it. We just don't like that approach. It was this really cool like bondage cross and I was like in pink cuffs and things and do you know who Nina Hartley is? She's a porn performer. She's like old-school fucking awesome. And we just did this really cute kink scene. I think a dungeon environment would be really cool. I think you could really make something great there, but I think we need to have something with haptics. It'd be cool to like, I guess you could like do some kind of auto-erotic asphyxiation thing if you're like in a choke that we cannot.
[00:22:39.653] Kent Bye: That sounds really dangerous.
[00:22:40.814] Ela Darling: It does. It does. Yeah, we've lost a lot of great ones that way. Oh.
[00:22:46.858] Kent Bye: Well, just to go back to the circle back, I don't think we really fully got some of the technology in terms of the actual teledildonics or other things that you see, like how you sort of see that playing a part of these types of either cam situations or even sort of one-on-one virtual experiences of sacks using virtual reality.
[00:23:07.281] Ela Darling: I think it's going to be very important. I think it's going to be really great. I'd love to... I'm talking to a couple of sex toy companies about, like, basically syncing up with our porn. So you can use, like, a toy that vibrates or moves or whatever along with, like, the person on screen. I think there's a porn company that just announced they're doing something like that, but not with a sex toy company that is of much merit. I think getting fleshlight integration is going to be, like, the big damn thing. But there are some technological limitations with fleshlights, apparently. I don't know, teledildonics, I hate the fucking word, but the idea is really cool. I haven't experienced much of it myself. I love the idea of, you know, connecting couples who are very far away. The military example. Everybody loves the military example because we love our soldiers. And they deserve orgasms, so good for them. I don't know. Is it important? Is it awesome? Hell yes. I'm just not really touching on it yet.
[00:24:00.825] Kent Bye: Yeah, and it could be just falling into the pit of the Uncanny Valley and it could just be really weird and awkward. I think it has the potential of being in that weird Uncanny Valley and it just be really creepy. Like, it has the potential for that.
[00:24:13.123] Ela Darling: Yeah, yeah. I imagine that if there's too much latency with that and it loses synchronization, it could be really uncomfortable because you go from feeling like the person's moving along with you to not. And then that would be very disjointed and very awkward, I imagine. I don't know. I don't have a penis, so I can't really say how that would impact my experience. But I bet it would be weird. Great.
[00:24:35.312] Kent Bye: And are there any experiences that you want to have in virtual reality?
[00:24:39.371] Ela Darling: I want to be able to be cam-to-cam with someone, which is hard because you have an Oculus over your face, but I've been reading some articles that would possibly overcome that, or an HMD over your face, I should say. I would love to be able to basically Skype, but in VR, and have, like, VR Skype sex. It'd be cool to have teledildonics involved, but it, I don't know, it'd also just be cool just to be able to see it and jerk off, like, manually like a fucking pilgrim or something.
[00:25:10.039] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as the ultimate potential for virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:25:16.101] Ela Darling: For virtual reality in general? Fucking everything. There are going to be so many awesome academic applications of this. I was talking to some guy at an airport who works in a fire department. He's like some training person there. And he was telling me about how they train people to look for the signs of basically when something explodes really super hot and basically you're fried right there. There are signs and if you notice them you can absolutely avoid that danger But to learn those signs you kind of have to be in the in the environment to experience it So if you could recreate that in virtual reality and show people like oh look and that thing flashed over there This is happening The temperature is going up to this like teach them those signs without actually putting them in danger that could save a lot of lives That would be really cool in terms of medical surgery. Even therapeutic applications could be really interesting. I think, honestly, I think VR porn has gently therapeutic applications in terms of resolving loneliness. Loneliness can have apparently really, really negative actual physical effects on your body, just like feeling desolate and alone. So there's just so much. There's so much cool shit.
[00:26:24.536] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say?
[00:26:28.130] Ela Darling: Check out VRtube.xxx and follow me on Twitter. I'm at ElaDarling. ElaDarling.
[00:26:36.119] Kent Bye: OK, great. Well, thank you so much.
[00:26:37.661] Ela Darling: Thank you so much.
[00:26:39.183] Kent Bye: And thank you for listening. If you'd like to support the Voices of VR podcast, then please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash Voices of VR.
