COSMOPOLITAN · 105plaything for wealthy early adopters.
Sure, you could blow half a grand on
a swanky Oculus Rift headset, but
you also can pick up a
Google Cardboard device
for as little as three quid.
Slot in your smartphone
and you’re away. In fact,
23% of BaDoink
members use the latter
lo-fi method to get their
virtual rocks off*.
“Our membership
numbers double every
month,” says Clos, who
acts as BaDoink’s head of
production. “Christmas 2016 caused
a huge spike because a lot of guys got
headsets as gifts, but 2017 is the year
VR porn really takes off.”
The difference between VR
porn and ‘traditional’ porn can be
illustrated by the heartbreaking needs
of its most committed
users. “We ask users for
feedback, and they always
want more intimacy in
the scenes,” says Clos.
“They want the girls
to lean in, kiss them,
whisper into their ears.
Not what you’d expect
from porn, right?”
Something like pity
must be registering on
my face, because Clos
chuckles, “I mean, hey, maybe it’s a
little sad. But then, guys can sleep with
girls they wouldn’t normally have
a chance with, so that’s great, right?”The sexual intercourse – non-
virtual, real-world sexual intercourse- has started up again, just a few feet
away. I should explain that I am
currently on set for BaDoink’s latest
VR production. There’d been a break
in filming to snap promotional stills
of the actors, Katana and Joel – to
maintain Joel’s all-important
erection, a cumshot had been faked
by smearing his penis and Katana’s
face with gloopy antacid medicine.
Now, however, they’re right back at it.
I’m once again unsure as to where to
look. My feet? The ceiling? Directly
into the eye of the action?
Joel and Katana’s sex – while
expertly athletic – is a little awkward.
In order to achieve the point-of-view
shot necessary for VR, the cameras - a pair of GoPros fitted with special
lenses – are placed directly in front
of Joel’s head. He must remain
completely silent and stationary,
keeping his hands out of shot so as
not to break the viewer’s illusion of
‘being there’. He is, basically, no more
than an erection with a GoPro.
There’s another break in filming,
and I ask Katana how she feels about
this newfound style. “I’d prefer to
shoot standard porn,” she shrugs,
while I stare very, very intently into
her eyes to counteract the fact that
she has no pants on. “You can see
that there’s not much interaction,
and it’s strange speaking into the
cameras. But that’s the job, right?”
I grab a moment with Dinorah
Hernandez, BaDoink’s content
manager and the director of today’s
scene. Whip-smart and darkly funny,
Hernandez carries the wearied air of
someone who’s had way too many
work days go south due to a flaccid
penis. Does she foresee VR porn’s
imminent explosion causing mass
relationship strife? “It’s an intimate
experience,” she admits. “And I get
how some people might find it kind
of ‘adulterous’. But then I’ve heard
of couples using VR porn together:
they both load up the same scene i
“Users ask for
more intimacy.
They want girls
to kiss them”