The Transformation Issue | Idealog.co.nz
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Taboo for who?
No other area of human existence is hedged around with so
much shame, embarrassment, guilt and self-torment than
sexuality. It is fundamentally important to us, and yet we
are entirely conflicted about it.
However, this makes it rich territory for advances and
breakthroughs using technology to disrupt and enhance
our experience of sex.
In her podcast, Cole talks widely about the taboo
that’s placed around sexuality. She says she understands
the confusion for our society, which is obsessed with sex,
but also is confusingly sex negative, especially for women.
“Now we have this giant taboo smoothie of historical
repression, present obsession, plus your own internal
psyche, and particular environmental factors, all whizzed
up into one big glass of ‘what the fuck’,” Cole says.
Even in the past five years, Sextech has growth
exponentially, but whether that is due to emerging
technology or the way we’re talking more about sexuality
culturally as a society is up for debate. In one of her
podcasts, Overcoming Shame and Taboo, Cole mentions
that historically, social stigma around anything to do with
sex is decided by men.
“Innovation is exponential, and that has played a
major part. If we look at the sex side of Sextech, culturally
there are some big signals, like the Me Too movement.
Women’s empowerment in the last handful of years has
been really important at opening up a conversation about
this that we just haven’t had access to.”
Cole says we’re moving to an area where sexuality is
more normalised, as sex itself is rebranding to focus more
on wellness, rather than just being looked at through an
entertainment lens.
“Slowly, we’re opening up as a society to these
conversations around our sexuality,” Cole says. “Family
structures are changing, more and more momentum is
growing around Pride and legalising gay marriage. These
sort of things that are happening in society mean larger
conversations about sex and has moved it out of this
‘creepy’ domain, where its only associated with things
that are dirty or nasty, or we associate it with something
like pornography.”Ignorance is not bliss
In my chat with Cole, education and its challenge of
changing the stigma surrounding sex comes up several
times. She says education plays a huge role in changing
culture and changing the conversation.
“Unfortunately, education is still the least funded
area,” Cole says. “I’ve traveled around the world talking
about the future of sex, and everywhere I’ve gone, people
have complained about sex education they’ve had. It’s
a global issue and it could have a knock-on effect on
people’s health, not just physically but also mentally
and emotionally. Anguish comes from not having
proper education.”
Cole’s Sex Hackathons, for example, are a place where
she uses her platform to bring together underrepresented
groups and open the conversation surrounding Sextech
and its uses. For Cole, proper education is the best place
to start.
“What I’m seeing is that younger and younger
people are reaching out. They have different issues
surrounding technology. They are living in a world that isradically different to how things were 10 or 20 years ago.
The way they use technology is quite seamless, real-life
conversations are often engrained with text chat and group
conversations. New generations are using technology
differently and they understand how technology is
integrated into every part of their lives.”
She says younger generations are a lot more dexterous
and have a deeper understanding of Sextech, they’re also
more open sexually. But alongside this integration of
Sextech into younger everyday lives comes the concern
that proper connections will come second to our devices.Always use protection
Sextech faces some of the same concerns of the tech
industry, such as how much are we being tracked by our
technology and how very personal data is stored.
“I think always with technology there is always going
to be concerns about privacy, including data concerns
around how we’re managing our own personal information
and keeping ourselves safe. There is no answer to that yet,
we haven’t come up with it,” Cole says.
The misconception about the industry that worries
Cole the most is something that has been recognised
as a growing problem for many years: separating the
exaggeration of pornography to the reality of real sex.
“More importantly with Sextech, we have to be careful
with how we’re portraying sex. I think there is a real
danger there if we start to see porn as something that is
sex rather than a movie. A concern is that young kids are
watching and shaping their ideas around sex, and we aren’t
providing an educational alternative. I worry we don’t have
a counter point big enough to be able to show what real sex
means, or what real sex is.”
Cole says AI and VR are leading misconceptions about
Sextech because of the scaremongering from the media
around the possible outcomes of it all.
“It’s so early days for AI and VR in the Sextech
industry. I don’t see them shaking a large part other than
the media conversation. Most commonly, I’m asked about
robots or VR. Yet if we dig a little deeper into these worlds,
they’re still very clunky and not streamlined, so we’re really
only given a peak into what may be possible. Even with
robotics, we’re still very far away from sex robots that
can move independently, so there aren’t any true
examples. Talking to a sex robot at the moment is like
talking to Wikipedia.”
Yet she says any part of Sextech is an opportunity, and
if done right with the right goals in mind, applications such
as AI and VR can be hugely beneficial to the industry.I’ve traveled around the world
talking about the future of sex, and
everywhere I’ve gone, people have
complained about sex education
they’ve had. It’s a global issue and
it could have a knock-on effect of
people’s health, not just physically
but also mentally and emotional.