I took a trip to the Big Apple in September to partake in a discussion about the future of sex and porn hosted by The Face. Together with other leaders of the sex industry, we spent an insightful evening talking about the origin of desires, sexual communication and how technological advancements and porn will influence our sex lives in the future.
Alongside me on the panel were Future of Sex founder and my friend Bryony Cole; CEO of sex toy company Lora DiCarlo, Lora Haddock; American social psychologist and author Justin Lehmiller; and sex ed advocate and podcast host SX NOIR.
I believe in a positive, beautiful future for sex and porn. I think it’s way too easy to just accept that technology will take over the most intimate part of our lives without us getting to have an impact on these developments. We need to start talking about our desires and about sex if we want to make a positive difference. This is the reason why I started traveling around the world with The Lust Tour and why I believe these events are so important. We need to bring people together to share their experiences and wisdoms on how to ensure that the future of sex is a good future for everyone, especially for women and marginalised groups.
If you couldn’t come to listen to our discussion in New York, below are the most important points we talked about plus a video sneak peek into the event!
Porn can play a powerful role in helping us understand our sexuality and desires – if we do it right.
This message has been my mantra for the past 15 years. Porn is not the enemy. Porn can be a great source of joy and it can bring us closer to our sexual-selfs and help us understand our needs and fantasies. A lot of people, especially young people, turn to porn to learn about sex and I think we need to make sure that they understand what they’re seeing. They need to be aware that what they’re seeing online is not an accurate representation of reality. But porn can be a medium to represent human sexuality.
I also think an essential part of realising the potential of porn is to make people understand that they need to be responsible for their porn consumption. What kind of a system are we supporting when we watch porn for free? Who is profiting from this? What about the people in the videos? What about watching films that actually help us understand our sexuality and our desires instead of having fantasies planted into our heads that algorithms and big data systems want us to consume?
Our fantasies are precious. We should start treating them as such.
Communication with yourself and your sexual partners is the most important thing – and I think that’s an area where technology can be used to our advantage.
Talking about sex can be hard. And what do humans do when something is hard? They use all their brain power and resources to make it easier and the world of sex is not an exception. That’s why I created the XConfessions App, which is a perfect example of how technology can help us improve our sex life by offering couples a playful and shameless way to talk about their fantasies.
Technology can help us to connect and to listen to different voices. Let’s use it!
Thank you so much to everyone who came out to The Face Apartment to meet us. It was such a beautiful night! And special thanks to my fellow panelists for sharing my vision. I learned so much from you all and I hope that together we can reshape and rethink the future of sex and the sexuality industry.
With The Lust Tour, I have been on the road spreading the word that women have a right to their pleasure, that female pleasure matters and that the imaginary of porn needs to be questioned to shift our sexual culture and gender relations. I will continue to speak out and bring together like minded sex positive people from across the globe to talk about what porn has become, and to reclaim the medium as a space for humans to explore their sexuality without sacrificing its artistic potential.
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