HCI 2007 - The Ultimate User Experience: Technologically-mediated Sex, Erotica and BDSM

Emotional, creative and play-oriented states of mind now constitute an essential element when designing user experience, so it was only a matter of time before that extended into a far more powerful driver: human sexuality.

At HCI 2007 two papers addressed this development, the first being Bardzell and Bardzell’s fascinating insight into the BDSM (bondage, discipline and sadomasochism) subculture on Second Life. As they point out, anyone paying the slightest attention to virtual worlds knows that sex is a significant feature, in particular, more fetishized forms of sex, including cyberstripping and escorts, furry sex (sex between humanoid-animal avatars), and BDSM. In this paper the researchers reported from a two-year study, combining virtual ethnography and artifact analysis with recent HCI theories of experience design to understand how and why the complex phenomenon of BDSM subculture emerged from Second Life users.

What is the experience of online sexual interaction, especially virtual BDSM, beyond a type of sexual practice? There are obvious reasons for the popularity of fetish sex in Second Life: it can be considerably less expensive than real-life fetish sex (rubber outfits, whips, restraints, and swings add up); the anonymity of these worlds frees people to act without the usual social restraints; and the increasingly compelling visuals of these environments provide high quality visual stimulation. Through ethnography and analysis of virtual artifacts, the researchers show that participants view virtual BDSM not as a sexual practice, but rather as a full-blown aesthetic, and that its sexual practices are a part of that aesthetic.

Virtual worlds, the paper suggests, enable the construction of a unique fetish sex experience, which is connected to, yet distinct from, the real-life BDSM aesthetic. More importantly, the differences can largely be explained by structural forces associated with computer interfaces themselves. Members of a community share a set of values embodied in rituals, social interactions, and artifacts. In virtual worlds, all three of these embodiments are computer-mediated. Speech is mediated through an IM window; leather and lace are equally made of pixels; furniture and sex toys are mediated through clickable objects.

It may be that Second Life offers a new interface to a classic, taboo aesthetic; but as it does so, its BDSM community also transforms that aesthetic in subtle, yet profound ways, providing compelling experiences through software to an international population of sexual beings, craving intense experience, driven by desire, guided by formulas, and protected by anonymity.


Less exotic, perhaps, but no less important, Bertelsen and Graves Petersen presented research on the impact of home-located technology on ‘everyday erotica’.

Most approaches to technology-mediated erotic activity seem to have centred around futuristic concepts such as cybersex, where sexual activities are carried out in virtual reality with the users hooked up via direct stimulation of erogenous zones. In contrast, the researchers studied eroticism and sexual practice as aspects of everyday life where technology impacts massively in the private and intimate sphere. Sometimes the effect of the new technologies is positive, but most often it seems that intimacy is jeopardized as these workplace-centric technologies invade private life. In combination with an intensified working life, these can be significant factors in making a sexual life difficult for many couples today.

The starting point, for the erotic life-oriented HCI design approach the paper suggests, is that IT does not necessarily have a role in peoples’ sexual life. But since current technologies can have a negative impact, these adverse effects should be counterbalanced by deliberate ‘design for erotic life’. We should avoid solutions that make erotic life difficult and instead provide enablers. The researchers also suggest that designing opportunities for playfulness, unforeseen fun and erotic inventiveness is important, as a way to help people maintain focus on their marital relationships.

Associated Link: HCI 2007

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