Virtual Reality Porn Doesn't Have to Be Creepy

Virtual reality pornography is — in a technological sense — a solved problem. Despite the lack of consumer haptic technologies to facilitate digital touch, immersive sexually experiences are readily available and have been, at least in POV and 360-degree video form, for years. Filming for Oculus and Google Cardboard is easy enough that PornHub already has a VR section, but the issue becomes obvious when scrolling through that trove of borrowed intimacies: The content is bad.

More specifically, the content is bad because it’s relentlessly and somewhat thoughtlessly oriented toward straight men. This doesn’t just narrow the consumer demographic, it limits the potential for everyone to experience sex from alternative perspectives, which facilitates a more intimate understanding than can be achieved through even the most open dialogue. For that reason — and because women have money, urges, and eyeballs too — WankzVR is investing heavily in virtual reality porn shot from a woman’s point of view.

“We really looked at virtual reality as an opportunity,” WankzVR’s Managing Director Bradley Phillips tells Inverse.

Phillips is quick to point out that most people think about porn as adult content that’s generally consumed by men. In reality, there’s a lot of women who are consuming adult content everyday. A survey conducted by Marie Claire found that 31 percent of respondents watched porn every week or so, with 10 percent saying they consumed it daily. With that in mind, WankzVR debuted three female POV videos last week: “The Pool Boy,” “Sunday Morning,” and “Sharing is Caring.” The explicit triptych provides a view into a pool boy fantasy and some bi-curious explorations.

Phillips is particularly proud of the productions because of the thought and research that went into them. In order to better serve its audience, WankzVR deployed a research team to talk to actual women and parse through relevant subreddits. The company also did some soul searching via comment sections, reading reactions to its work and using those reviews to inform the script-writing and shooting process.

“In the few instances where they were able to find content that was produced from the female’s point of view, they were finding that content very creepy,” Phillips says, adding that creepy was the best of it. “They were finding that it was immersive enough that they felt there was honestly a lack of consent on their side. They felt they were being violated, virtually through this video.”

The new videos wouldn’t be mistaken for straight male content, but the issue that remains will be getting them a real viewership.

“When you step into the VR realm, you’re really looking at a small pool of people that we generally consider early adopters,” Phillips says. “People who are willing to spend extra to go out and get access to technology that the vast majority of the world doesn’t have access to yet.”

Female early adopters will, no doubt, find a way to consume the VR experiences targeted at them in the short-term. But Phillips takes a somewhat longer view of his work. He’s had an eye on VR porn for 25 years and says that the hardware and software are just now catching up with his visions.

“I think certainly some of these new technologies that are gonna help shape the space,” Phillips says. “They’re gonna come faster than a lot of us think. But they’re not as right around the corner as some of us expect.”