Lickable Screens Taste Like the Future of Sex Tech

M. Christian
33 Min Read

Yummy technology serves up a banquet of sweet and savory erotic possibilities.

Lickable Screens Taste Like the Future of Sex Tech

Professor Homei Miyashita of Meiji University has developed an innovative method to allow people to taste as well as see what’s on a computer screen.

Using a base of concentrated sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami flavors, his technology can reproduce a variety of tastes which are then sprayed onto a hygienic surface for a user to (ahem) lick.

According to Reuters, Miyashita envisions his TTTV, for “Taste the TV” could lessen the isolation felt by many during the pandemic by providing a way to savor a world of flavorful experiences while remaining safely at home.

Pour Some Sugar on Me

Norimaki synthesizer taste display using ion electrophoresis in five gels

This isn’t the first tasteful project Miyashita has worked on. Two years ago, we covered another of his projects that also employed a combination of building block flavors but delivered the artificial flavor to the user’s tongue via electrophoresis.

Lickable spray, chemical stimulating our taste buds, or by devices we can barely imagine, reproducing favors will have a huge impact on the sextech industry—and might even play a major role in how we, as a species, evolve sexually.

Watermelon in Easter Hay

Grandiose? Probably, but hear me out. Because of our forward-facing eyes, we have a tendency to first and sometimes only see the world around us, making it easy to forget how much our other senses help us experience it.

They’re also what’s missing from so-called immersive technologies like virtual reality, which is why despite their ultra-high-resolution graphics, they too often have a disturbing sense of unreality.

But add touch, smell, and, of course, taste, and you’re there: a true immersiveness that could end up being a ticket to a new and limitless space filled with equally endless erotic possibilities.

I don’t know about you, but my mind is thoroughly and pleasantly boggled by the possibilities. I wasn’t kidding when I brought up sexual evolution, as achieving an immersive tech singularity would mean we could explore gender, orientation, kink, and everything else as much or as little as we want.

And perhaps using what we learn there about ourselves and the people around to grow as a person—and as a species.

Related Read: Taste and Touch Are the Next Frontier for Virtual Reality Porn

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Lickable Screens Taste Like the Future of Sex Tech

More down to earth, consider what a distant cousin of Miyashita’s lickable screen could do for sextech.

Tasty as well as tactile devices are pretty obvious, but why not an entirely new branch of smartphone-supported pleasure devices that’d let you sample an endlessly moveable feast of sexual flavors—or give you a chance to cook up our own erotic recipes?

Unless you enjoy the taste of silicone, sexbots would also benefit by being tasty.

For example, a companion’s artificial intelligence could adjust their flavors accordingly by monitoring activities like meals with them, how much or little exercise they join in with, bathed or not, or whatever else they share with their partners.

Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries

If the technology continues to progress, eventually, we’ll be able to use it on ourselves, so our bodies—or more than likely just our fun bits—can taste like everything from a hot fudge sundae to Kansas City Barbecue.

Then there’s the idea of using it inside rather than out by enhancing, augmenting, or replacing our existing taste buds. It could even be an effective treatment for people with sensory overload concerns or who struggle with any number of neurological illnesses.
Apples and Oranges

Fooling around with ideas like this is always fun, with a bonus when the technology you’re speculating about isn’t science fiction but actual, practical science fact.

Like as we can create ultra-realistic visual illusions, in a few short years, we’ll likely be able to technologically do the same with our other senses.

Before the immersive tech singularity I mentioned arrives, irreparably dissolving the wall between the real and unreal, let’s pledge to try and use it to understand, empathize, and love our fellow humans.

Because if we can pull that off, our future will be a very tasty one indeed.

Image Sources: Reuters, 明治大学 宮下研究室

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M.Christian (they/them) loves nothing better than exploring the intersections of sex and technology—and speculating on the future of both. A highly regarded erotica writer they have six novels,12 collections, 100+ short stories, and 25 anthologies as an editor to their name. Their non-fiction regularly appears in many sites, but they're most proud of being a regular contributor to Future of Sex. Of their erotic fiction, Tristan Taormino said that “M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy—there's nothing [they] can't write about… and brilliantly.” Reflecting their unique ability to sympathetically and convincingly write for a range of genders and sexual orientations, their stories have appeared in multiple editions of Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, The Mammoth Books of Erotica, and others. Their collection of gay erotic fiction, Dirty Words, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. While a majority of their stories have been collected into books like Dirty Words, their fondness for combining sex and science fiction is clearly evident in collections that include Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, Skin Effect Effect, Bachelor Machine, and Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian. As a novelist, M.Christian’s versatility is on full display with Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes, Painted Doll; and the somewhat controversial queer BDSM/horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth, and Me2. M.Christian has worked on the industry’s production side as an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books and as a Publisher for Digital Parchment Services. The latter dedicated to celebrating the works of science-fiction legends such as William Rotsler, Jerome Bixby, Jody Scott, Arthur Byron Cover, Ernest Hogan, and James Van Hise. Covering topics like BDSM safety, sexual education, senior sexuality concerns, queer and gender issues, plus reviewing a variety of sex tech products, M.Christian’s non-fiction has appeared on sites like Kinkly, Tickle.Life, Sexpert, Queer Majority, Sex for Every Body, and—of course—their ongoing work for Future of Sex. If there’s anything M.Christian enjoys more than writing, it’s teaching. A featured presenter, sometimes with their friend Ralph Greco Jr, at national sex and BDSM events, they have lectured on kink play (with an emphasis on safety), polyamory, boosting sexual creativity, and erotica writing--for beginners or those wanting to go pro. M.Christian is a cohost on two popular sex-education podcasts: Love’s Outer Limits with Dr. Amy Marsh and Licking Non-Vanilla with Ralph Greco, Jr.