The ability to exchange emotions felt during sex may soon be a reality
Imagine a world where you could feel the emotions of another person at a distance. Now imagine the possibilities it could open up for sex.
Heather Schlegel, a futurist and former Silicon Valley techie, is doing just that. In the next two to seven years, she believes embedded body sensors could allow humans to share snapshots of their emotional states and foster deeper levels of intimacy.
“If you think about taking your clothes off, this is like taking another layer, like showing another layer of yourself,” she says.
To push thinking on the technology, she helped produce a fictional website for UME Corporation. The mock company sells a bio-patch called EMP Connect. When worn, it’s meant to exchange emotions with other people also wearing them.
While the product is not yet real, Schlegel says we aren’t very far off from creating something similar.
“Embedded, trackable sensors that are communicating information from your body to devices, that’s not science fiction, that can happen today. No big deal,” she says.
For example, body sensors are commonly used in pacemakers to help monitor heart activity. Wearable devices that track health factors like blood pressure and sleep patterns have also hit the market.
Using Sensors to Enhance Intimacy
While Schlegel’s vision has mostly steered away from sex, she has some gripping input on how the devices could improve romantic relationships.
One way is they could make a person truly understand his or her lover’s emotional state.
“You want to know how your partners feels or if what you are doing is feeling good, practical things” she says.
Someone who does not communicate well during sex could open up by using the sensors, she adds. This form of interaction could bring about a whole new depth of diverse sexual experiences by improving emotional understanding.
“If there is increased empathy, compassion and tolerance, and you are able to deeply, intimately connect, then you can choose to have down and dirty sex or you can choose to have really soul connecting sex,” Schlegel says.
By 2027, adult performers could be sharing their orgasms with viewers, according to the UME Corporation website. Sex workers could also sell their emotional experiences recorded during sex to many customers, without having sex with them.
People intrigued by sex acts they aren’t ready to try might also be able to buy the experiences, Schlegel adds.
Making It Happen
What researchers need now is a better understanding of how different brains work. That way they can learn how to properly transmit feelings between people with sensory devices.
Translations will likely need to be made from brain to brain. This is because how one person experiences an emotion might not be the same for someone else.
“Maybe what I feel as happiness, you’re just like, ‘Whatever, that’s the way I feel everyday,’” Schlegel says.
She admits the concept is very new, and believes humans have a long way to go in reaching our intimacy potential. On a scale of one to ten, she thinks we are at 0.5.
“In a world that would be maybe a five or a six, there would be less strife, less conflict,” she says.
With the envisioned devices, people could gain respect and empathy for each other by truly feeling different perspectives. Sex doesn’t need to be a factor.
“You could have a super intense, intimate relationship with someone that you never take your clothes off with, but you are being extremely emotionally open and transparent and vulnerable,” she says.
True intimacy and connection aren’t always present during sex, she adds. But if people are ready for it, exchanging emotions through embedded body sensors could lead to more awesome and fulfilling relationships.
Image source: Alex LA
