Welcome back to our comfy little corner of the metaverse! We’re glad you’re here and incredibly excited to finally release an episode on virtual intimacy and adult experiences in XR. Plans have been in the works to bring on the wonderful Ela Darling for quite some time to help us explore this particular niche. Since we couldn’t fly to see her, we were finally compelled to get on a call together in this new fully-remote world.

Disclaimer: We discuss some topics in this episode that may be considered explicit in nature or NSFW.

We approached this topic and conversation from an angle of curiosity, with a few questions in mind that we wanted to explore:

• What is possible now and in the near future in the space of intimacy and adult content through virtual reality?
• What are the unique challenges faced as well as lessons learned in designing and creating within this space?
• How are people protecting ownership of their content and representation in the virtual domain?
• How is this medium changing our perceptions of pornography and intimate connection?

We wanted to get a better view of this evolving industry and understand it from the perspective of those working and innovating within it. Ela is a huge advocate for performers working within the industry and is also insatiably curious to find new ways to utilize technology to enhance these experiences. We swept through a range of topics with her, from her initial origins in the space to how she got involved in various forms of live camming, developing virtual avatars, and creating immersive filmed experiences.

She’s helped explore many of these domains first hand, and now spends much of her time helping teams like Viro Playspace to build evocative, fully-virtual experiences for people to explore and play. We had so much fun getting to know Ela and sharing in the many insights she has gathered over her past decade in the industry. We hope you enjoy this episode and learn something new, as we certainly did in our research and conversation. Thanks for listening!

Warning: contains links to adult content

• Ela Tedx Talk
• Vex Ruby
• ViRo Playspace
• “A Cam Life” (documentary)
• AVN Adult Entertainment Expo
• Lovense (teledildonics)
• Silicon Valley Virtual Reality
• Black Box Collection

• Follow Ela:

  • Instagram
  • Twitter

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