Read on Twitter
Welp.
Lovense's 2020 global orgy has begun.
Tweeting #LovenseOrgy or #Lovense will cause participating toys to vibrate.
Which honestly feels a little weird, and I can't say I'm super comfortable posting that, but documenting teledildonics history is part of what I do.
Lovense's 2020 global orgy has begun.
Tweeting #LovenseOrgy or #Lovense will cause participating toys to vibrate.
Which honestly feels a little weird, and I can't say I'm super comfortable posting that, but documenting teledildonics history is part of what I do.
There's so many questions of consent and context that I can't even figure out where to begin with this, especially in the current pandemic situation.
It's an opt-in deal, but questions of who is controlling what are central to ethics and teledildonics.
It's an opt-in deal, but questions of who is controlling what are central to ethics and teledildonics.
There's already a history of large scale teledildonics projects.
@HalcyonPink was let people control a Safe Sex Plus toy in the late *90s* as part of his early life camming work.
I wrote about this in 2007, but the accompanying video seems to be gone. https://www.metafetish.com/2007/05/17/halcyon-pink-and-the-dildonics-project/
@HalcyonPink was let people control a Safe Sex Plus toy in the late *90s* as part of his early life camming work.
I wrote about this in 2007, but the accompanying video seems to be gone. https://www.metafetish.com/2007/05/17/halcyon-pink-and-the-dildonics-project/
In 2009, the artist Maia Marinelli used competing online social groups to coordinate different sexual haptic actuators in her "Global Orgasm" project: https://www.maiamarinelli.com/news/global-orgasm-project-at-arse-elektronika-2010/
However, most of these examples are a many-to-1 relation, and themselves seemed removed and possible sterilized from the more visceral portrayals of many-to-1 situations like Grace Quek/Annabel Chong's work. https://screeningsex.com/2017/08/01/telling-stories-annabel-chong-instrumentality-and-exploitation/
Since we're already 72 minutes into Lovense's second year worth of online orgy time, it's a little late to address frameworks of massively distributed sexualtechnobiopolitics (to coin a Preciado-esque term) in a theoretical sense.
We're already into the applied now.
We're already into the applied now.
Anyways, I was kinda hoping to have something more concrete to write on my thoughts about the Lovense orgy, but I've been heads down coding for the past few weeks for a reason
Trying to think deeply about remote intimacy during COVID-19 is like staring into the sun.
Trying to think deeply about remote intimacy during COVID-19 is like staring into the sun.
I'm still mulling the idea of "opt-in" for an online orgy.
Opt'ing into sexual control the way one opt's in to the 100-page EULA they don't read feels odd to me.
I spent a portion of my life writing web browsers. I know what people will click on to get things out of the way.
Opt'ing into sexual control the way one opt's in to the 100-page EULA they don't read feels odd to me.
I spent a portion of my life writing web browsers. I know what people will click on to get things out of the way.
I do realize that I build software that enables exactly the thing I am describing to get built.
Overthinking this stuff is my hobby. :D
Anyways, that's why I've been phrasing this as context AND consent. Consent has been given, but "to whom" is an interesting question.
Overthinking this stuff is my hobby. :D
Anyways, that's why I've been phrasing this as context AND consent. Consent has been given, but "to whom" is an interesting question.
But, yeah. Talkin' myself in circles here.
I'll be watching the hashtags throughout the next 24 hours. Really interested in observing who announces, who controls, etc.
I'll be watching the hashtags throughout the next 24 hours. Really interested in observing who announces, who controls, etc.
And on to the hashtag reports.
I'm curious how Lovense is handling parsing of tweets, because current popular strategy seems to be spamming both hashtags as many times as possible in 260 characters.
I'm curious how Lovense is handling parsing of tweets, because current popular strategy seems to be spamming both hashtags as many times as possible in 260 characters.
Kinda weird, seeing someone via their own social media account, spamming Lovense's name in order to have a kind of sex.
Yelling a brand name is now a sex move.
Yelling a brand name is now a sex move.
Should've done this earlier in the thread, but I should also mention @SarahJamieLewis's Oniondildonics project, a truly anonymized way of achieving remote hardware actuated intimacy. https://mascherari.press/oniondildonics/
Oh and to all the sex workers out there hustlin' the hashtags to increase their fanbases (which seems to be a good portion of the current tag usage):
HELL YEAH GET YO MONEY
(or at least, here's hope for future income via using the Lovense Orgy as a promotional opportunity)
HELL YEAH GET YO MONEY
(or at least, here's hope for future income via using the Lovense Orgy as a promotional opportunity)
Lovense Orgy, 12 hours left.
Website ( https://www.lovense.com/lovense-orgy-2020) currently says ~7800 participants (not sure if that's people connected to their app, people tweeting to control toys, or both).
Most messages continue to be hashtag spams.
Website ( https://www.lovense.com/lovense-orgy-2020) currently says ~7800 participants (not sure if that's people connected to their app, people tweeting to control toys, or both).
Most messages continue to be hashtag spams.
From discord, people reporting that there was at least 1 server outage last night during the Lovense orgy, for ~10 minutes. Systems seem fine at the moment though.
I never explained last night my trepidation of posting the lovense orgy hashtags in the first tweet.
No judgements on anyone signing up to the orgy. You do you.
Or, well, twitter does you, but you know what I mean.
My issue was with discussion meaning participation on my end.
No judgements on anyone signing up to the orgy. You do you.
Or, well, twitter does you, but you know what I mean.
My issue was with discussion meaning participation on my end.
To accurately discuss the events of the lovense orgy, and have them hooked into the service I was discussing the topic on, I had to participate.
Thanks to me starting thid thread, somewhere around ~2000 people's vibrators went off. Dunno who they were.
Feels odd.
Thanks to me starting thid thread, somewhere around ~2000 people's vibrators went off. Dunno who they were.
Feels odd.
I suppose I'm hyperaware of these things because
- I've been working in remote intimacy way too long
- I've built virtual worlds before, and think a lot about trivialization of virtual interaction now
- I built something similar to this 13 years ago
- I've been working in remote intimacy way too long
- I've built virtual worlds before, and think a lot about trivialization of virtual interaction now
- I built something similar to this 13 years ago
Whittling down hashtags to sex moves seems overly reductive though.
Anyone who might repeat the tag in a question about why people are spamming the tag becomes an unwitting, possibly unwilling participant. Possibly with name on the orgy page and everything.
Anyone who might repeat the tag in a question about why people are spamming the tag becomes an unwitting, possibly unwilling participant. Possibly with name on the orgy page and everything.
With twitterdildonics project, I wiped user names and translated UTF-8 codes (as ascii, which is why it liked non-latin alphabets). It was an anonymized stream (tho had consent issues, we didn't even have hashtags then), but you could still tell it was made up of differing inputs
The lovense orgy interface is teledildonics with information leaks and lossy compression.
There's no telling who is controlling what or whom when. It's patterns being spammed, dictated by the service. (Lovense is changing the patterns played by the hashtags every so often).
There's no telling who is controlling what or whom when. It's patterns being spammed, dictated by the service. (Lovense is changing the patterns played by the hashtags every so often).
Are people having fun with the lovense orgy interface?
Sure! The aforementioned discord discussions have been super positive, people are meeting new people, sex workers are gaining fans, and that's great.
Sure! The aforementioned discord discussions have been super positive, people are meeting new people, sex workers are gaining fans, and that's great.
This is my account for talking about how remote intimacy and teledildonics interfaces and services are built (since I'm building my own generalized version of it), so I'm doing my critical thinking on the lovense orgy publicly, as it's reflective of how I build my technology.
Ok well after this rambling thread, I neglected to post the conclusion.
According to Lovense, ~21.5k people participated in the teledildonics orgy.
How many of those were people tweeting the hashtags versus people having toys controlled wasn't mentioned. https://twitter.com/Lovense/status/1252594207673417732?s=09
According to Lovense, ~21.5k people participated in the teledildonics orgy.
How many of those were people tweeting the hashtags versus people having toys controlled wasn't mentioned. https://twitter.com/Lovense/status/1252594207673417732?s=09
I've got so, so many thoughts on the lovense teledildonics orgy that I'd love to put together into something longer, coherent, and publishable, but the energy for that mental glue ain't there quite yet.
Thanks, pandemic.
Thanks, pandemic.
