Patrice Renaud
Universit�© du Qu�©bec, Canada
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Neurol Neurosci
In March 2014, Facebook bought the virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD) company Oculus rift for two billion dollars; this head-mounted display (as well as others of the same type), now sold for less than $350, is compatible with mainstream game consoles. Also, according to Market Watch: By 2025, virtual reality adult content is forecast to be a $1 billion business, the third-biggest virtual-reality sector, after videogames ($1.4 billion) and NFL-related content ($1.23 billion). These anecdotes are symptomatic of the pervading presence of virtual reality (VR) in our society as well as of the growing importance of immersive technologies in all aspects of our lives. This rapid democratization of VR, crossing with the fact that sex is one of the first and most important subject of VR commercial applications, opens to interesting questions in sexual deviance research: How different from standard pornography is interactive sexual intercourse as mediated by VR? How does immersive VR will affect the shaping of sexual behavior in the future? Will we be facing the arrival of new VR-related paraphilias? How can we optimally harness this set of technologies to better understand and possibly help sex offenders control themselves?
E-mail:
patrice.renaud@uqo.ca