Trudy Barber

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Turning On to Leisure with Pleasure
Exploring unusually innovative experiences of
'adult digiplay'.
Trudy Barber School of Sociology, Social Policy
and Social Research/Cultural Studies University
of Kent at Canterbury
The Stealth Corporation
2
Turning On to Leisure with Pleasure
Exploring unusually innovative experiences of
'adult digiplay'.
This presentation will explore sexuality and
pleasure through some unusual and innovative
experiences of digital leisure technologies.
The Stealth Corporation
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?

• Whats sex got to do with technology in the first
  place?

Notions of leisure
Associations of pleasure
Ideas of novelty
Requirements of homeostatic drive
Technological determinism?
The Stealth Corporation
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2. A brief History of Techno-sex. Or How we use
Technology for sex!
Cylindrical Anamorphoses Pictorial distortions
revealed as full image when viewed through the
technology of tubular mirrors. Distorted images
of a sexual nature were imported from China.
(1600s) Text and pictures of political
sensitivity were distributed in this way.
All pictorial and printing technologies were used
to create and distribute erotica.
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2. A brief History of Techno-sex. Or How we use
Technology for sex!

• 1734The mechanical vibrator known as the
  tremoussoir
• 1880 Ella Cheever Thayer wrote a romantic novel
  about the Telegraph Wired Love a romance of dots
  and dashes.
• 1900 The development and popular consumer use of
  the electrical vibrator for self treatment.
  (Maines 199985)

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3. Technologies of space and time
The love letter The telegraph The
telephone E-mail Web cams
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4. Unexpected and unusual uses of new
technologies.
Looking at the way people have used technology
in a way that was it was not originally intended
for. Specifically since the enlightenment period
and the industrial revolution. For example
The Victorian discovery and invention of Rubber
for tyres and other industrial and commodity uses
introduces us to...
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!!!
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5. Sexual experimentation with new digital
technologies
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Augmented Reality
wearable informatics
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So What is happening right now?
Go see www.fucking machines .com
The design and development of technology and
computer hardware has long been described as
extensions of the body and has long been compared
with the substance, form, function and power of
the body (McLuhan 1964 Weiner 1968 Harraway
1991 Buchanan 1994). This comparison stems from
the mechanical philosophy of Descartes and
others by a displacement of the organic by
mechanical metaphor (Brooke 1991). In line with
these philosophies, I argue that computer
communication technologies, for some, appear to
be the mechanical extension of the penis and/or
clitoris.
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Some might say E-Stim players are the nerds of
the fetish scene and it might well be true
most of the people I have played with over the
years are in technology or engineering jobs where
adding a new feature to a system is a thrill.
E-Stim in particular is all about creating new
physical sensations through changing wave forms
or contact points. There is also a wide culture
of shared experience and unlike many other forms
of scene play it is easy to categorize and repeat
sensations as they can be measured in well
understood if rather clinical terms of Volts
Hertz and wave formulae.
E-stim Elektro sex Orgasmatron
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Master Rs Willing victim.
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Master Rs postmodern Harem
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Thank you for your undivided attention... XXX
For more information on cybersex
see http//www.trudy-barber.com Contact
details tru.stu_at_virgin.net tab4_at_ukc.ac.uk