The head-set as a lover: Pornography and the eroticism of immersive devices

Abstract

This paper focuses on the perceptual, social and aesthetic dynamics at work when interacting with immersive pornographic products. The main aim of this analysis is to demonstrate that immersion in a 360° iconic environment promotes a double quasi-inter-subjective movement: that with the solid bodies and identities reproduced in the iconic space, and that with the wearable machine. The interaction of these two elements promotes a peculiar somatechnical relationship with the apparatus and the audiovisual, in line with the carnal qualities of the pornographic product from its origins. After a brief genealogy of this erotic liaison, this contribution analyses the main features of the contemporary conformation of pornography in Virtual Reality, showing how the material device in the pornographic experience is understood as a quasi-subjectivity that shares in the erotic charge of the product. Through its ergonomic conformation, VR porn promotes unprecedented forms of identity experimentation, which also heighten the medium's value in socio-political terms.

Finally, with the concept of the videal body, it is proposed to consider the erotic relationship between human beings and optical media along a vector that, instead of anthropomorphising the machine, mechanicalises the human being, deriving erotic pleasure from the surrender to the an-icon and the apparatus of vision.