Interest in cybersex is soaring because of the pandemic

Interest in cybersex is soaring as the pandemic has left people subject to lockdowns and travel bans and unable to seek intimacy in the usual ways, according to experience designer Angelina Aleksandrovich.

At the same time, the pandemic has also pushed people’s willingness to use a tech solution to an all-time high.

Aleksandrovich runs a collective called Raspberry Dream Labs which creates multi-sensory cybersex experiences which allow people to enjoy intimate moments together even when they are not in same place.

“Because of COVID a lot of people understood how we can use technology and virtual reality in exciting and expanded ways,” Aleksandrovich told Reuters.

Whereas VR used to be dismissed as something just for gamers it has gone mainstream and is being used in intimacy and dating, she added.

In an industrial unit in North London two volunteers demonstrate her prototype experience combining virtual reality (VR), augmented reality and even smell, delivered through a collar worn around the neck, a head set, and hand-held sensors.