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Japan's First VR Porn Festival Shut Down Due To Unprecedented Popularity (dailymail.co.uk)
turkeydance quotes a report from Daily Mail: A Japanese sex festival was over prematurely as herds of virtual porn fans caused overcrowding fears. Streams of locals were looking to get their hands on the latest inventions from the adult entertainment industry in the first festival of its kind -- the Adult VR Fest 01 in the Akihabara region of Tokyo. But fans of virtual reality porn, which re-enacts sex and other acts using a blend of simulation headsets, male-friendly sex toys and other gadgets, were left disappointed as the event was shut down due to unprecedented popularity. A Japanese reporter told VR Talk: "For those who did get to go inside, excitement ran wild. I'm not entirely sure if the same thing would happen in the U.S., but VR porn enthusiasts rushed to have a go at some of the latest virtual reality gadgets." About 20 fans were able to make it inside, but the event was reportedly called off due to the unsettling crowds gathered outside. VR Talk also reported that Google searches for the phrase 'VR Porn' have soared nearly 10,000%.
The usual jokes aside, this is going to be a part of our future. VR is going to change human sexual interaction just like ubiquitous communication devices (phones) changed social interaction. Combined with task-optimized haptics to provide the tactile feedback, and given the importance of sex (or rather, orgasm) in the human experience, and it can't not change things.
Whether it changes things for the better or the worse remains to be seen though. Japan already has a birth rate problem and this isn't going to help. Which isn't to say that the tech shouldn't exist, only that one could very easily see it as exacerbating the problem. It may very well force Japanese society (and other societies as well) to finally address the issue and enact structural change to make rearing children more desirable.
The bigger question is whether this can be meaningfully used as a tool to improve human interaction. In both Japanese and Western societies, so much emphasis is put on your first time. Maybe this improves that, reducing the massive social threshold that comes with sex and at the same time producing a generation of young adults who are more confident with sex, what they want from it, and what they expect from each other?
No matter how it ends up, it'll be interesting to see how it evolves.