During the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Miyö Van Stenis was shocked at the limitations of male-dominated virtual reality porn and sex. She craved more interaction. She wanted something similar to Bumble or Tinder—tits, ass, and conversation—but through a VR headset. So the Venezuelan-born, Paris-based new media artist, curator, and indie game developer decided to do something about it.
Enter Eroticissima (Eros for short): a VR game where users create their own digital avatars to meet in a common area, interact with other avatars, and decide whether they want to enter a room for an x-rated simulation. Players have the option to choose various adventures with salacious results, or pick a room of their preference without a quest and simply play with their chosen avatar. Each private room has a different atmosphere that users can choose from—like being in space among a scene of rotating planets, or on a bed of flowers. Voyeurism can be its own sanctioned activity.
Users can interact verbally with one another through their own microphones, or through a chat box while engaging in sexual encounters. Trying each other out in the game may look like an orgy or a singular blowjob. But deciding who to enjoy starts with conversation and attraction in the common area. The private rooms are made for strapping on a neon, pulsating dildo and getting the dome of your dreams. Eros is essentially a sex club—except you're wearing a headset and miles away from your erotic partner.
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Van Stenis told The Daily Beast she started Eros as an art project and aimed at developing moving imagery that included nudity, but it quickly developed into an open-source project encouraging outsiders to contribute to its development. A lack of “erotic representation,” and a “little bit of horniness and loneliness” led her to create her own salacious world filled with alien dildos and thrusting machines.
The end result is an enhanced vision of how we participate with sex in the metaverse. Through the lens of an avatar, Eros encourages real connection, conversation, and sensation in ways people never have before. Van Stenis' goal is to use technology beyond static images on a dating app or solo-player VR games with no real person on the other side. But rather than turning sex into an experience that pushes humans away from each other, she’s hoping a game like Eros can instead close the distance.
Game On
Eros’s avatars are called Hybrid Avatar/Virtual Agent Systems, or HAVAS. The “hybrid” part is crucial—these avatars are gender fluid and nonbinary, complete with customizable genitalia. Users have two options to choose from: solo mode, in which users can have their own way with a HAVAS; and multiplayer, in which users experience vibrations in their haptics, a technology that stimulates sensors in a vest, glove, dildo, or self-heating masturbators that are worn by the player. When interacting with a HAVAS, vibrations occur to induce real-time body stimulation. And if players don’t interact with one another, nothing will happen. It’s similar to Tinder—if no one sends a message, it’s just another swipe lost into the ether.
As opposed to other VR social simulators, Eros truly stands out for its ability to customize avatars, expressly in a way that meets sexual desires. According to Van Stenis, users can record their own voices to play during encounters in the game. In Eros, saying “I’m about to cum!” is as easy as moving your Oculus headset over a saved voice memo for your partner to hear. The game’s AI is designed to predict movements, sounds, and interactions between avatars allowing autonomy over their HAVAS and making the experience feel more authentic.
Eros has a function called LoveTriggers (LTs) in which users can create a motion library with saved positions, caresses, and kisses to be used on their lucky partner. And users can buy into a unique cryptocurrency called ErosXT (EXT) that can be used to purchase specialized HAVAS and toys.
And as mentioned, avatar genitals are customizable—meaning size, pubic hair, and color can all be designed by the player. If someone with a smaller penis in real life wants a 12-inch chrome dick in the game, Eros will allow it.
While Eros may be on the vanguard of the intersection between sex and life in the metaverse, its origins are an outgrowth of an interest in gaming. For years, gaming was a weekend hobby for Van Stenis—until suddenly, it wasn't. When COVID-19 lockdowns struck the planet in March 2020, she became hungry for basic human needs. A self-taught software developer, Van Stenis began diligently working alone on a basic version of Eros, complete with AI “players” that would respond to human player interactions and user demands.
Much of Van Stenis’ vision in Eros is celestial and rooted in fantasy. The HAVAS have names like Cloris, Tomiko, and Addy and adorn multi-colored hair with chrome thongs, purple lizard-like skin, and translucent limbs. However, users do have the ability to stay human-like with flesh-colored genitals and the option to be entirely nude—no frills necessary.
The Space Between Us
Eros is obviously not for everyone. People who don’t already engage with VR porn may find the prospect of having to wear a headset to have sex completely ridiculous. And the idea of intimacy with AI-controlled avatars may seem like something closer to science fiction—and an erosion of relationship norms where real-world sex is replaced with digital sex, and in-person relationships with digital ones. Why see tits in the metaverse when you can see—and touch—them in real life?
But VR isn't all just about getting your rocks off. Research has already shown there are real benefits to using VR to treat mental health issues. Like more conventional forms of gaming and internet activities, VR can be a realm for social activity and reprieve from isolation. Van Stenis isn’t scheming to replace “real” human relationships or completely digitalize sex. In fact, she wants to achieve the opposite—hence the slew of features that include real voices and customizable motions and responses.
“VR opens up an opportunity for everyone to explore their sexuality, including those who might have difficulty doing so in real life,” Justin Lehmiller, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and host of the Sex and Psychology Podcast, told The Daily Beast. “This includes persons with disabilities who may have physical limitations on what they can do, as well as persons who might be struggling with rejection on the traditional dating market. In that sense, it has the potential to provide sexual opportunities and outlets that might not otherwise exist for some individuals.”
In many ways, sex in the metaverse is erotic role-playing, for users to connect and generate chemistry—just with purple dicks and bulging biceps. The anonymity of sex online and the ways in which users can alter their looks, shape, and personality are a form of play, and an exploration of sexual fantasies. VR is just the next iteration of that space.
“It provides a chance to ‘practice’ a fantasy and see what it might be like before you actually act on it,” said Lehmiller. “Many people don’t find mainstream porn to be all that appealing because it doesn’t reflect exactly what they want.”
In Eros, players can create a scene that may be closer to a certain fantasy—they can also experiment with new fantasies that may be uncomfortable to explore in real life. “There aren’t any rules with fantasy except the ones the person creates for themselves, and it’s happening fully on their terms, which is why it can feel so liberating for many people,” Anne Hodder-Shipp, a sex and relationship educator in Los Angeles, told The Daily Beast.
Lehmiller added that VR may also have therapeutic implications for people suffering from anxiety, trauma, or other sexual difficulties. A game like Eros can be “a safe space for exploring or re-engaging their sexuality,” he said.
And while the exact sense of physical arousal can’t be replicated in VR, the experience has been known to induce “phantom touch,” in which someone can feel a physical sensation that isn’t actually happening. Most people know a version of this called phantom limb—someone loses a limb, like an arm, but still feels the sensations that the arm would feel.
Phantom touch can be described as “a highly fantasized experience of physical touch with a sensual or sexual intention,” said Hodden-Shipp. When a person imagines sexual arousal or a particular scene, they might experience a very real physical response even if they aren't wearing haptics. “It can happen by imagining experiences happening to you, or by engaging with others digitally, either through describing the actions in text or audio or by watching it happen on the screen via avatars. “Experiencing this form of phantom touch often requires practice and intention,” she added. Certain forms of breathwork could be an aid in inducing phantom touch during VR sexual experiences.
Testify
Eros hasn’t launched yet, but Van Stenis has plans to have it go live this fall. Xavier, 24, is a self-proclaimed “VR-head” and gamer in Barcelona who asked that his last name be withheld for privacy reasons, told The Daily Beast he’s been following the game’s development and is very excited about its official launch. He’s also signed up for the first beta demos of the game, which will be accessible to select users in October 2023.
“I found Erotissima while searching online for multiplayer player VR sex,” Xavier said. “I watch VR porn quite a bit but I think connecting with other players in real time will be an added excitement for me.
“I have sex outside of VR in the ‘real world’ but in VR I can be whoever I want to be without any judgment,” Xavier added.
Hodder-Shipp thinks this is exactly the sentiment driving people to blend technology with sex. “I believe that’s one of the reasons why things like VR sex and VR porn are so popular and invigorating for people [is] it’s an entirely new, expansive, fluid, and ever-evolving culture that intentionally lacks the judgments, norms, standards, and social consequences that can feel so stifling and dehumanizing in our current culture.”
