Sunday, December 6, 2015

Techno-sex: The shifts in desire and taste



 “He ignores me the whole day, but all his love messages start coming in when he goes to bed. He starts with how he loves me and then suddenly shifts to what I am wearing and that he wants to be with me. The sexual information is followed by him calling me and asking me to make seducing sounds as he cums on my voice while I just stand there and laugh on myself for agreeing to get involved in this absurd kind of sex” Disa, a sixteen year old girl explained her regular relationship with her boyfriend. This trend is not just happening in Disa’s life but 80% of the people I interviewed told me that they have some sort of sexual talks every day and the medium for that includes, but are not limited to: sexting, video sex, phone sex, Skype sex, snap chat, kik, chat rooms and interaction with porn stars on their live video chats. There is no doubt that sex has always been one of the most desired acts of human being, but the advent of technology and its easy availability has over-emphasized and forced the users to find pleasure in interacting with people in a sexual way while using technological appliances. Sex, an activity usually restricted to bedroom, has become a public domain now and has reached such an extreme level that people cannot spend a day without masturbating on some one’s texts, call, video or imagination. This kind of virtual sex is peculiar because the other person is physically absent, but people have developed a taste in the “presence of desire in the absence” that they have got addicted to it. This idea of techno-sex is repeated over and over by people and has almost become a habit, and I wonder if these senses and feelings of techno-sex would become “natural” to our coming generations. This paper is an attempt to highlight how technological inventions have changed our sex lives, relationships and societies in bigger context and what the future could look like.

Around 70 years ago, Saa’dat Hassan Manto was sent to trials for writing stories like “Thanda Gosht” and “Khol Do” because they were considered as vulgar and stories that would spoil the youth and the society. Gradually, modernity started creeping into the subcontinent bringing with it “Freedom of Speech” and other such revolutionary campaigns which gave people the independence to write and read what they wanted. After that, it did not take long for technology, the prophet of modernity, to invade the lives of people in our part of the world. Radio, TVs, VCRs, CDs and other such gadgets were resisted by the religious groups but it was not possible to stop the “liberals” to make these technologies a part of their daily lives. A change came when computers, mobile phones and finally internet became a part of common people’s everyday routine. Before internet, it was very hard to get anything about sex because everything was censored in Islamic republic of Pakistan and the most you could see was the ‘Fashion Shows’ where half-naked women from the west would advertise some dress brands and we would watch them hiding the channels from our families. I remember going to the CD centers when I was in 10th grade as some of my friends talked about “sexy films” and we would hesitate to ask for the CDs, but the most courageous would diffidently buy “blue films” and we would watch it somewhere where there was no one around. Today, all the porn sites are under our finger and with proxy we can watch whatever style of porn we want with only one click. Sarim, a 50 year old shopkeeper I interviewed, told me: “I used to masturbate by looking at the pictures of hot models on the cover of magazines, but your generation has so many options with the handiness of internet, and I cannot blame them if they are involved in techno-sex”. Another interviewee Rasid said smiling: “When I was in my teen age, we usually had to share room with someone in the family and it was very hard to find a place where you can be alone and watch something sexual, but today every kid has a separate room or they push away their friends and family and can easily find a space which gives them an opportunity to watch whatever they want in their smartphones and laptop”. This change in the societal framework has definitely made the option to get involved in techno-sex feasible and handy, but why would people get into cyber-sex when they have so many other options to do on the internet and cellphones?

  “I usually do sexting with girl(s) because I think it creates a sense of ‘next level trust’ when we share information about our personal stuff like bra size, what we are wearing and menstruation periods, etc.” Karam tells his reason of techno-sex. It is interesting how people try to legitimize the desire of sex with different reasoning which they think are perfectly correct. Some people I interviewed say that because normal discussions get boring, they talk about sex to spice things up and to get out some pleasure from it. This pleasure is in direct connection with our senses: we start by texting where we can sext and imagine everything else, we then ask for nude pictures, then we can have phone sex where we get the acoustic pleasure and imagine the rest of the senses, and the final way is to Skype or video sex where we can hear and see and touch ourselves to get out pleasure.  It can be noticed that how these different ways are a one-step higher representation of our un-satisfaction of the desire, and in order to reach the satisfaction level, we get addicted to this act of interacting with different people in sexual way and keep doing that but this desire keeps increasing. Zaren, a friend I interviewed, says: “I used to watch porn every weekend, but then I started talking to girls about sex and I think that raised me more than watching porn, but I definitely used the knowledge from porn to seduce them and myself”.  The interaction with people than watching videos make it more real and thus have more impact on us but it is still very un-real. The capitalist world we are living in has taken this desire into account and is striving very hard to bring in some reality into watching porn and the sexual interaction of people. There is a device called “flesh light” where there is actually a hole where you can put your dick into to masturbate while sexting or video-sexting. This is the height of illusion and deception, but the force of capitalism is so strong that thousands of people use this device and many of them buy the product in order to see how it looks like. Movies also have a great impact on spreading the desire to go for the pleasure of sex and masturbation, like in the famous movie “The wolf of Wall street” the boss tells his newly joined employee to jerk off thrice a day in order to relax himself in order to work properly in the fast-paced business market. It is remarkable to see that in olden days people would refer to meditation and nature to find peace but nowadays sex and masturbation is considered as ways to relax. Modern ideas like these do not live in the Wall Street only but they have directly or indirectly impacted our societies.

            “Whenever I feel like, I lock my room door, plug in my headphones and masturbate on my favorite porn star Mia Khalifa. I do not think anyone else is effected at all by my action so there is nothing wrong with it” explained Ansar when I asked him if his techno-sex has any impact on the society. I think it is another misconception which comes in a form of motivation to make people free from the society and do things like cyber-sex, but are we really detached from the society when we involve ourselves in any kind of act? I believe that locking the door and making things private does not stop our actions to influence the society around us because the concept of private and public is very vague and there is a very thin imaginary boundary between them through which the ripples of our action can easily diffuse. Humans are social beings and we do not exist in isolation with others and the society. John Donne has put it very nicely in his poem: “No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.” (Hunter, J. (n.d.). No Man Is An Island Poem. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/no-man-is-an-island.)

When we come out after video sex or looking at nudes of others, we usually see the people in our practical life through the lens of pleasure. The porn sites have increased the idea of objectifying people to a huge extend by introducing different categories in the most viewed part of porn sites, such as: “ Pretty girl with BIG TITS getting fucked” or “ Big Ass Asian” or “ Hot blonde takes in Arabian large dick”. Furthermore, there is a lot violence in the porn sites, like gang-bang and ‘school girl sex’ (child-abuse), which then gets into our thoughts and could come out any time if we find the opportunity to. There is a lot of abuse attached to this techno-sexual desire because when people do not agree with us to get involved in this, we blame them and categorize them as boring and life-less.  The final product of techno-sex is masturbation and that sucks away a lot of energy. Saim, a teacher in a local school I interviewed, says: “I feel weakness throughout the day when I masturbate on a porn star in the morning before taking a shower. I feel that my performance in the classroom is not as good because I get tired and do not interact with my students much.” I also remember my zoology teacher telling me that masturbation also reduces our memory and obviously it has impacts on our physical being and is a waste of time. These are the reasons that a person who is involved in techno-sex usually gets addicted to it and cannot be an active part of the society who can contribute something positive to the community.

            A friend of mine recently broke up with his girlfriend because he says that she was not being “open” enough with him. I inquired him more about what he actually means by being open and it come to me with no surprise when he started telling me that his girlfriend would not sext with him or send him pictures or video call with him. I tried to explain to him that he should give him some space and let her decide what she wants to share with him but the notion of openness based on sexuality has become a deciding factor among the youth to maintain relationships. People who do not like techno-sex suffer the most because they just do not find it appealing, but they get put down because they are not fulfilling the desires of their loved ones. Asna says “I cannot believe people do cyber-sex and expect you to be a part of it. I find no pleasure in this at all whatsoever but I have been turned down by guys calling me extremist and closed minded.” This has created a huge contradiction because some people think of techno-sex as a step up in relationship and trust building while others think of it as stupid and useless with no practicality. As a result, it influences a lot of relationships in the society where people do not have conflicts on real things but on the technological inceptions. A very interesting thing I discovered was the impact of watching porn and other cyber-sex material on married people and it is remarkable. Akras, a shopkeeper I interviewed, says “I have watched porn throughout my life starting from 10 year old and when I finally got married, I had all those ideas in mind. I was very disappointed to see none of that happening in reality and I waited for the sounds to come out but it was not natural at all. I always wonder if I am lacking something which does not give my partner enough pleasure.” The abstraction of techno-sex has created an insecurity among people because they are very much exaggerated in order to attract people while it is nothing near the real life experience. Many people I talk to totally regret doing any kind of techno-sex with their ex-girlfriend/boyfriend because they are afraid that they will use the pictures and texts against them at some point. Zehra says that she trusted her boyfriend but what if he had saved the pictures somewhere and would blackmail her now. I also found out that in the context of Karachi or Pakistan in general, females do not like to initiate any sort of techno-sexual activities. During my research, I went to different video sex sites like “chatroulette.com” or “omegle.com” etc. and found out that the ratio of females to males in general from throughout the world is 3:10, while in chat rooms of Pakistan, you will hardly find one female after skipping every ten males. I didn’t get many responses as a guy, but when I changed my name to Mehwish, there was a flood of messages and video calls. This is another aspect to techno-interaction that people can change their identity and can trick you easily. The cat fishing can create major problems because some people just get attached to the wrong name or identity they are given and can go through shocks when the real identity is revealed. 

            In the cultural context of Pakistan, there has been a lot of resistance to the idea of techno-sex because of the prohibition of sex in Islam and Pakistan is an Islamic country. One cannot directly reach the porn sites as they are blocked by Pakistan Telecommunication Authorities (PTA). There are moral terms in built in many people who just reject the idea of techno-sex as this takes away piety and purity of people. Despite all these abstinences, it is very surprising to read the newspaper report: “SAN FRANCISCO: According to the data released by Google, Pakistan tops the list of most porn-searching countries and leads the way in porn searches for animals like pigs, donkeys, dogs, cats and snakes.” (Pakistan tops list of most porn-searching countries: Google - The Express Tribune. (2015, January 18). Retrieved December 6, 2015, from http://tribune.com.pk/story/823696/pakistan-tops-list-of-most-porn-searching-countries-google/).

 This is frightening that people cannot really be stopped from this act and they come up with different proxies to reach such sites. Furthermore, in this strict religious culture, people justify techno-sex announcing it to be far better than real sex. Hanza, a supporter of techno-sex, claims: “Techno-sex is safer as it does not take away your virginity and it does fulfill your desire for sex. Physical and practical sex is more complex and messy.” This is a valid argument to make but many people meet in person after getting some interaction on cyber-sex sites and then they have no difficulty in getting to having sex. I was offered by a 36 year old female I came across on a chat room to meet her in her place in Saddar during my short research of few days which I refused, but I guess this is common for people to meet like this.

This is just an observation of what I could discover about our present time and thinking about the future of techno-sex leaves my mind blur. Technology and modernity work at a very fast pace under the flag of capitalism and I am sure that this change of our desire from real sex to techno-sex will boost to a high level. Just like capitalism has dominated our senses and taste, it will create a separate taste of techno-sex which would be close to reality and which will give us pleasure. I have seen in my life time that with the introduction of various games like “words with friends”, and other applications like “my thumb, kik, snap chat” and other communication mediums, the sexual interaction online has increased than when we only had Facebook or Orkut only.  With the world “progressing”, there are going to be more applications and devices coming our way which can bring techno-sex to a “normal and natural” category in life.  The movie “Her” puts forward a notion that technology can take over the relationship preferences because the actor develops regard for his self-developed software of audio technology of a female character. Would humans be more affectionate towards their technological gadgets and applications than humans in the coming days? Wouldn’t it be completely absurd if people tell you that they have Cortina software who they can techno-sex with and talk to in general and that they do not need any human in their life? The future of techno-sex is frightening and something which we should be careful about otherwise the machines will totally conquer us.

            The reason I carried out this research is not because “others” are involved in the activity of techno-sex, but because I am trapped in this marsh myself and I wanted to use this paper as a motivation to deviate myself away from techno-sex. I am a reflection of my society and the society lives inside me as much as I live inside the society, and I would rather be an active part of the society than following the desires which are quite un-real. I have been fantasizing people I meet in my life and prioritize relationships accordingly, but this activity of writing gave me an opportunity to sit back and reflect on what I have been doing. I am trying to shift all the time and energy I spend in techno-sex into writing and poetry so that people become aware of my limited experience of life. It is a process of de-constructing the capitalist and technological construct for myself and for my society. I have hardly done any deep conversations about life, philosophy or other such topics with girls who are close to me rather I have jumped into sexting or other form of techno-sex. It will require quite hard work to transfer myself, but it is never late to take the first step. This is the aim of my anthropological research that I want to apply the research on myself and the society which lives inside me.

In conclusion, the action of techno-sex has invaded our lives to a very high extend and is growing continuously with the progress in technology. It has created a deception and illusionary taste which we have become addicted to. It has impacted our relationships and created insecurities thus interfering our connection with our society. Techno-sex has been legitimized in various ways that I explained in different cultural context, but we need to realize what it does to our culture. We should come out of ourselves and our desires to look into ourselves and our own actions. No matter what decisions we make about techno-sex, we should realize that our tastes, feelings and senses are being shaped by the invisible hand of capitalism to get us into the business of consumerism. We should be conscious that techno-sex is neither natural nor a necessity, but it is a choice open to all of us which we have to make for ourselves and our society. This beautiful poem by Allama Iqbal sums up the message I want to give:

يہ مشت خاک ، يہ صرصر ، يہ وسعت افلاک

کرم ہے يا کہ ستم تيری لذت ايجاد

Bibliography

Hunter, J. (n.d.). No Man Is An Island Poem. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/no-man-is-an-island.
Pakistan tops list of most porn-searching countries: Google - The Express Tribune. (2015, January 18). Retrieved December 6, 2015, from http://tribune.com.pk/story/823696/pakistan-tops-list-of-most-porn-searching-countries-google/

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