When Mark Zuckerberg announced last year that his company Meta, as its name suggests, is now focusing on the metaverse —a virtual, interactive online world— there was, unsurprisingly, little talk of how sex and porn fitted into this vision of the near-future.
The metaverse as we know it in early 2022 existed before Facebook became ‘Meta’, and declared it the next form of social media use. Indeed, pretty much any 3D or virtual reality (VR) interactive digital environment could be considered part of a metaverse.
With Meta likely to become a key gatekeeper in shaping the near-future of the metaverse, largely by working on its own virtual world, questions have been raised about what will and won’t be allowed to proliferate within it.
VRBangers [NSFW], one of the most successful VR porn sites out there by any measure, and a top-scorer in our reviews, seems similarly enamoured with the idea of the metaverse, with CEO Daniel Abramovich saying that the company is working on tech to allow a strong presence in this unfurling digital realm.
Abramovich says in a press release that VRBangers is going to request access to the Oculus VR headset-accessed metaverse, “since we believe that porn is actually one of the main reasons people really watch VR”.
With Oculus being owned by Meta, this attempt by VRBangers could turn out to be significant. Meta-owned social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram do not allow sexually explicit content on their platforms – or even female nipples, as a rule – so when Meta becomes a major metaverse gatekeeper, similar porn content policies could be expected.
VRBangers hasn’t explicitly stated what kind of relationship it’s hoping for with Oculus with regard to the metaverse, but the company’s existing VR Playa app is already available on Oculus’ many standalone VR headsets.. Abramovich says that VRBangers is working on new camera hardware designed to make metaverse experiences “even more realistic”. The company has designed VR camera ‘sex helmet’ rigs for VR porn filming in the past, so clearly has no hesitation in embracing new technologies.
The dream for a VR porn company would be to be able to run VR porn services through ‘official’ Meta and Oculus channels, and to advertise them widely, but that seems highly unlikely. Meta chiefs have said that they want their metaverse to have “Disney levels of safety”. And this probably wouldn’t include Disney porn parodies, like Aladdick.
What might be more realistic than Zuckerberg opening the hardcore VR porn floodgates to Meta’s metaverse channels, is VR porn creators being able to use them to interact with fans in non-explicit ways. Say, a porn star chatting with a bunch of fans in a Meta-verse chat room, before heading onto more ‘specialist’ platforms for anything more explicit. In addition to making interaction more immersive, it also makes things safer for the performers, Abramovich argues.
“These professional porn stars have fans all around the world and since normally they have to pay a lot of attention to their privacy in real life, in the virtual reality world they will not have to worry about anything. They will be able to interact with all their followers in a safe and realistic way.”
“Porn is one of the main reasons people watch VR”
Daniel Abramovich, VR Bangers CEO
Another realistic use of the Meta-controlled metaverse with regard to VR porn might be virtual spaces allowing discussion of VR porn tech issues. “Some [people] come into the meta to simply discuss the different quality or technology behind virtual reality porn,” Abramovich argues.
His comments seemed to be largely statements of ambition rather than rigid business plans. Indeed, Meta has said that its chunk of the metaverse is unlikely to be “fully realized” until five to ten years from now.
But it’s interesting that a company like VRBangers is vocally attempting to carve a bigger space for itself in the metaverse, amid a global digital environment where sex and porn content is getting increasingly walled off.
Don’t expect to see Zuckerberg donning an Oculus to virtually tweak the nipples of a VRBangers porn star any time soon. But do expect more companies like VRBangers making efforts to get some kind of slice of the virtual world Zuck is convinced we’re all desperate to inhabit.
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