Touching at a Distance: Digital Intimacies, Haptic Platforms, and the Ethics of Consent

Abstract

The last decade has seen rise in technologies that allow humans to send and receive intimate touch across long distances. Drawing together platform studies, digital intimacy studies, phenomenology of touch, and ethics of technology, we argue that these new haptic communication devices require specific ethical consideration of consent. The paper describes several technologies, including Kiiroo teledildonics, the Kissenger, the Apple Watch, and Hey Bracelet, highlighting how the sense of touch is used in marketing to evoke a feeling of connection within the digital sphere. We then discuss the ambiguity of skin-to-skin touch and how it is further complicated in digital touch by remediation through platforms, companies, developers, manufacturers, cloud storage sites, the collection and use of data, research, satellites, and the internet. Lastly, we raise concerns about how consent of data collection and physical consent between users will be determined, draw on examples in virtual reality and sex-robotics, and ultimately arguing for further interdisciplinary research into this area.

Technology-Mediated Sexual Interactions, Social Anxiety, and Sexual Wellbeing: A Scoping Review

“…For example, only a few studies took the relationship and technological context of TMSI into consideration. TMSI can and does occur between people in many relationship contexts and for many relationship-related reasons (e.g., [ 6 , 7 , 91 , 92 ]). Researchers have found that TMSI in a romantic relationship is more common than TMSI with someone who is not one’s romantic partner [ 92 , 93 , 94 ].…”

“…Research on sexting and cybersex suggests that between 25% and 80% of adults report engaging in these forms of TMSIs [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. There is very little research on other emerging forms of TMSIs [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]; however, a sizeable minority of participants report having experienced some of these [ 9 ]. Researchers have focused largely on sociodemographic predictors of TMSIs and TMSIs as a predictor of psychosocial outcomes with an emphasis on sexting and negative outcomes (e.g., see [ 8 , 10 ]).…”

Platforming Vibes: Technical, Intimate and Political Practices of the Everyday

“…As an approach, autoethnography refers to "research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze (graphy) personal experience (auto) in order to understand cultural experience (ethno)" (Ellis et al, 2011). To this point, scholars have primarily addressed digitally mediated intimacy-broadly defined-from critical cultural (Baym, 2015;Munn, 2012;Ley & Rambukkana, 2021) and ethnographic perspectives (Watson et al, 2021;Hjorth et al, 2018). I contribute to this body of scholarship by sharing my embodied experience-both physical and emotional-during our virtual reality dates.…”

Digital Intimacy in China and Japan

“…At the same time, it has been studied how technologies like condoms and teledildonics shape the values we give to sexual intercourse by providing the ability to imbue the act with values like trust. Since condoms “protect” the lovers during intercourse, the decision to use or not to use the condom makes the different trust we have towards the lover visible (Ley & Rambukkana, 2021 ; Liberati, 2020 ).…”