“I am a doll of cloth”: the future of virtual reality and porn

"Here I am a doll of cloth", says the porn actor Miguel Zayas, who walks the set of the shoot in chirucas mountain, t-shirt and wool cap. These three pieces are strictly unique. Don't you care about your appearance and well spoken and she quips, before that actor was in the military, he says, and already have thought of a wonderful title comprehensive for his autobiography: "end-to-end".

The hat, he explains, is because he's cold.

Zayas is about to start to roll, but your dress be for home matter little: it is a scene of porn film in virtual reality and your body will be only trunk and genitals. "I'm a toy boy," she says, a doll. Your role is to put the eyes in the back of two GoPro cameras, hide the arms, move a little and, above all, not to gasp. The scene is literally the dream of many -be doing-but not so much here, surrounded by cameras, operators, and in the deathly silence: "it Is the most difficult job. I can not move the hands. I rarely see the girl. I can't play. Everything is a headache," he says. Must meet still.

Before that actor was in the military, and already have thought of a wonderful title comprehensive for his autobiography: "end-to-end".

The actress, however, has another role: "The virtual reality more tiring," says Venus, Aphrodite, co-star. The actress speaks, runs and dominates. All of the action depends on what you do. It is almost a monologue.

The scene starts, in fact, no actor. It is a supposed hairdresser and Venus moves hands next to the cameras, as if to wash away a head that does not exist. Then he speaks alone to the camera: "do you Want a hair cut specific? I have very good products. Not only women are taking care of the body. The men also". While Zayas sits down with his cap. It has been since the pants just because they have to remove.

The director of the scene and the Content of BadoinkVR, Denise Hernandez, pointing to Aphrodite of their sentences. Then details of the positions with calm: "we Started with a blowjob, then cuban and face to face". His tone is the same with the one that says "please bring me a coffee".

virtual reality is immersion. The viewer to put on glasses and go into another world. You can look in several directions. In the porn, when he looks down, sees the body of a man stretched. Hence the silence and the debate about the hands: if the actor breathes strong or pulls the arms indicates another presence and capsizes the immersive experience. When you lift your gaze, you see an actress that moves above the trunk. It is about the camera and walks away. About also specific parts of your body. It is, in truth, quite real.

actors Venus Aphrodite and Miguel Zayas star in a porn scene recorded in virtual reality. Juan Barbosa does Not materialize

virtual reality is one of those technological promises that we heard from the 90's and never curdles. A little over five years it returned with force. In 2014, the purchase of Oculus by Facebook for $ 2.000 million gave him strength. (Just two years before, had bought Instagram for 1,000.) In October, four years after, the CEO of Oculus, Brendan Iribe, left Facebook to the alleged doubts of the bet to Mark Zuckerberg by the virtual reality.

Maybe the virtual reality is in the cycle defined by Bill Gates: "Sobreestimamos the change that will occur in the next two years and infraestimamos the change that will occur in the next ten".

The porn was pointer in this recent wave of virtual reality and, for the moment, it is a business for many studies. Spain was the pioneer country. VirtualRealPorn opened the sector in 2013 from Zaragoza. The technology of filming it remains to be unified. Two other companies started or are based in Spain: BadoinkVR, which is an american company whose branch of virtual reality is in Barcelona, and Virtual Taboo, who was born in Barcelona and now the company is owned by american xHamster.

An experience millennial

In scenes straight, the absolute leadership of the wife causes the porn in virtual reality to be less macho and aggressive. The immersion leads to the spectator to be a protagonist and be more involved in the action: "We are asking for more caresses, whispers and kisses," says Denise Hernandez, the director of the scene. Clos explains that ask for "girlfriend experience", as if it were "a girl with the lie" and "want many kisses, and that the girl is resting in the chest at the end."

Hernandez believes that they are requests specific to millennials: the 42.7% of subscribers BadoinkVr are less than 34 years.

The same technology also leads to that: "it Is much more intimate it all. There can be movements very sophisticated with the cameras," says Marcos Lopez, of Virtual Taboo.

The speed of porn –and the ability to monetize it– makes you look new technologies. "Pornography has found new markets," says Marcos Lopez, co-founder of Virtual Taboo. Virtual reality dry is the present. The future are new options. There are already vaginas canned Klasbahis vibrate when the video's claims. There are also technology haptic, which serves for games: allow you to feel gunshots, rubbing. "But the genital is poorly developed", says Xavi Clos, director of product BadoinkVR, producers of the scene Aphrodite and Zayas.

The virtual reality of the moment has only one point of view. The viewer can't move around in the virtual world. But it is also under investigation. The industry also considers how to take advantage of the augmented reality, which allows you to see animated objects and added in the real world. Or the reality of mixed or combined, that is to record actors that can be inserted in the bedroom of the user.

If the porn is a pioneer, how it responds to the great question today about virtual reality: what has really taken off as a mass consumer product? The answer is, for the moment, no. "It has not taken off as expected", says Ignacio Perez, director of External Relations of VirtualRealPorn. "Why don't you take off? Because the people have not proven. For the moment, the market grows though not as fast as we would like," added le Clos.

The visor of one of the GoPro cameras shows how to make the shooting of a porn scene starring the actress Venus Aphrodite. Juan Barbosa

something is Missing at the moment. There are at least three problems. First, the quality and price of the glasses. Virtual reality obviously depends on the glasses. Until now, the power required for the best needed of a cable to the computer. With the Oculus Go –the most famous–, no longer occurs. In 2019 Facebook will bring the Oculus Quest, which should give more performance. Although, according to data from BadoinkVR, 20% of their users do not have glasses and used a substitute of cardboard where they put the mobile phone, which makes screen. the price is a problem.

Second, the lack of a killer topp. The peaks of new users of virtual reality coming in days after Black Friday, Christmas. They give more glasses. But no one requires glasses. There is No game, new application, or new environment that you drag to the industry. "Games are experiences that are limited. Missing the super game, you reach someone and say, by the end, this is virtual reality," says Clos. Although the great consumption of time has not entered the virtual reality, there are companies that prepare content for training of their employees. The company Strivr helps to form with virtual reality to employees of Walmart, Verizon or Chipotle.

The companies do not publish figures of subscribers, but about 10 euros per month on average, with a few thousand it is possible to sustain the business

And the third problem, the feeling of strangeness: it is still unlikely to be in a place with other people while your body reactions make you be shooting, driving fast or jumping.

The porn is not to boast, they seem to think in Facebook. Google does not allow their ads, Facebook deletes images with nudity. But in virtual reality, are the protagonists: "According to data from Facebook, the application of Oculus Go that more is used is for watching videos. It is not a game. There are not many movies in virtual reality. People use it to watch porn. We are the use case number 1," says Clos.

The channel Reddit

Zayas wheel average half of their scenes a month for virtual reality. Printing is flourishing: "Only take me to Prague to shoot, pay me for the tickets, the hotel and the scenes since it is a paste". And the actors are cheap compared to the actresses: in a round recent filming for virtual reality, Zayas saw two other actors, and about 20 girls. The companies do not publish figures of subscribers, but about 10 euros per month on average (the price depends on whether you do monthly or annual), with a few thousand it is possible to sustain the business.

The official channel for in-depth discussion on virtual reality porn is on Reddit and has 30,000 subscribers: OculusNSFW, is called. The companies released their trailers to a group of users that are serious about their hobby, to analyze and criticize. There is for example discussion of the subtleties as the ideal height of the actor, or discuss the lobby pro hands against the anti hands: "please do that their masters control over his hands. In the scene of Elena, the hands of the boy have never stopped moving and were on the plane during the 98% of the video. This might make you happy to the group pro hands, but it ruined the video for me," writes one user.