Sex, Intimacy, and Ubiquitous Computing in Montreal

Next week the annual Computer Human Interactions conference will take place in Montreal, Canada. The conference is the premier international event for human-computer interaction, bringing together researchers, designers, academics, and educators.

What does this have to do with sex?

This year, thanks to the inspiring sexo-academic advocacy of Johanna Brewer, Jofish Kaye, Amanda Williams, and Susan Wyche, the CHI conference includes a first of its kind day long workshop called Sexual Interactions: Why we should talk about Sex in HCI

Before everyone who doesn’t self-identify as a geek clicks their way off this screen (too late?) I promise this conference has implications for all of us who are interested in sexuality, technophiles and technophobes alike…

• Ever wonder why so many porn sites lie about what they offer?
• Curious to know what is really going on in the world of teledildonics?
• Want to know more about sex with artificial partners?
• Or are you just curious about what role technology can play in human sexuality beyond offering a thousand different ways for us to watch porn?

If you answered yes to any of these, you’re more interested in sex and human computer interaction than you thought.

It is both surprising and not that the study of human computer interaction has largely ignored issues of sexuality. Despite the fact that sexual content, and one could argue sexual desire, drives so much of the commerce and creation of technology, talking professionally about sex doesn’t get you a lot of grant money (unless you’re researching erections) and it won’t win you a lot of awards.

Like owning a bookstore, if you don’t work in entertainment or the sex industry, and want to talk professionally about sex, you do it for love, not for money. The organizers of Sexual Interactions have put together a labor of love which I for one am giddy to attend.

If you can’t come up with the exorbitant conference fee all of the workshop papers can be found on the conference website.