"They’re Just Tixel Pits, Man": Disputing the 'Reality' of Virtual Reality Pornography through the Story Completion Method

Wood, Matt, Wood, Gavin and Balaam, Madeline (2017) "They’re Just Tixel Pits, Man": Disputing the 'Reality' of Virtual Reality Pornography through the Story Completion Method. In: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, USA, pp. 5439-5451. ISBN 9781450346559

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Abstract

Pornography is a substantial part of humans' everyday interaction with computers, yet to date the topic has been underconsidered by HCI. Here, we examine some of the common cultural ideals non-experts constructed of a 'new' pornographic experience - Virtual Reality (VR) Porn - through use of the 'Story Completion Method'. Forty five participants completed a story stem about a male character who was about to have his "very first virtual reality porn experience". Through our analysis, we demonstrate a narrative of a 'perfect', idealised sexual experience, as well as one which emphasised the imagined 'precarious' and dangerous consequences around this technology use. We indicate how the stories reproduced ideals around heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity, suggesting an agenda of 'Designing for Eroticism' as a tactic which could avoid such problematic discourses. We also suggest the opportunities and challenges presented through use of the 'Story Completion Method'.

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