Smart Sex Toys: A Narrative Review of Recent Research on Cultural, Health and Safety Considerations

Power, Jennifer; Pym, Tinonee; James, Alexandra; Waling, Andrea

doi:10.26181/27043207.v1

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Smart Sex Toys: A Narrative Review of Recent Research on Cultural, Health and Safety Considerations

journal contribution

posted on 2024-09-17, 05:59 authored by Jennifer PowerJennifer Power, Tinonee PymTinonee Pym, Alexandra JamesAlexandra James, Andrea WalingAndrea Waling

Purpose of the Review: Smart sex toys (‘teledildonics’), are digitally enabled haptic devices designed for sexual or erotic stimulation. Devices may conform to conventional sex toy design (e.g. dildoes) or take other forms. Their primary purpose is to provide sexual or erotic stimulation through the networked haptic function. Here, we present a narrative review of academic work in which we aimed to synthesise current lines of inquiry relating to cultural impacts and research on risks and benefits. Recent Findings. Forty-one articles were included, published between 2011 and 2024. The articles focused on: prevalence and context of smart sex use; considerations on whether smart sex toys have potential to disrupt normative gendered sexual scripts; whether smart sex toys have potential to expand or change people’s expectations for sex; the potential for harm and non-consensual use; the politics of data security; and the possibilities for smart sex toys to enhance sexual wellbeing. Summary: Smart sex toys may create new ways for people to explore sexual connection and experience, including people with limited mobility. Data security and consensual use should be considered in product development.

Funding

The research for this paper was, in part, funded with a grant from the Australian Research Council (DP190102027).

History

Publication Date

2024-09-01

Journal

Current Sexual Health Reports

Volume

16

Pagination

199 - 215

Publisher

Springer Nature

ISSN

1548-3584

Rights Statement

© The Author(s) 2024 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.