[Commlist] CFP AN-ICON journal "Virtual Sex: Pornography, Immersion, and Erotic Environments"

Call for Papers
Virtual Sex: Pornography, Immersion, and Erotic Environments
Online Open Access Journal “AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images”



Edited by Ihsan Asman, Giovanna Maina, and Roberto P. Malaspina.

Deadline for full articles: 15th March 2025

In a letter published in 1969 on Architectural Design, Donald Kenzotaki 
from the Bio-Cybernetic Institute of Tokaida, Japan, details the marvels 
of his research team’s latest invention. This ground-breaking device, 
known as “Cybersex,” is engineered to record the multimodal expressions 
of a sexual encounter, store them on a hard disk, and reproduce the 
experience for distribution to anyone seeking a multisensory encounter. 
Users would be able to visit a cybersex studio, select their preferred 
recording, and initiate a fully immersive experience. The complex 
computer system would respond dynamically to the user’s body, adapting 
the visual, tactile, and olfactory stimuli of the recording to ensure an 
immediate and erotically effective experience.

A contemporary reader of Architectural Design at the time might have 
reacted with amusement and disbelief, recognizing that this account was, 
in fact, part of Cosmorama – a satirical column that playfully 
speculated on the future potential of emerging technologies. 
Nevertheless, this fictional description serves as an early articulation 
of what would become central to a “sexual futurology”: the utopian 
desire to combine technology and sexuality in ways that transcend 
“physical” limitations. Kenzotaki’s “Cybersex” anticipated several topoi 
that would come to define the discourse on mediated sex in the following 
decades. Concepts such as technical reproducibility, complete 
multisensoriality, immediacy, and telecommunication have remained at the 
core of discursive experiments, cinematic portrayals, and rhetorical 
promises. This set of new technologies claims to enhance sexual 
experiences with increasing efficacy and erotic satisfaction, combining 
the rhetoric of “new” media with the indexical instability of the 
pornographic product.

Among the devices that seem to most effectively embody these 
long-standing aspirations is Virtual Reality (VR). Since its most recent 
technological re-emergence (2014-15) (Evans 2018), VR has brought forth 
new possibilities for both the mediation of sex and the porn industry. 
Indeed, virtual technologies have created immersive forms that produce 
both social experiences – such as multi-user sex games – and pure 
“simulation,” as in the case of pornographic audio- visual products. 
Most pornographic materials conceived for VR to date are based on a form 
of virtual augmentation of the POV (point-of-view) subgenre: even though 
they limit themselves to 180° or 360° videos rather than actual 
interactive environments, they integrate the strong agency of the 
first-person shot with the visceral capacities of the body transfer 
process (Slater et al. 2010). The success of virtual forms of 
pornography raises urgent issues regarding the aesthetic consequences 
that such images have on visuality and bodily self-perception: on the 
one hand, VRredefines the composition qualities and directing strategies 
of the pornographic image (Evans 2020); on the other, it constructs new 
horizons of social and political agency (Paré et al. 2019; Wang 2021). 
VR porn may therefore constitute complex biocultural dynamics concerning 
the politics of bodies and the gendered perceptions of the self 
(Tacikowski et al. 2020; Zhang and Juvrud 2024). Following a 
somatechnical (Sullivan and Murray 2014) perspective – stressing the 
co-constitution between bodies, technologies, and images – VR 
pornography seems to “excite” with particular effectiveness the primary 
potentialities and problematics of environmental images (Pinotti 2021), 
especially in relation to intersectional identity proprioception.

In addition to VR, other technologies like AI (Viola and Voto 2023), 
haptic feedback systems (Ley and Rambukkana 2021), and teledildonics 
(Reinghold 1990, Liberati 2017) are transforming how sexuality and 
intimacy are experienced and represented.

In this issue of AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images, we invite 
contributions that critically engage with the intersections of 
immersion, technology, and sexuality through various methodologies. 
While VR is a primary focus, we welcome papers that explore other 
immersive technologies, including AR (Augmented Reality), XR (Extended 
Reality), AI-driven environments, and social VR, to expand the 
discussion on how digital environments shape and redefine sexual 
experiences, pornographies and identities.

Contributions might relate to the following topics:

-  Genealogies, media archaeologies, and imaginations of sex and 
immersive pornography. How technically mediated sex and immersive 
pornographies have been imagined in the past?

-  Social, political, and identity consequences of erotic-pornographic 
virtual simulation. What social and political effects arise from virtual 
erotic simulations? How do these simulations impact identity formation?

-  Identity performance in Social Virtual Reality. How does social VR 
influence the performance of identity, gender and race? What 
opportunities or constraints does it create for exploring fluid 
identities? How do queer communities use immersive technologies to 
challenge normative sexualities?

-  Post-porn perspectives and virtual technologies. How do virtual 
technologies contribute to post-porn aesthetics? What new forms of 
sexual representation do they enable that challenge mainstream porn?

-  Analysis of VR porn production, directing, and distribution 
strategies. What are the key challenges and innovations in VR porn 
production and distribution? How do these strategies differ from 
traditional pornographic works?

-  Political-legal issues: virtual harassment and consent in digital 
spaces. How do legal frameworks address virtual harassment and consent 
in immersive environments? What new regulations are needed to ensure 
ethical interactions in VR?

-  Ethical implications of artificial intelligence in virtual 
pornography. What ethical concerns arise from the use of AI in virtual 
pornography? How do AI- generated erotic contents affect issues of 
consent and privacy?

Contributions must adhere to the Journal’s editorial guidelines 
(https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/about/submission 
<https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/about/submission> s). 
Manuscripts that fail to do so will not be considered for peer review 
and will be desk-rejected.

No payment from the authors will be required.

If motivated by the nature of the research, word count for manuscripts 
destined to this issue may be extended to a maximum of 10.000 words 
(footnotes included - final reference list excluded).

Please sign up / login to the Journal’s webpage and upload your complete 
manuscript here: 
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/about/submissions 
<https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/about/submissions>

In case you have any question before submission, please contact:

Roberto P. Malaspina: (roberto.malaspina /at/ unimi.it) 
<mailto:(roberto.malaspina /at/ unimi.it)>
Ihsan Asman: (i.asman /at/ hotmail.com) <mailto:(i.asman /at/ hotmail.com)>
Giovanna Maina: (giovanna.maina /at/ unito.it) <mailto:(giovanna.maina /at/ unito.it)>

(an-icon-journal /at/ unimi.it) <mailto:(an-icon-journal /at/ unimi.it)>
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