Synopsis, 1st draft
My research question:
How can AI methods be used to enlighten everyone about sexual diversity among women?
The term “sexual diversity” is based on Lev Manovich’s thoughts on a “cultural diversity” in image style, art, and music taste. In his paper “Automating Aesthetics: Artificial Intelligence and Image Culture” (2017), he writes: “I believe that we can study cultural diversity without assuming that it is caused by variations from some types or structures.” (p. 1, my italics) and he argues that one can do this by “using AI methods.” (ibid. p. 10). In the same way, I will argue that we can use AI methods to study the sexual diversity among women.
From a literary history perspective, women’s role in sex has been either “the virgin” or “the whore”, and in critical analyses, both roles are typically described as something that only exists within male fantasy. Some feminists would argue that the recent social media movement #metoo is a step towards giving women from all over the world their own voice to tell about how they do not want to be treated in sex. I agree that the public female voice saying “no” has been near absent up until the movement started. However, in my opinion, the voice of the movement only represents one side of the female sexuality, which means that the movement maintains an unnuanced image of women’s role in sex. Because what about, for instance, all the women who want to say “yes” to sex? In my opinion, the movement can be seen as a sign of the fact that a more diverse image of women’s roles in sex is needed.
Therefore, I have decided to make a design fiction film about an interactive wearable which is called Vagina Helmet. Based on collected data from women, the Vagina Helmet is a tool for anyone to get more experience with fingering a girl/woman. The most important aspect of the Vagina Helmet is the social experience, reflected in that the helmet is not passive. Instead, it always gives the one fingering feedback on how it feels. Most importantly, the Vagina Helmet project is about listening to/reading your sex partner.
The use of the Vagina Helmet includes two people. The way it works is that a girl/woman takes the helmet on. Then, the one fingering starts to touch the helmet in ways he/she wants to touch it, and soon he/she will get a response from an LCD-screen on the forehead of the girl/woman. It could for instance say: “Not in the mood” or “That’s really nice” or “Try something else”. The experience is supposed to reflect the diversity not just between different women, but also the diversity within each single woman. Sometimes, the same woman can be “in the mood” one day but then the day after “not in the mood” or have variating preferences in fingering pattern.
At first sight, it seems to be something else to collect data about women’s sexual behavior than for instance music listening patterns (e.g. through Spotify) and faces (e.g. on the streets of Shanghai or through YouTube’s faces dataset), since in many countries and cultures women’s role in sex is a taboo. Maybe this is partly the reason why the existing knowledge about the anatomy and functions of female genitals is still limited. But in the end, they are all in the same category of personal data, and female sexuality is ready for exploration. Nevertheless, I want to express an awareness of the fact that I am working with personal data, which are vulnerable.
The Vagina Helmet is *not* meant to create a smart/artificially intelligent average fingering path to follow for the guy/girl fingering it. Instead, the data from all the women will be used as inspiration and function as a database for possible fingering paths for the Vagina Helmet to want at the given moment.
The way I am going to show how the Vagina Helmet works is through a design fiction film where these two aspects will be in focus: 1) the collection of data for the database about women’s wishes and wants in sex and 2) the interaction between two people when using the Vagina Helmet. It is my wish that the film shall raise questions about data and women in relation to sex, make a path for talking more about sex from women’s perspective, and not least reflect a more diverse image of women’s thoughts, feelings and desires in and about sex.
Potentially, the Vagina Helmet can become a broader metaphor for sexual diversity among everyone and not just women. There are also several stereotypes around guys/men, such as “they are always interested in sex”, which is not a one-sided truth. Also, a Penis Helmet could be a relevant contribution to the project.
Term clarification: Actually, the name “Vagina” Helmet is in a way misleading since vagina in medical terms means the hole where a baby can come out from, and not the whole “thing”. In fact, from an anatomical perspective, the Vagina Helmet consists of all parts of a pussy, in whole, except the vagina. The helmet has no entrance/exit, it is just a surface. But the reason why I have chosen to call it the Vagina Helmet even though there is no vagina in it, is that I think it is the most clean word, and at the same time something that is immediately understood as a serious word. To me, the words “pussy” and “cunt” seem more loaded with negative values, “vulva” seems unfamiliar, and therefore they would steal the attention from the actual case. So: Vagina Helmet it is.
Literature:
Ingrid Hoelzl and Rémi Marie, “The Operative Image (Google Street View: The World as Database)”, in SoftImage, 2015.
Lev Manovich, Automating Aesthetics: Artificial Intelligence and Image Culture, 2017.
Søndergaard, Marie Louise Juul, and Lone Koefoed Hansen. “Intimate Futures: Staying with the Trouble of Digital Personal Assistants through Design Fiction,” 869–80. ACM Press, 2018.
Tin, Ida: “Why data will revolutionize global female health” in helloclue.com, 2015. ( https://helloclue.com/articles/about-clue/why-data-will-revolutionize-global-female-health )
Looking for literature on: design fiction and sex robots!
Digital Design Portfolio 