South Africans are still shy of virtual reality (VR) porn, which re-enacts sex and other acts using a blend of simulation headsets and other gadgets.
Local players in the VR industry say they have had no or few requests about VR porn, unlike in other countries.
Recently in Japan, a sex festival was forced to shut down early because too many people arrived to try out VR porn. Streams of locals were looking to get their hands on the latest inventions from the adult entertainment industry in the first festival of its kind - the Adult VR Fest 01 in the Akihabara region of Tokyo.
Among the attractions was a machine that simulated a woman on top of a man as he lay on the floor and another where punters put their hand into a cardboard box which blew air in a way that allowed people to fondle what felt like a breast.
Statistics from Google Trends show that searches for VR porn have increased by 10 000% over the past 17 months.
Embarrassing topic
Sibusiso Radebe, co-founder of Virtual-Reality.co.za, a Johannesburg-based VR agency, says the company hasn't encountered any direct interest in content production of VR porn.
Ulrico Grech-Cumbo, CEO of Deep VR, a South African VR film production company, says to date, it only received one inquiry about porn which the company turned down.
Gerald Ferreira, founder of VR360.co.za, says as a company and for personal reasons, it made the conscious decision not to get directly involved in the porn industry.
According to a recent Piper Jaffray research, adult entertainment will be the number three driver of all VR content, behind movies and games, and the porn VR business will grow into a $1 billion industry by 2020.
The relationship between adult film and VR will likely be mutually beneficial for the top players - with pornography bolstering the sales and use of headsets, and subscriptions giving the porn industry a much-desired new revenue stream, says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
"It could revolutionise an industry that has been stagnant for many years," he notes.
Ferreira says: "I don't think someone buying VR headsets is going to admit buying a VR headset for viewing porn, but I suspect we have sold hundreds of headsets to people whom have exposed the headsets to VR porn. We have envisaged long before VR porn became hot that it will be one of the big markets for virtual reality, 360-degree video and VR headsets.
"We have been in meetings with a top South African advertising agency where, to the embarrassment of some, the topic of VR porn surfaced."
Porn binge
However, he sees the VR porn industry as just one small segment of VR, saying with Sony launching its VR headset and Microsoft playing with a VR headset for its gaming console, VR games are going to be huge.
"When you immerse yourself into a VR experience, it feels real. People have always watched porn; in fact, South African consumers watch a lot of porn. If you go to Alexa, a site monitoring Web site traffic, you will find several porn sites listed in the top 100 most Web sites visited by South Africans," Ferreira says.
"I believe that as uncomfortable as it may make some people, VR porn in South Africa is already seeing exponential interest."
Radebe says the adoption of VR is at an early stage in SA, although there are many organisations that could benefit from applying the technology to their systems and processes.
He explains that for the most part, South Africans are interested in the technology in areas where it can add long-term value for them, such as enhancing family time.
"Although cost has gone down significantly in acquiring the technology, it is still a significant investment. Just as people won't buy a smartphone because the screen resolution will enhance pornographic content, the same is true for VR technology," says Radebe.
"The porn industry is very large and one would expect that an alternative to video and how it is consumed would spark interest in the market. Also, the fact that VR can be very personal, it makes a lot of sense in a developed market like Japan where Internet access is ubiquitous for the format of VR porn to flourish. VR can be a rather affordable way of creating a real form of escapism, if one thinks of how large the gaming industry is, surely it makes sense that VR porn is a growing market."
Nonetheless, Radebe believes VR porn will find a niche market in SA, although he is of the view that a mainstream market for it in a South African context is unlikely with the cost factor of production and distribution of the content.
Grech-Cumbo believes 'fetishism' is driving the uptake of VR porn. "Fetishism is a big cultural thing from what I understand. VR is the only technology that allows you to be immersed in content, and so fantasies become so much more real. It's a human condition and one definitely not limited to Japan," he notes.
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