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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/16/apple-sex-tracker-iphone
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| Will Apple’s sex life tracker give us more than digital notches on the bedpost? | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| At last we know why Eve gave Adam that apple; she wanted to track his sexual activity. | At last we know why Eve gave Adam that apple; she wanted to track his sexual activity. |
| Fast forward a few years and Apple’s new reproductive health tracking system, available on an iPhone near you from this autumn, will do just that: recording sexual frequency and whether protection was used. Such technology will presumably benefit certain people, such as those trying to conceive, but I am not sure how helpful this app will be to the average user, beyond replacing the traditional notch on the bedpost. | Fast forward a few years and Apple’s new reproductive health tracking system, available on an iPhone near you from this autumn, will do just that: recording sexual frequency and whether protection was used. Such technology will presumably benefit certain people, such as those trying to conceive, but I am not sure how helpful this app will be to the average user, beyond replacing the traditional notch on the bedpost. |
| Will we ever really tell the truth about our sex lives – even to our own iPhones? We’ve all become acutely aware of the tendency of personal data to go walkabout. If photos entrusted to iCloud can end up online – even in daily newspapers – mightn’t we rightly have pause when filling in an electronic sexual score sheet? Could information about our safe sex practices – or the lack of them – be used against us at some future time? | Will we ever really tell the truth about our sex lives – even to our own iPhones? We’ve all become acutely aware of the tendency of personal data to go walkabout. If photos entrusted to iCloud can end up online – even in daily newspapers – mightn’t we rightly have pause when filling in an electronic sexual score sheet? Could information about our safe sex practices – or the lack of them – be used against us at some future time? |
| And yet human beings need validation, and many seek it avidly. Our phones are beginning to take on the roles of conscience-surrogates, father-confessors, spokesmen for our prefrontal cortexes. We want their approval: “Twelve sexual encounters this week, all using condoms – well done! You’re in the top 20th percentile of people enjoying safe and frequent sex!” | And yet human beings need validation, and many seek it avidly. Our phones are beginning to take on the roles of conscience-surrogates, father-confessors, spokesmen for our prefrontal cortexes. We want their approval: “Twelve sexual encounters this week, all using condoms – well done! You’re in the top 20th percentile of people enjoying safe and frequent sex!” |
| I don’t know about you, but I’m a long way off managing fellatio while wielding a selfie stick | I don’t know about you, but I’m a long way off managing fellatio while wielding a selfie stick |
| I made that last bit up, of course, but if electronic monitoring of one’s sexual habits proves popular, it’s only a short step to broadening the scale: “Well done, sexy beast. You tried erotic sensory deprivation and vinyl fetish play this week … you’re on a roll.” And if visual monitoring becomes an added feature, think of the next learning curve we’ll be encountering; I don’t know about you, but I’m a long way off managing fellatio while wielding a selfie stick. | I made that last bit up, of course, but if electronic monitoring of one’s sexual habits proves popular, it’s only a short step to broadening the scale: “Well done, sexy beast. You tried erotic sensory deprivation and vinyl fetish play this week … you’re on a roll.” And if visual monitoring becomes an added feature, think of the next learning curve we’ll be encountering; I don’t know about you, but I’m a long way off managing fellatio while wielding a selfie stick. |
| Electronic monitoring of any activity can subtly change a person’s behaviour and cognitive processes. That can be a positive thing – as, for example, in helping to reduce obesity by measuring the balance of exercise and food intake. But in the case of sexual monitoring, the scale and reward system would reflect the programmers’ tastes, prejudices and beliefs about what constitutes “healthy sexuality”. And those views might not be psychosexually, culturally or even medically sound for the particular individuals who use the programmes. | Electronic monitoring of any activity can subtly change a person’s behaviour and cognitive processes. That can be a positive thing – as, for example, in helping to reduce obesity by measuring the balance of exercise and food intake. But in the case of sexual monitoring, the scale and reward system would reflect the programmers’ tastes, prejudices and beliefs about what constitutes “healthy sexuality”. And those views might not be psychosexually, culturally or even medically sound for the particular individuals who use the programmes. |
| Optimal sexual frequency is not something that can be gauged for human beings generally. There is a lot of individual and couple variation, and even once a month, once a year, or never might be normative, desirable or even required for certain people. It would be most unfortunate if we were encouraged by our phones to engage in sexual activity just to put another smiley face in the “did it today” box, or to beat a competitive friend who scored highly over the weekend. | Optimal sexual frequency is not something that can be gauged for human beings generally. There is a lot of individual and couple variation, and even once a month, once a year, or never might be normative, desirable or even required for certain people. It would be most unfortunate if we were encouraged by our phones to engage in sexual activity just to put another smiley face in the “did it today” box, or to beat a competitive friend who scored highly over the weekend. |
| And how does a programme – or more specifically, the programmer – define “sex”? Does masturbation count as a healthy sexual activity? It should, of course, but it might not score as highly on our phones. | |
| Related: Women deserve orgasm equality | Jessica Valenti | Related: Women deserve orgasm equality | Jessica Valenti |
| Despite these concerns – and the potential for privacy breaches – such public-access sexuality measures are in their infancy, and it may be that we become less intimidated by our sexual realities in the future, which would be positive in many ways. | Despite these concerns – and the potential for privacy breaches – such public-access sexuality measures are in their infancy, and it may be that we become less intimidated by our sexual realities in the future, which would be positive in many ways. |
| We could all benefit from a better, well-researched understanding of our sex lives, which might be possible if authorised, accredited sexual researchers were allowed to ethically examine the system’s results – only with users’ consent, of course. In terms of data-gathering, it’s certainly exciting to think we might at last be able to have large-sample studies on certain aspects of human sexual behaviour. But if results of, say, frequency studies, are publicised without educative caveats, the potential for unfairly judging one’s self or one’s partner is high. | We could all benefit from a better, well-researched understanding of our sex lives, which might be possible if authorised, accredited sexual researchers were allowed to ethically examine the system’s results – only with users’ consent, of course. In terms of data-gathering, it’s certainly exciting to think we might at last be able to have large-sample studies on certain aspects of human sexual behaviour. But if results of, say, frequency studies, are publicised without educative caveats, the potential for unfairly judging one’s self or one’s partner is high. |
| Apple has started with the easier sexual questions, and I doubt there’ll be a “Sex with whom?” box to fill in any time soon. Unfortunately, aspects of human sexuality such as monogamy have traditionally been highly challenging, and the chances of people trusting their phones with evidence of infidelities must be low. | Apple has started with the easier sexual questions, and I doubt there’ll be a “Sex with whom?” box to fill in any time soon. Unfortunately, aspects of human sexuality such as monogamy have traditionally been highly challenging, and the chances of people trusting their phones with evidence of infidelities must be low. |
| But even with the current monitor, will there soon be fights and separations when supposedly faithful partners find a discrepancy in their individual weekly frequency scores? Looking at your lover’s phone will never be the same again. | But even with the current monitor, will there soon be fights and separations when supposedly faithful partners find a discrepancy in their individual weekly frequency scores? Looking at your lover’s phone will never be the same again. |
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