PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

Eyes On With Naughty America's VR Porn

 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

Our Expert
LOOK INSIDE PC LABS HOW WE TEST
65 EXPERTS
43 YEARS
41,500+ REVIEWS

LAS VEGAS—I have abs. There's also a naked woman writhing on me, but honestly, I'm equally surprised I have abs.

CES 2016 Bug ArtThis is the future of porn: strapping on a Samsung Gear VR headset to feel like you're actually inside the adult content. I got this demo at CES from Naughty America, a major mainstream porn studio that currently has 26 VR scenes on offer.

NA isn't the only VR porn studio, but it's the biggest name producing content right now. The VR porn is point-of-view, which means it's shot as if you're a man or woman sitting in a chair, the subject of various erotic ministrations. You have a surrogate body (complete with abs), and you can look up, down, or around while the scene plays out, although you can't actually interact with it. It's intense.

I saw three sample scenes, which took advantage of the 180-degree perspective and 3D depth to make it really feel like the performers were in the room—coming right at you, so to speak.

The seated surrogate body maintains an illusion that keeps you seated for the 180-degree video experience, but you can choose where to look: up, down, or around, at faces, bodies, or the furniture in the room. It's a little low-res, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in porn. Too high a resolution can ruin the illusions.

"The evolution of porn has kind of been leading to this point," said Ian Paul, Naughty America's CIO.

VR is the latest weapon in the battle to get people to pay for porn, much of which is free on "tube sites." A one-month subscription to Naughty America costs $24.95. So, for that, the company may need to offer an experience that's a lot more intense than Xvideos.com.

Or, maybe, they need to target some less price-sensitive customers. Several times in our conversation, Paul and I brought up the HTC Vive, a high-end gaming VR system debuting in April. High-end gamers, who have money to spend and a lot of time at their PCs, may be the ideal market for subscription VR porn, Paul said.

"The demographic of gaming and adult is very similar. If you're into gaming, gaming's your reason to get a headset, and adult's just the icing on the cake," he said.

While my demo happened with a Samsung Gear VR, that isn't necessarily the optimal platform for VR porn. Samsung's walled content garden means porn scenes have to be sideloaded. A PC-based system like Oculus Rift or Vive is more open to adult content. Naughty America started with the Rift, is looking closely at Sony's VR solution, and is ordering a Vive developer kit, Paul said.

"We support a variety of devices, and we have to," he said.

How is this stuff shot? Paul said that's part of NA's "secret sauce," but some of it was clear. The scenes use two cameras, at least one of which is over the shoulder of the surrogate performer.

Lauren S., VP at Naughty America, said the VR shoots didn't take a lot of extra skill from performers as long as they were used to the "POV" style, which requires them to look into the camera as if it were a lover.

"Once they get going, they seem to have adapted very well," she said.

A few days ago, Las Vegas brothel Sheri's Ranch sent out a sort of anti-VR porn press release, reminding folks that sex is better when it's interactive and involves real human connection. They're right, of course. But I don't think VR porn is competing with actual sex; it's competing with "ordinary" video porn, and the difference is huge.

"Depending on the mechanics of the scene, there can be overheating issues with the phone. We like to believe that the scenes are just so hot that the phones can't take it," Paul said.

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

Read full bio