Table 1.

Summary of all studies included in the present review

Study	Type of research	Characteristics	Key outcomes	Summary of findings
Arrell [46]	Review	Chapter that surveys some of the philosophical issues raised by the increasing integration of physical and Internet-mediated technologies into our sex lives	Teledildonics can help overcome spatial separation in intimate relationships	Some emergent (bio)technologies can help overcome obstacles that can get in the way of a happy sex life
Asci et al. [5]	Review	Review of consumption of VR pornography	VR pornography is watched more frequently compared to regular videos when the sample is corrected for number of videos uploaded	VR pornography is new in the porn industry, and the number of videos uploaded is low. VR porn seems to be attracting more watchers; this trend might continue in the future
Ashton et al. [29]	Review	Assessment of how new digital technologies will change definitions and practices of researching pornography	VR pornography can alter and improve the experience of pornography for the user	Thanks to changes in realism, immersion and interactivity VR pornography may be an improved experience for users
Bollmer [32]	Non-empirical	Critical analysis of the possibility of empathy from VR	VR is not capable of engendering real empathy	Any technologies intended to foster empathy merely presume to acknowledge the experience of another but fail to do so in any meaningful way
Dekker et al. [23••]	Empirical quantitative	50 male participants in a repeated measures design, recruited via a local website in Germany	VR pornography induced feelings of intimacy with performers	In the VR condition, participants felt more desired, more flirted with, and more looked into the eyes. They were also more likely to feel connected with the actors and more likely to feel the urge to interact with them
Elsey et al. [25••]	Empirical quantitative	Cross-sectional study of 95 heterosexual participants (47 female, 48 male) in a repeated measures design recruited via university online system and snowball sampling in the Netherlands	Men found VR pornography more arousing than 2D scenes, but this was not the case for women	VR consistently elicited a greater sense of presence than typical pornography, and presence was positively correlated with sexual arousal
Evans [1]	Review	Critical review of VR pornography and teledildonics	Teledildonic technology is heteronormative and male-focused	VR pornography and teledildonic technology have significant issues with inclusion
Faustino [42]	Non-empirical	Critical reflection on teledildonics from a materialist perspective	This technology reinforces the ‘coital imperative’, by equating sexual interaction with penetration of the vagina by the penis	Although teledildonics may permit other formulations, specifically for non-heterosexual couples, the penetrative act remains a presupposition of this technology
Flore and Pienaar [40]	Non-empirical	Case studies of sex toys to examine how the relationship between data and sexual subjectivity is being transformed through these emerging technologies	Sexual practices, intimacy, and pleasure become ‘datafied’ through these sensory technologies	The datafication of sexual practice has significant impacts on privacy and the ownership of sexual pleasure
French and Hamilton [31]	Empirical quantitative	195 men (mean age 19.84, s.d. 2.7) and 310 women (mean age 19.8, s.d. 3.8) from Eastern Canada completed an online questionnaire. Participants were recruited through Facebook, Kijiji, and community advertisements. 63% of the samples were introductory psychology students	Women show a preference for female-centric pornography consumption (typically that which depicts more genuine female pleasure, natural bodies, attractive male leads, and greater context)	Although effect sizes were small, women who reported viewing pornography with more female-centric features also reported more positive effects of pornography on sex life and perceptions of the other gender
Gesselman et al. [45]	Empirical quantitative	A web-based, demographically representative sample included 7,512 American adults aged 18–65 years, with a near-even gender split of men/women and moderate racial diversity (63% White)	Participants who were younger, were men, had higher income, and were sexual minorities reported more frequent engagement with all forms of sextech assessed	Participants indicated their engagement with eight forms of sextech, including teledildonic use and accessing virtual reality pornography as well as two more common domains (online pornography and sexting). Engagement with pornography and sexting was high, but some demographics indicated increasing engagement with new sextech
Kaisar [41]	Non-empirical	Critical examination of how the relationship between data and sexual subjectivity is being transformed through these emerging technologies	Teledildonics are marketed as a substitute for heteronormative sexual encounters whereas they are closer to a simulated experience of mutual masturbation	Intimate encounters between interactive sex toys and bodies should be considered complex technological and biological assemblages, where machines and the human body come into intimate connection through datafication
Lafortune et al. [26••]	Empirical quantitative	39 participants allocated into low (n = 16) or high sexual aversion (SA) (n = 23) groups. Mean age was 29.9 years (s.d. = 11.31). The sample was mostly comprised of women (> 60%), with 17% of participants identifying as men and 21.5% as non-binary. Participants were recruited from a previous SA study and through social media in France	High-SA participants showed increased discomfort as a factor of time exposed to VR pornographic performance by a synthetic actor	Subjective measures of discomfort were increased significantly in high-SA participants through increased exposure to a synthetic character displaying erotic behaviours in a virtual room
Liberati [38]	Non-empirical	Phenomenological assessment of teledildonic possibilities	Teledildonics have the potential to re-shape our living body and, in so doing, re-shape our affections as well as our perception of the world	Teledildonics provide tactual sensations that simulate part of a subject’s body as being relocated in another place, enabling a subject to ‘connect’ and to ‘play’ with a second subject as if they were actually in the same place at the same time, in other words, to engage in remote sexual activity
Liberati [39]	Non-empirical	Critical analysis of the effects of the introduction of teledildonics on sexual lives according to postphenomenology and mediation theory	Teledildonic use will have a transformative effect on the scope and range of human sexual relations and human-object sexual relations	Teledildonics will allow human beings to have sexual intercourse with every object around by turning them into sexually interactive ‘quasi-others’. This will affect the way we give meanings and values to love and sex in general
Marcotte et al. [37]	Empirical quantitative	Survey of 8004 American adults, mean age 44.05, 47.8% male, 51.2% female, 1% other	People with mental health struggles may be drawn to interactive, digital forms of sexual behaviour as a means of alleviating symptoms through distraction or self-soothing	People with higher anxiety and depression were more likely to engage in sextech. However, those who were lonelier were less likely to engage with sextech, suggesting the aforementioned patterns were not due to lack of social connection
McArthur and Twist [47]	Review	Review article of issues associated with emerging sexual technologies	A framework for understanding the nature of digisexuality and how to approach it is imperative for clinicians and researchers	Many practitioners are unfamiliar with new technologies like teledildonics, as well as the social, legal, and ethical implications of this technology
Milani et al. [24•]	Empirical quantitative	38 female subjects in a repeated measures design, recruited via university mailing list in Canada	VR can induce feelings of sexual presence and presence more generally	With medium to large effects, general presence, sexual presence, and sexual arousal were significantly higher for VR videos relative to 2D videos
Orel [44]	Review	Critical review and exploration of the potential of VR pornography	VR pornography has the potential to reshape sexual desire	The affordances of VR pornography allow creators to create a new reality, which will allow for new expressions of desire and sexual activity
Rubin [27]	Review	Review of VR as a technological medium	VR pornography may increase empathy with performers and transform viewer-performer relationship	Capacity of VR for immersion and presence will transform the relationship between the VR consumer and performer into an empathetic, intimate one
Simon and Greitemeyer [22•]	Empirical quantitative	60 male participants in a repeated measures design in Austria, recruited via university mailing list	VR technology was found as consistently more arousing when displaying pornography than 2D displays	Results showed that viewing pornographic video material via VR technology had a stronger effect on psychophysiological reactions as well as subjective experience than using the conventional desktop display
Sparrow and Karas [43]	Non-empirical	Examination of the legal ramifications of teledildonic technologies	There are risks with using Internet-enabled prosthetics around consent and the identity of one’s partner	If one is unsure about who one is having virtual sex with then it is possible that the user would become the victim of rape by deception. This raises difficult questions about the definition and significance of sexual intercourse and virtual sex
Wood et al. [30]	Empirical qualitative	24 male, 18 female, and 3 other gendered participants recruited via fan fiction forums, Reddit forums, and on social media	Participants produced stories of the ‘perfect’ pornographic experience after using VR porn and reproduced heteronormative and hegemonic masculine tropes	The common cultural ideal non-experts constructed of a ‘new’ pornographic experience through use of the ‘Story Completion Method’. The stories reproduced ideals around heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity