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This Horrific Mannequin Head Camera Wants to Make VR Porn More Intimate

This just screams 'intimacy.'
Image: VR Bangers

Virtual reality porn production company VR Bangers on Monday unveiled its "POV Head Rig," a disembodied mannequin head with cameras for eyes that the company says will help make VR porn "more intimate and emotional."

Abject horror, not intimacy, is the first thing that comes to mind when I look into its hollow eyes, but it's an interesting concept. Cameras on the front, back, and top of the head record everything the actor does to its eager noggin. The porn star cradles the androgynous head while they do their thing, whispering sweet words into the binaural microphones in its ears. The result, VR Bangers said, is a more immersive experience.

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There are a lot of jokes to be made here about head, but this is a family blog.

This thing was deemed too weird for the prudes at CES 2017, CTO Boris Smirnoff claims in a press release. They took it to the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo instead. He writes in the release, sans irony:

"It's easy to think that performers will be able to overcome all the odd positions and constraints of filming content so it looks pristine on a virtual screen, but the fact is, the more we can help our models get the most out of their play space, the better our content will continue to be and the real winner in this line of advancements is always our fans," Smirnoff said. He adds that there's a "much warmer and more intimate emotional attachment between the performer and the recording device" if you can stroke and whisper to the camera as if it were your audience.

Image: VR Bangers

Virtual reality porn actors do have to overcome a lot more awkwardness than the good ol' fashioned 2D porn actors. 360 degree rigs, like the one Motherboard visited behind-the-scenes of a shoot, can be heavy and hard to work around. Holding a head sounds a lot easier on the artist.

Whether it rows your boat or not, virtual reality porn is inspiring. The industry is its own microcosm of innovation and the growing pains. It's carving out new territory for virtual technology, with potential for sex education, advances in automation, and has its own special kinds of legal battles. The adventurous soul can even get a big whiff of someone's junk through the magic of VR.

It's beautiful and we're all going to hell for it, but why not breathe deep and hold our disembodied heads close on the way down.