Just in the case that it hasn't been mentioned already, there will be a significant portion of the population that has experienced sex from the perspective of the other gender using pornographic sims. A lot of people in 2070 will have experienced the body of the other gender unless they go out of their way to avoid such things, which is quite an interesting thing about the setting.

Supposedly - I read that in some book, unsure which one - about a fourth of the population doesn't hnadle that input too well. And sex scenes aren't limited to porno Sims, those just have more of them (and, likely, more energetic / athletic ones).

But yeah. Curious thought really.

Even though i have mentioned it elsewhere, it is also noteworthy that there will be a significant portion of the population that has experienced their own body to be a deficient, ugly piece of crap compared to the biosculpted, excessively modded (and carefully post-production-edited) self of the average simstar.
Which is why personal augmentation is such a growth industry.

Well, that's not too different from today, isn't it? Though propably a bit more intense.

It's a matter of scale, indeed.
But the problem got upscaled a lot, i think.
Not only because the sense of inferiority becomes more palpable when the dissatisfied consumer cannot only watch, but actually experience how pathetic he or she is, or because cosmetic mods are easier available and achieve better results, but because actual performance has become a matter of how many bucks you can put on the counter, in all aspects of life.
Just take implants like the cerebral booster- for 30.000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , a complete moron can become a veritable smartass.
Same is possible for most mental or physical attributes and in some cases with even more extreme effects.

I know that may sound promising, it does hold some great potential for actually alleviating a lot of humanitie's problems, but in the end, it leads to poor equaling decrepit.

I could see wageslaves insisting that their children have the bodies of models and will be implanting all sorts of devices so that their children conform with society. Think of giving your daughter a porsche and the biosculpt she always wanted for her sweet sixteen.

With biosculpts being such a growth industry I could see it becoming an issue with vice the problem of identifying the underaged from the legal. You could "biosculpt" yourself into having the body of a 12 year old girl or a 300lbs shaved gorilla.

It is true now. Those with more money have more options in life and if that option was a mistake more money can be poured into it to rectify it.

There's always The Joy of Awakened Sex. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Sue me! I posted a link. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

Don't click it unless you want to read about ... duh ... awakened sex as it relates to Shadowrun.

There was this passage in ... I believe it was Biochips, the second Neuromancer sequel ... where one of the main characters, a simsense superstar, slotted a chip of her predecessor and wass all "damn, how could I ever replace you? Is that what I feel like for all the people out there?"

Simsense sensations are filtered, all the annoying stuff's out, little itches and pains filtered out, and everything feels just great. It's about as natural as a BMI 17 model's body. And propably has the same appeal. There're canon implants that go that way already - sensitive skin, silky skin, clean metabolism, pain editors and enhanced atriculation all could be used to come closer to the feel of such an ideal, unnatural body.


Well, seeing as how we're even in SR4 speaking about an investment of some 60.000 Nuyen, the average wage slave can't dream of affording this, any more than a Dynamit (granted, he can't have that anyway, because the devs deemed attack subs and segways more important than decent sports cars but meh ... I am digressing ...). But for upper class people, higher management, the upper 10%, that's a very believable assumption.


Yes, possibly. But changing your body that much requires severe issues with how it is - and neither 12 year olds nor shaved gorillas are SR's common beauty ideal (well, granted, shaved gorillas work for ork posers) - so these would be deviances and rather rare. But yeah, Vice in SR must be even less for the faint of heart than it's today.

Well, isn't that kind of the discussion of this thread, anyway? Though, that does raise a question: How does the bio-sculpting of a "Panner" work in SR? We know there chemical and such treatment in CP2020 that allowed it, but had to be done at a very early age(pretty much: you did not decide you were going to be a Panner, someone else did, was the impression I always got).

Admittedly, it WOULD seem easier to catch them at a young age, or use genetic tweaks to stop their physical aging and growth at 10, 11, 12, 13, whatever...if Genetech wasn't a new thing, that is.

It really makes you wonder, when you think about the closet lives of a lot of people in 2070. With SIMsense, they can experience almost any kink, tweak, or perversion in the privacy of their own heads, as often as they like. Slot a chip and take on any roll, any partner, any setting, completely guilt free (well, in many cases). With the open access to the Matrix, this sort of thing could be experimented from a much younger age, into a much older age than it would be to do physically. You don't need viagra when you're 85 because all you have to do is slot a chip. Parents don't have to worry about the "1 in 4 Teenages girls have an STD" that I read in the paper about the other day, because when theyir kids want to experiment and learn, they can DL something completely safe. Sex lives can become less about going to bars or clubs, and more of a hobby or passtime.

So how does that affect metahumanity? A lot of close couples find a sense of closeness from being intimate that could otherwise be lacking in a relationship. Would that feeling still be there if they'd been rasied on Sim-intimacy? Would the club culture we all take for granted, the proverbial meat market, even exist if all people needed was the next Plug-N-Play? Do you really need to go through all the trouble of the flesh doll and it's huge expense if you can get the download or a fraction of the cost?

Canon tells us that it's so, and certainly there's going to be people that prefer "the real thing". But as I watch my kids take more easily to video games can computers than I did, and recalling my parents watching as I did the same thing, as I watch my 6 year old boy doing things in video games that I never even thought of doing, can we really take it for granted that the youth of 2070, and those that grew up in the VR world of the 60's, will really care so much about "authentic" when sim technology and the matrix can offer them so much? Are otaku style kids really such an isolated incident?

How much different would a society be when that intimacy isn't so much needed, or the executive that sneers down his nose at his employees can go home and chip himself to become a submissive with a personafix, the bosses ork female secratary can be a troll male in the dominance roll, the janitor can use vanilla missionary style set in the old west, and they can all get together anonymously on a site and exchange downloads, all trying each other's flavors any time? How long before those closet lives and those realms of no ethical or moral limits spill over into their real lives? How many years of using a good-as-real sex slave or the catholic school girl fantasy will spill over into some middle managers real life and he tries it out for real? And would anyone really care, if they're all doing the same thing too?

Yeah, I think they would because it's one thing to be doing the nasty in VR... it's a whole different ballgame in the meat. The experiences would be "alien" because it's not the cleaned up Sim recording of "Catholic Schoolgirl Sex Slave 4".

There was a book written by Vonda McIntyre called "Starfarers." While I never completely read it, one of the characters in there inspired a character I played in a game. She was a Sense Recorder. She basicly had stuff so that she could experience something and record to sim-sense. One of the more interesting jobs I had with that character was a run for the sole purpose of recording skinny dipping in one of the lakes up in Salish territory, and I couldn't get official permission from the Salish government for it. One of my characters biggest sellers? Where I recorded a run on prototype Mitsuhama Zero Zone. Note: I did not make these BTL's with this character..they were just raw, uneditted(beyond the faces, names, etc of the rest of the team) Simsense experiences, that I would either be commissioned to make, or that I would record and sell..

Too bad you cannot do that in SR4(sim recording gear no longer exists)

There are simrigs to record simsense, cheaper even in SR4. My character in "Sink, Hollywood, Sink" has a simrig and is recording the run.

I thought Simrigs were just for playback, as there was no mention of recording in their game info?

Well, there has to still be some way to record, or no one would have anything to play back.

Simrigs record simsense (SR4, p. 46, p. 218 and p. 320). They can play back simsense recordings too, of course.

first thought, clockwork orange...

Biosculpting basically lobs together cosmetic surgery, cosmetic nanites, simple symbiotes (like that body odor modification stuff in 3rd, which essentially would be gene-modifies strands of skin bacteria producing different-smelling substances from sweat than natural skin bacteria) and simple cybernetics. The latter isn't consequetly applied, though, as breast implants apparently cost essence, whereas stuff like catgirl ears or fur in odd places, or removal of pubic hair save for certain patches, or biotattoos don't.

Lobbing all kinds of plastic and cosmetic surgery together is a good SR tradition, though, so le plus sa change, le plus c'est la meme chose (or something like that).


It isn't?


Odds are a child's body wouldn't be able to process the input from an orgasm, as the child's autonomic nervous system - where all these sensations come from, nd consequently, which has to be up to the task - just isn't. So all you'd get from that would be a severely confused child whith, possibly, some sort of nerve damage. Wouldn't stop them from trying, of course.

Besides, just because you can may not mean you want to. You can do a lot of things. You always take a ride and visit the nearest red lights district and buy yourself a transsexual whore there. Does that mean you want to?


Keep in mind that porn never strays beyond pure sex. There's no social component to porn. To sex, there is, though. Getting someone you want laid is a challenge many seek. Also, even with one-nighters, you have company even after the fuck for the most part, which is as important as the sex as such to most. Not everyone is cut out to be a loner nerd porn monger, though admittedly those are gonna love SR's insta-porn wireless matrix capabilities.

Now, there might also be Lenny Neroes, who relive their idealised past over and over again by simsnese recording, and the proverbial desperate housewife getting her quick sex fixes off simsense porn every once in a while when her husband is off to Dubai to oversee some project or another. Porn will porpably be much more mainstream than in today's culture. The difference between what's considered porn and what's considered normal entertainment will blur and society will become even more sexualised (canon says so too, just look at SotA '63 and '64's prime time shows listing and ask yoruself whether that would have any chance of being aired in that spot today).

One thing I find grossly underused in simsense is experiencing the good things in life in some sort of broadcast show - good things beyond sex, that is. Riches, fame, palaces and pristine holiday spots the ordinary wage slave cnan never dream to get into. Stuff like the "Upper 10.000" show from Neuromancer (or one of the sequel books). That'd be at least as addictive to some of the underclass as porn might be. Possibly even moreso, becuase I guess porn gets quite boring after a while.


Though there WILL definitly be an impact, I don't see Personafix beetles or BDSM practices becoming mainstream matters, simply because they're aqbout as much about hurting yourself as they are about pleasure. It takes a certain affinty to endorphine addiction to consider that fun, and that's an affinity not everyone has. It will be more common in SR's universe, but mainstream? Highly unlikely. Just as homosexuality will not stray vastly beyond 15% of the population.


No offense meant, but your character would be so dead if I was your GM. That's such an enormous offense to MCT that it will bring their whole apparatus, including their renowned combat mages, their buddies in the JIS, the Yaks and anyone they can hire down on that poor woman.


Yeap. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I think the cyberbreasts cost essence since they can change in size and shape upon command. Simple, "fixed" breast implants I fit under "cosmetic surgery", costing no essence.

Well, the character kind of DID get MCT after her...they ended up 'recruiting' her as a "Security Consultant"...if I recall, she died horribly on 3rd iteration Zero Zone testing...

I consider myself fairly Pink Mohawk , but recording the team is a sure fire way to ensure a bit of "friendly fire" in my campaigns, LA not withstanding... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

You know, after spending some time in the "underneath" of the internet I met a lot of people with fantasies of girls with....guy parts. In Shadowrun that's completely possible O.o I wonder if this hidden fetish would come to life, with cyber-netic woo haas and all. O.o heh.

That's the trans part of the transhuman league, I guess ...

I'm wondering whether there're sex doll droids like in GitS. Propably, right? Otomos with Pilot 4-something and a Kamasutra 4 autosoft, maybe also a (insert appealing character type) simulation soft on top of that, and the usual analyse running so that the sexbot doesn't start strangling it's user with their own guts.

I'd assume there are. Reading through the book it makes mention that sex practices are common, so things like sexbots I can imagine, especially in Japan where they already have a program/peice of hardware that pretty much lets somebody else masturbate you over the internet. (Seriously, i've seen it)

In what used to be America I could see it quite a bit too, but I think here we'd see more old school prostitution and weird fetishs. And with the ability to stunt growth and alter the body we'd definitely see things considered immoral now, such as people pretending to be little girls and stuff. We don't do much sexual stuff in our group (usually) but I try to keep in mind that Shadowrun is just as sexual as it is violent, and most GMs leave that out. I generally don't.

Uhm, maybe I am missing something, but you have to practice sex somehow, don't you? ... or does 'practices' in English generally refer to deviant stuff?


Tried it? Not to offend, but because I seriously cannot see how that could work for anyone. It doesn't smell human, doesn't feel human, doesn't look and sound human, doesn't act like a human ... porn images at least (usually) look human.

Masturbauting over porn, okay, but use a machine to wank? Hello? Well how nerdy CAN you be? Okay, I know that there're those odd people who seel sexually attracted to (and fall in love with) oddest stuff, like train engines, cars, and buildings, but ... I dunno. A wank machine. Sheesh. What IS this world coming to. Next, we'll see people intubating voluntarily to not have to breate themselves or something.