Intelligent Sex Toys
We have smart phones, smart watches, smart thermostats ... even smart clothing. But until quite recently, sex toys were little more (technologically speaking) than a motor and an on/off switch. That's all been changing over the past few years, but 2016 may be the first year that we really see a lot of these smart sex toys on the market. This includes Bluetooth-enabled remote control vibrators, smartphone controlled vibrators, bionic feedback toys that respond based on how they're touched and even vibrators you can program yourself. And while virtual sex via virtual reality headset may not quite make it into 2016, that sort of futuristic fuck isn't far off either.
Consent
Consent shouldn't be a trendy thing. Actually, it's infuriating to think it's even a thing at all. Don't try to have sex with people who don't want to have sex with you, mmmkay? It seems like common sense, but apparently it's something we need to talk about a whole lot more. In 2105, we saw great discussion about teaching about consent as part of sex ed, a move toward affirmative consent rules on college campuses and an (imperfect) analogy about consent that went totally, batshit viral. Now that the doors of this important issue have been thrown open, we expect 2016 to be the year when consent - understanding it, asking for it, giving it and really fucking thinking about what it means in all contexts - becomes a lot more commonplace.
More Open Dialog
As a website that aims to talk openly about sex, we like to think everyone else does too. Not so. But it's getting better, and we've seen things shifting here as well. Now, this one's purely anecdotal, but on the Web, we've seen a lot more content - and by that we mean good content - about sex. Yeah, there are still plenty of stupid (and mostly useless) tricks for looking sexier or "pleasing your man," but there are also a lot more articles - even on pretty straight-laced, mainstream publications - about body image and pleasure and even kink. We also know for a fact that the number and breadth of the sex blogs out there has grown like crazy over the past year. We've seen this happening for a few years now, so we'd be shocked if the conversation about sex online didn't get bigger and better and more beautiful again this year. Watch for it.
