Researchers and industry types in the emerging self-pollution field of teledildonics are pushing their vision of a future where people hook all manner of sex toys up to their computers.

A recent meeting heard that Sinulate Entertainment, which markets such devices for the romantically challenged, has already sold thousands of online mutual onanism kits, Reuters reports. President Steve Rhodes said: “The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company,” presumably in the form of lonely squaddies.

Gina Lynn, Wired's sex columnist, has apparently "used and enjoyed" the system in the name of journalism, according to Reuters. She said: “people are still really afraid of any sort of combination of sex and technology and the internet. What people are missing here is the point, which is the human connection that we are facilitating through the technology.”

Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex said that the prospect is of being able to create an ideal partner. She opined: “What is very likely to be present before 2016 would be a multi-sensual experience of virtual sex. There is a possibility of developing erotic materials that would allow you to create a partner of certain dimensions and qualities.”

Teledildonics skeptics abound too though. San Francisco sexologist Carol Queen said: “I do find that a world full of people getting it on with you know, perfect gizmos instead of each other has some sort of a post-Orwellian kind of sense to it. I don't really think most people are going to want this.”

Quite.®