March of the sexbots: how technology is transforming our love lives

Technology is transforming every step of our love lives. What started as meeting and flirting through screens and progressed to sexy time over Skype is now leading to products that promise happier relationships and more meaningful connections – human intimacy through a digital interface.

From here, it only gets sexier or scarier, depending on your perspective. Experts predict that future generations will get frisky with the help of virtual reality goggles, holograms, stimulating bodysuits and, yes, erotic robots. (Think of those “basic pleasure model” replicants from Blade Runner, only less menacing.)

What is the line between augmenting human connection with technology, and replacing it altogether? What does it mean for sex as we’ve always known it – eye contact, skin, sweat – if there’s a digital third wheel in the mix?

If you ask Suki and Brian Dunham, the married founders of the sex toy company OhMiBod, involving technology in our sex lives can be a glorious game-changer for anyone – the single, the newly smitten, the monogamous, the polyamorous, the long-distance lovebirds. Which is why these sorts of apps and gadgets are increasingly mainstream, Suki Dunham says, and no longer just for experimental adventurers.

So OhMiBod's sex toys aren't just sex toys, she says, but another part of a healthy lifestyle: “Just like eating well and exercising, a healthy sex life and having orgasms should be part of that overall picture.”

After all, our devices follow us into our private moments anyway – how many couples have lain beside each other in bed with their eyes glued to their Instagram and Twitter feeds? (We’ll pause, so you can raise your hands.)