It’s 2016 and VR porn (virtual reality porn) is unfortunately on the rise. A groundbreaking virtual reality company is speaking out against pornography and publicly declaring their stance as an organization that will never facilitate any sort of adult/pornographic content in their work.
THE VOID is a virtual reality group that is leading the world in a new form of immersive entertainment. By putting together a combination of physical environments with real-time interactive effects and virtual reality headsets, the company is on the forefront of combining digital and physical worlds. This allows participants to not only watch movies or play games, but to live in them.
It’s kind of hard to explain, so we’ll just show you. Watch the video below to get the full effect:
In 2014, Ken Bretschneider, Curtis Hickman, and James Jensen founded THE VOID, with the vision to one day open VOID Experience Centers (VEC) across the globe. The company is committed to creating immersive Hyper-Reality experiences that take people to new worlds, and just opened with its first public experience in New York City at Madame Tussauds, where it partnered with Sony to create “Ghostbusters: Dimension”, an interactive Hyper-Reality experience that allows players to become actual Ghostbusters and capture ghosts.
However, not only is THE VOID intent on creating the world’s greatest virtual reality experience, they are committed to taking a stand against something that has been pushing its way into the virtual reality world from the beginning: pornography.
When virtual reality (VR) headsets started hitting the market within the last couple years, the porn industry began releasing VR porn that allowed viewers to feel like they were having a real sexual experience with a porn star. Soon after, the world’s largest porn site launched its VR porn section, and gave away 10,000 headsets as a way to get new viewers to its 360 degree X- rated content.
With THE VOID quickly becoming one of the world’s leaders in virtual reality entertainment, they reached out to Fight the New Drug to declare their stance against porn (including VR porn) and go public with the announcement that they will never support the fast-growing trend of virtual reality pornography.
“Porn is going to happen with at-home VR but not at our place,” Ken Bretschneider told Fight the New Drug. Ken is the CEO of THE VOID, and is committed to keeping his company porn-free. “We’ve got more than enough worlds to create that are based off telling stories and we think that’s what’s going to be engaging for people. Our audience is looking for immersive experiences that include action, adventure, fantasy, horror, science-
While the unbelievable amount of money to be made in pornography tempts most organizations in this day and age, Bretschneider isn’t taking the bait.
“Many from our industry have suggested that THE VOID would do well by including porn as part of our content, and some even say we won’t survive unless we do,” he says. “Everybody asks us if we’re going to create porn because they think there is so much money to be made, and I’m just here to say that there is so much money to be made without doing porn too.”
THE VOID’s Chief Visionary Officer, James Jensen, offers another perspective on the money to be made in porn.
“I’ve developed a lot of tech companies and most of them are companies that stream videos online,” Jensen told us. “I always say that I could have already been a billionaire if I wanted to because I’ve been approached about streaming porn a lot. If it was about money and not about family or considering lives it would destroy, I could be a billionaire. For me it’s a solid no every time.”
THE VOID is currently developing new experiences at their headquarters and are working hard to further innovate the next generation of technology and applications for virtual reality. Although many porn companies have begun making money off their virtual reality (VR porn) categories, THE VOID believes that their mission is much greater than just money, or even entertainment.
“I believe that those who create content have a responsibility to provide what society is looking for that isn’t detrimental to it and that’s what the challenge of being an artist is,” said Curtis Hickman, the company’s Chief Creative Officer. “It’s the mission of THE VOID to create content that is in the promotion of good things. It’s about creating work that will benefit society. Pornography does a lot of damage to society as a whole and I don’t want to be the author of something like that.”
Hickman finished by making a call to action to other VR companies to forget about the easy cash and strive to change the world through innovation and positivity.
“I challenge other VR groups to do the same thing. Just be very clear on where you stand and let the world know we’re going to do a lot of good with VR.”
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
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