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Lewis, Brooke --- "Virtual reality, haptics, and First Amendment protection for sexual sensation" [2018] ELECD 1381; in Barfield, Woodrow; Blitz, J. Marc (eds), "Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 275

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality

Editor(s): Barfield, Woodrow; Blitz, J. Marc

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781786438584

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Virtual reality, haptics, and First Amendment protection for sexual sensation

Author(s): Lewis, Brooke

Number of pages: 29

Abstract/Description:

This chapter explores whether the First Amendment not only protects the visual and auditory components of pornographic and other films, or more recently, VR and AR pornography, but also the use of haptic technology to generate sensations of touch. To do so, it begins with, and focuses on, a particular use of haptics—namely pornography’s use of haptic technology in teledildonics—and asks if it should receive protection as “expressive conduct” under the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects conduct as “speech” when conduct contains an expressive component. For example, the First Amendment protects pornographic films as “expressive conduct” because, while the performance of sexual acts is pure conduct, the production of film is presumed to be expressive. However, although the communicative qualities of film have been sufficient to protect the making of pornography, it is not clear that pornography’s “expressive conduct” classification will extend to its use of teledildonics in virtual and augmented reality, or in other technologies that use haptics to reproduce sexual sensations.