Abstract
We tend to sexualize everything around us, yet we find it hard to address sexuality in our research. At the same time, there is growing interest in considering the social, emotional, and bodily aspects of the human-computer experience. The subject of sex itself is an elephant in the room - present, but under-researched. In this pictorial, we present a project aimed at making sexual experience available for conversation in a design process. Our project explores how soma-aesthetics can con-tribute to designing objects that challenge standard heteronormative sex toys and attitudes towards pleasure. To do this, we combine a 1st person research approach with a 2nd perspective involving users in soma-design practices that encourage self-discovery towards non-genital sexual pleasure. We analyze the out-comes and argue for a broadening of HCI to include and encourage design for pleasure and pleasure activism.
Keywords
sexual wellness; body awareness; somaesthetics; user test methods
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1101
Citation
Teisanu, S., Tomico, O., and Andersen, K. (2024) Felt Experiences, exploring non-heteronormative pleasure, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1101
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Felt Experiences, exploring non-heteronormative pleasure
We tend to sexualize everything around us, yet we find it hard to address sexuality in our research. At the same time, there is growing interest in considering the social, emotional, and bodily aspects of the human-computer experience. The subject of sex itself is an elephant in the room - present, but under-researched. In this pictorial, we present a project aimed at making sexual experience available for conversation in a design process. Our project explores how soma-aesthetics can con-tribute to designing objects that challenge standard heteronormative sex toys and attitudes towards pleasure. To do this, we combine a 1st person research approach with a 2nd perspective involving users in soma-design practices that encourage self-discovery towards non-genital sexual pleasure. We analyze the out-comes and argue for a broadening of HCI to include and encourage design for pleasure and pleasure activism.