How to Watch VR Porn: Everything You Need to Know

The promise of virtual reality (VR) pornography to transform users from passive observers of sexual fantasies on screens into active participants in immersive erotic experiences appeals to anyone with even a passing interest in adult content.

Over the past year in particular, as the pandemic has kept most of us at home, the prospect of putting on a helmet and sliding into an orgiastic escape from our isolation and frustration has

attracted even more potential users

towards technology. Yet many are hesitant to get into the world of virtual reality porn simply because it is new technology, dominated by new players, using new terminology. It may seem like a lot to learn .

And when VR porn first

started to deploy

in the mid-2010s, it absolutely was. For many

years

, equipment was extremely expensive, content was scarce, and experiences were hit or miss. But VR technology

evolved rapidly

and the world of porn pumped a

tonne

time and money to make its content more reliable and accessible. “Exploring VR porn is much easier today than it was a year or two ago,” the sex tech blogger points out.

King Tatyannah

.

So how exactly do you watch VR porn? Mashable recently spoke to King and other VR porn experts for this guide to entering the exciting, albeit still developing, world of smut. immersive.

The right equipment for VR porn

In theory, you don't need to buy heavy new equipment to watch VR content. All you need is a smartphone suspended in a headset that you can attach to your own to create an immersive 3D illusion. is not difficult to

make a cardboard helmet

.Same

more sophisticated configurations

, with comfortable padding and shoulder straps, usually cost between $10 and $50.These helmets

helped to democratize and popularize

VR.

But Alex Novak of VR porn platform SexLikeReal warns that "no smartphone experience is good." "will really only give you 20% of the potential of VR porn".

Most phones just don't have the power or battery life to run the longest or most inventive VR content. It's also hard to control anything while playing on it; to highlight pause, fast forward, or do whatever else you typically need to pull off the whole platform, grab your phone, and play with the screen. You also need to install special apps to view VR content and

Mainly apple

is notoriously hostile to porn-specific apps, which means phone users sometimes have to go through a few steps to access the content they're looking for. These and other limitations have led most major companies, like Google, Oculus, and Samsung, to stop production and support of their virtual reality equipment and services for phones in the past two years, and

outlets like

PC Magazine

declare phone-based virtual reality by and large 'effectively dead'.

You need a dedicated VR device. High-end devices, with lots of bells and whistles, can cost well over $1,000 and often need to be hooked up to even more powerful PCs to reach their full potential. But you don't need to have either of these setups to get the most out of VR porn. In fact, everyone Mashable spoke to for this article immediately and exclusively recommended the new

Oculus Quest 2

, a standalone wireless device that costs $299. It's a simple, plug-and-play system - just turn it on, open its web browser using its included hand controllers, navigate to a porn site and start viewing the content. Peasy easy. "It can play the highest resolution videos out there," says Dan Holmes of virtual reality platform POVR.

The Oculus Quest 2 VR headset.

Credit: oculus

The only problem is that Oculus is a Facebook brand, so a Quest 2 requires a Facebook account to log in and get started.

Facebook is a controversial company

these days, with a spotty record on data management, you might want to create a burner account before going down. But if Oculus isn't your brand, Zieliński notes that there are plenty of other platforms autonomous wireless to explore.

Dropping a few hundred dollars might seem like an excessive investment to get into VR porn, but Novak insists it's worth it, because you want your first VR porn experience to be good, and cheaper setups don't simply can't run the highest resolution videos that now define the market, and can struggle with lag and issues even with older content. It's also a versatile device that can be used to view video. SFW content, games and many other entertainment. Zieliński simply recommends using a demo to determine if you are

subject to motion sickness in virtual reality

, and if your nausea can be alleviated, before making a purchase.

Streaming versus downloading VR porn

Once you've set up your device, all you have to do is decide if you want to stream or download your smut. Files for VR porn are

massive

, often saving well over 10GB, and so downloads require patience and a ton of storage space. You might want to invest in an external storage drive if you go this route. But unless you don't have an excellent internet connection, which

most Americans

, streaming can lead to a more difficult viewing experience, with skips and lags. Many experts argue that the VR porn experience with downloaded files is much smoother and therefore more immersive. But this choice boils down ultimately to an assessment of your desires, problem tolerance, and Internet resources.

Before you start exploring VR porn content, VR arcade owner and porn lover Kevin Campbell recommends making sure you have a good space for the experience. moment in VR porn, especially if you've gone for a popular POV experience, you may need to

move

follow the action of a scene. Since you'll be locked out of the real world in most cases, you'll need a space where you won't bump into anything dangerous or fragile. You'll also want to make sure you have a door that you can lock, if privacy is a concern.

If you feel like it, you can also explore the world of

Sex toys integrated into the VR experience

.But that's hardly essential to experience, and the domain would need its own guide to navigating it. you'll be watching. The obvious choice would be to look to Pornhub, which offers over 3,000 free VR clips to explore. But thanks to the size and bandwidth intensity of VR files, free clips on sites General porn tends to be shorter (around 100 of Pornhub's VR porn videos are over 15 minutes long; the vast majority are around 5 minutes long) and heavily compressed, limiting their quality. As such, most porn experts VR Mashable recommended turning to a premium studio that specializes in VR porn.

Related video: The best sex toys to buy during quarantine

Finding the Right VR Porn Site

There are dozens of studios to choose from, most of which sell subscriptions for $10 to $50 a month. So figuring out where to start can be difficult, and making a decision can seem like a big step. But that decision also comes down to personal preference: do you want a site that specializes only in the highest quality content? Do you want to choose from a particularly deep and wide, but perhaps uneven library of content? Are you looking for a studio that specializes in a particular fetish that you've been dreaming of seeing in virtual reality? Other outlets

have created

in-depth, step-by-step guides outlining the pros and cons of the best and most established sites on the market today. Between these guides and a bit of time spent looking at their preview content, you can find what best suits your wants and needs.

"Once you have the right setup," Novak says, "you're on top." your video settings. (Most sites automatically adjust their content to work best with a viewer's equipment these days, notes Campbell. But when that's not the case, he suggests starting with the settings "VR 180 / 3D Side-to-Side.")

"It may take some patience to learn how to view and navigate videos properly," warns Campbell. As with any new device, there's a learning curve. And in the end, it's quite possible that VR porn as it stands today might not be for you. But that is no reason to despair of the time and energy you have put into VR porn.

As Campbell points out, the world of VR porn is changing rapidly, so as long as you have the equipment, you can check in from time to time to see if future innovations work better for your wants and needs. VR porn will only get better."