The virtual reality porn platform VR Bangers has just taken immersive porn one step further. With Smell VR, a scent generator designed to be paired with a VR headset, it now lets users experience porn in Odorama. Porn that smells of sex, in other words – literally.
Smell VR: what is the point of porn in Odorama?
Body odours play an important role in sexual arousal.
Burusera, a Japanese term for the fetish for worn knickers, is a fairly common fantasy. The success of websites such as Vends Ta Culotte, where you can buy and sell worn, smelly knickers, socks and other underwear, is proof of that. Some fans of intimate scents even go so far as to buy a knicker-scented face mask to cheer themselves up while protecting themselves from Covid-19.
And on Pornhub, gay men are keen on porn where peoplesniff trainers.
Pheromones come into play, but that’s not all. A true Proustian madeleine, smells often bring back a host of memories, associated more or less consciously. Depending on our noses and our memories, a scent, a shampoo, or sometimes the smell of sweat or arse can trigger pleasant associations.
A 2012 study showed that sexual arousal tends to override disgust. So during sex, or here while watching porn, a smell of sex, which might otherwise be off-putting in a different context, is more likely to heighten arousal than provoke revulsion.
Smell VR: how does porn in Odorama work?
Smell VR still seems to be at the prototype stage. Its announced price is $299, but the first 500 units are said to have already sold out, and the product is currently out of stock.
On its official website, VRBangers promises hundreds of different smells. However, only four scents are shown: “Teenage Dream”, “Squirt Delight”, “Milf Sensations” and “Happy Ending”.
According to Daniel Abramovich, co-founder of VR Bangers, interviewed by Vice magazine:
- “Teenage Dream” is said to smell of hair, with a slight note of sweet perfume.
- “Squirt Delight” is said to evoke the smell of female ejaculation.
- “Milf Sensations” is said to have a more heady fragrance.
- and finally, “Happy Ending” is said to smell of a vagina (but probably not Gwyneth Paltrow’s).
The website remains rather vague about how Smell VR is used. There are only two photos: unlabelled vials, and a hand dropping a few drops of perfume onto a device that seems designed to be worn on the nose. And so far, no journalist seems to have had a chance to try it.
Virtual reality and Odorama: a promising concept?
In 2017, CamSoda launched a similar device, called OhRoma.
This curious contraption, resembling a gas mask, lets you combine up to three smells at once with VR porn, chosen from the thirty available scents. Its range includes intimate parts, worn underwear and various body odours, as well as more conventional fragrances and room scents.
OhRoma is currently available to pre-order.
But the desire to combine smells and virtual reality in order to enhance immersion is not exclusive to porn.
In 2016, the Nosulus Rift was released, a parody of a virtual reality headset worn over the nose. Created to promote the game “South Park: The Fractured But Whole” and true to the series’ spirit, this prototype was put into the hands of just a few lucky people, all journalists or YouTubers, who found that it smelled mainly of farts.
The Vaqso VR, released as a prototype in 2017, was a device that attached beneath a VR headset to add a scent to a video game that matched the scene in progress. The options included, among other things, fresh grass, ramen, women’s perfume, as well as gunpowder and zombie for fighting games.
The FeelReal VR, a kind of mask that clips onto a virtual reality headset, was announced in 2019, after an earlier crowdfunding campaign failed in 2015. The device produces scents that match what you see in your VR headset using interchangeable scent capsules. Capsule kits recreating the atmosphere of a specific game will also be available, notably for Beat Saber and Skyrim. This time, its crowdfunding campaign was a resounding success, but production of the FeelReal VR has been on hold for several months because of the pandemic.
More recently, the Cilia by Haptic Solutions, whose Developer Kit is already available to buy, lets users use their own scented oils alongside the many fragrances on offer. The device is compatible, among other things, with Minecraft and Adventure Climb VR.
What about you: does porn in Odorama, or virtual reality in Odorama more generally, appeal to you? Let us know in the comments.
