حضور جنسی: به سوی یک مدل با الهام از روانشناسی تکاملی

Presence is a phenomenon widely studied by different scientific disciplines. It can be defined as the feeling of being immersed in a reality generated by a range of simulation and immersive technologies, like virtual reality (VR) and related technologies. In this paper we explore a particular variety of this feeling, namely sexual presence, using evolutionary psychology as a theoretical framework. We translate differences between women and men in sexual imagery and in sexual behaviour into a sexual presence model, introducing proto, core and extended sexual presence as conceptual layers explaining presence. Our aim is to give an evolutionary interpretation of sexual presence, in light of recent findings, and to provide some new ideas for future studies.

.1. The concept of presence In the last twenty years, authors from different scientific backgrounds have contributed to the definition of presence (Heeter, 1992, Lee, 2004a, Loomis, 1992, Marsh et al., 2001, Riva et al., 2011, Sheridan, 1992, Slater et al., 1994, Steuer, 1992 and Zahorik and Jenison, 1998). Presence as a psychological state akin to perceptual illusion is to be understood as the interplay between an observer and a technological medium channelling the observer's senses in an immersive fashion. The immersive effect of a given immersive experience is measured by the feeling of presence, which is defined as a psychological state or subjective perception causing an individual to give in to the illusion created by a computerized system (Sanchez-Vives & Slater, 2005). This illusion consists of forgetting both the external environment and the immersive technology hardware in favour of the simulated virtual content (Sadowski & Stanney, 2002). Presence is therefore derived from perceptions that result from perceptual-motor determinants, which tie the subjective perspective to a limited set of possible viewpoints (Renaud et al., 2007, Renaud et al., 2010 and Renaud et al., 2011). These determinants are most likely mediated by emotional states and biological predispositions (Bouchard, St-Jacques, Robillard, & Renaud, 2008; Renaud, Bouchard, & Proulx, 2002; Renaud et al., 2011, Renaud, Rouleau et al., 2002 and Schubert et al., 1999). Presence as a psychological phenomenon shares commonalities with other cognitive processes that control the individual's actions in different contexts (Lee, 2004b, Riva et al., 2003 and Riva et al., 2011). Despite the fact that presence appears to be a rather modern phenomenon involving complex new media, by 15,000 B.C.E. the Cro-Magnon man had already evolved a brain capable of creating and experiencing complex visual representations, especially with cave paintings. The caves of Lascaux, in France, for example, demonstrate that our ancestors were creating representations of reality in which they recombined components of the actual world in an interactive, multisensory experience. These paintings (mostly representing animal hunts, shamans or magical figures, and sexual scenes), which were experienced as reality itself by spectators, were lit up by flickering oil lamps that brought vivid illusory percepts to the foreground. This must have added to the sense that painters and spectators were immersed in a world apart, a sort of multisensory, all-consuming experience that engaged sight, sound, smell, and touch in one of the first conscious virtualizations of the physical world (Heim, 1995 and Mioduser, 2005). The same level of identification happened with sexual and religious rituals, from hunting and fighting scenes in paintings and other representations to the catharsis in Greek tragedies: by being a part of the scene, sharing feelings and emotions, individuals could learn from the situation and replicate it in real life (Bennett & Feldman, 1981, p. 171; Groenen, 2000, Malinowski, 1929 and Stone, 1995, 304 pp.). All these events were designed to stimulate participation and emulation: an increased feeling of presence could help maintain attentional engagement in the illusion-inducing display, therefore favouring the development of cognitive states to be translated into real actions ( Bell, 2009, 368 pp.; Pagel, 2012). As a general human experience, the feeling of presence has been studied from two different but complimentary perspectives, the volitional and the cognitive (Leontjev, 1978, Leontjev, 1981, Pacherie, 2006 and Pacherie, 2008). In this sense, Riva et al. (2011) consider presence to be a neuropsychological construction that is the product of both volitive and cognitive processes; they say that presence is “the intuitive perception of successfully transforming intentions into action (enaction)” (Riva et al., 2011). Presence is closely related to our goals and to all the actions and operations we make to achieve them. For Riva and colleagues, presence is a single feeling that can be divided into three different sub-processes, which are defined as steps of a complex and mostly unconscious form of supervision of actions and experience. Proto presence is an unconscious process involving body movements and motor intentions of which we are not aware ( Riva, 2009 and Riva et al., 2011). Core presence is a conscious process that first primes the intended action, then sustains and guides it, and finally monitors its effects in the present. Extended presence is related to the consciousness of future intentions; it involves emotional and cognitive aspects and feelings about the self's future expectations ( Riva et al., 2011). These three levels of presence are deeply connected to the evolution of the self ( Damasio, 1999), that is to the consciousness of the continuity of the self in different contexts. In this paper we will provide a tentative new point of view about a special kind of presence, sexual presence. The concept of sexual presence was first introduced by Lombard and Jones (2004) to describe the particular psychological, cognitive and physical feelings generated by pornography, i.e. by watching others having sex through special media. This narrow view of sexual presence can be extended to the experience of sexuality through immersive means, either as spectator or actor (Lombard and Jones, 2013, Renaud et al., 2012, Renaud, Trottier, Nolet et al., 2013 and Trottier et al., 2012). It is worth noting that observing others having sex must have been a very common activity in our plio-pleistocenic environment. Nowadays sexual media content is consumed by millions of people every day around the world, and the main purpose of the “adult entertainment industry” (papers, internet, pictures etc.) is to make the individual feel psychologically and physically involved in the content. This becomes more evident if we think about current cyber-sex, erotic chat-lines, or erotic telephone-lines (Lombard & Jones, 2004).

In this paper, we presented the feeling of sexual presence, which evolved from the larger concept of presence, under the lens of evolutionary psychology. Sexual presence is most likely an evolutionary phenomenon, characterized by motivational, emotional and physical feelings, that an individual experiences when exposed to internal or external stimuli (e.g. sexual fantasies, erotic movies, VR, on-line erotic chat). The model proposed in this paper provides an overview of the concept of sexual presence, highlighting its adaptive features and suggesting that presence is a neurobiological phenomenon developed to meet the evolutionary challenges that men and women have faced throughout the ages. In order to generate maximal sexual presence, which arises from an adequate combination of form and content, we have identified the differences between men and women's sexual behaviour and sexual arousal. While it appears easier to induce sexual presence in men, especially because of a more straightforward, less complex link between genital response and visual stimuli (which usually lead to sexual arousal), things are more difficult with women, for whom sexual presence seems to be more related to a deeper psychological and emotional involvement in the situation. The sexual presence model presented here has two purposes: on the one hand, we propose a rather new model of presence, explaining how it developed and what its characteristics might be; on the other hand, we point toward factors that could help induce this peculiar feeling in a controlled, VR-based experimental situation. However, as suggested by Lombard and Jones (2013), sexual presence is a multifaceted phenomenon that needs to be studied from very different points of view. Sexual presence theory needs further analysis, not only to understand the nature of automatic responses to a class of biologically relevant proximal stimuli, but also to comprehend how controlled and conscious expectations relate to their extended social values (Nunez, 2007). Furthermore, the model put forward is more likely to lead to a sexual presence theory based on a larger evolutionary and social perspective if it takes into account gender differences in innate sexual fantasies and desire between males and females as it is experienced in real and virtual social contexts. Further review of inter-sexual differences in sexual and romantic relationships, interpersonal communication and ethical issues is needed, including different perspectives, such as social and cognitive points of view. Finally, at this stage, our model is quite heuristic but still requires further theoretical advancement and should be put to test in laboratory and field experiments. We hope that our ideas will fuel new debate on the phenomenon of sexual presence, which needs exhaustive study from different complimentary disciplines.