The fetishes of the future? Nurses and firemen will be replaced by realistic elves and aliens as more people embrace VR sex, futurologist predicts

They’re often regarded as a taboo subject.

But a new report is finally lifting the lid on sexual fetishes – and what they might look in the future.

Sexual wellness brand, LELO, has worked with futurologist, Tom Cheesewright, to predict the future of love, sex, and relationships.

As virtual reality becomes more widespread, Mr Cheesewright suggests that our fetishes will veer away from the more traditional options of nurses and firemen.

Instead, Britons will be fantasising about ‘realistic elves and aliens’, he claims.

For the report, LELO asked Mr Cheesewright how he thinks love, sex and relationships will evolve over the next 50 years.

Writing in the report, he explained: ‘I used a modified Scenario Planning process.

‘Starting with some of today’s prevailing trends I stretched them out to the fifty year horizon and imagined how the world might look at that point if those trends persist, in the uneven way that trends tend to do.’

One of the futurologist’s key predictions is that Britons will have more sex in a virtual environment.

‘The continuing integration of technology into our daily lives will see us spending the majority of our days in a semi-digital environment,’ he predicted.

VR will allow people to rewrite their surroundings for the ‘ultimate fantasy’ roleplay, the futurologist says, with ‘realistic elves and aliens’ (artist’s impression) just two of the possibilities

‘Likely a mixed reality, this will feature digital objects, avatars and artificial intelligences projected into our physical surroundings via smart glasses or lenses.

‘Inevitably, there will be a huge amount of sexual content.’

This proliferation of VR technology will create ‘interesting opportunities’, according to Mr Cheesewright.

‘To date, most of the exploration of virtual reality in a sexual context has been for immersive pornography,’ he added.

‘But the integration of physical and digital creates new possibilities.’

VR will allow people to rewrite their surroundings for the ‘ultimate fantasy’ roleplay, the futurologist says, with ‘realistic elves and aliens’ just two of the possibilities.

‘We can build characters around toys, robots and AIs. There will be a lot of temptation,’ he added.

The report comes shortly after a survey by LELO found that one in three Britons would like to have an intimate relationship with a robot. 

LELO surveyed 4,000 participants about their sexual experiences and desires in 2023.

While a third of Britons said they’d like to have sex with a robot, the results revealed a huge split among genders.

Almost half (43.9 per cent) of the men surveyed said they’d be up for a robot romp, while just 21 per cent of female respondents said the same thing.