| Summary: | In this article, we present TouchYou, a pair of wearable interfaces that enable
affective touch interactions with people at long-distance. Through a touch-sensitive
interface, which works by touch, pressure and capacitance, the body becomes the own
input for stimulating the other body, which has a stimulation interface that enables
the feeling of being touched. The person receives an electrical muscle stimulation,
thermal and mechanical stimulation that react depending on the touch sensed by the
first interface. By using the TouchYou, people can stimulate each other, using their
own body, not only for sexual relations at a distance but for the production of
affection and another way of feeling. We discuss the importance of the touch for
human relationships, the current state of the art in haptic interfaces and how the
technology can be used for the affection remote transmission. We present the design
process of the TouchYou sensitive and stimulation interfaces, with a contribution of
a method for developing custom touch sensors, we explore usage scenarios for the
technology, including sex toys and sex robots and we present the concept of using the
body as a remote sex interface.
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