Part of the allure of dating sites is the possibility that you will meet someone you can connect with. You can find people seeking all types of relationships. If you’re looking for something short term or long term, casual or intimate, a pen pal or platonic, you can find it online. Then along comes a site like HighJoy.com (our High Joy Review). The premise is simple. It’s mutual masturbation for the masses but packaged in the form of a dating site.

“No longer do distance constraints prevent people from being intimate,” said Amir Vatan, 31, President of HighJoy.com. “What we have given our members is a way to be physical with their partner no matter where they are in the world.”

HighJoy is an online community for adults that has been developed for people who can’t or don’t want to meet in person. Users would normally have a webcam set up and would connect through the HighJoy.com site using a special chat program. Once online with someone else, you can then see and hear what the other person is doing and, ideally, use products specially designed for use on HighJoy.com to engage in sexual encounters.

“Since the Internet was born, people have wanted higher levels of interaction, which is evident from the progression of online communications such as emails, instant messaging, chat rooms, web cams (and) the online dating boom,” said Vatan. “This isn’t intended to replace people being physically intimate, only to supplement it. What could be safer sex than this while keeping some level of interaction?”

In order to get up and running on the site as Vatan has intended, you need to purchase at least one of two Doc Johnson HighJoy enabled sex toys – either online at the site or through a distributor. It requires at least Windows98 SE or a later OS, an Internet connection, serial port (COM port) or USB Port (serial to USB adapter sold separately) and, of course, a HighJoy.com membership. Vatan says upgrades for Mac users are scheduled for mid 2006. You’ll also need to download the HighJoy chat console and Microsoft .NET framework, if you don’t already have it installed. Women can purchase the iVibe Rabbit, a vibrating dildoe, while men can purchase the iVibe controller with egg and sleeve. It should be noted that technology has come a long way in recent years. The vibrating, rotating and wiggling shaft certainly packs more moves for women than any man could master while the latex UR3 sleeve for men is easy to use and feels very much like the real thing.

“We’ve created a concept of virtual sex that is both convenient and affordable.”

After you’ve set up your system, you open your HighJoy chat console. From there you can choose to either control the toy for yourself using your computer, connect to another user directly or enter the community forum where you can meet and chat with others. The rest of the site works like other adult networking sites, with typical features and benefits such as profile creation and picture posting. Vatan says the hardest part about launching the site was the technology. But having been put through a product demo, you can clearly see that the bugs and kinks have been worked out.

Since pleasure is the most personal of pastimes, you really need to bring your A-game when it comes to pleasing others. If you’ve been intimate with your partner before and have used toys in the past, you stand a better chance of knowing what feels good to them and what doesn’t. These toys, especially the Rabbit for women, can really pack a lot of power so you wouldn’t want to be flipping switches without an educated idea of what they do. But like anything else, skill comes with practice. During Vatan’s demo, I watched as he guided the Rabbit (which was on my desk in front of me) through a series of impressive and controlled movements. When I tried to control a Rabbit in his office (which was again on his desk) I could see and hear that it was responding with surprising quickness. Still, when it comes to online electronic stimulation, it would be better to run into Vatan in a HighJoy chat room then to fall prey to my rather inexperienced hands.

There are clearly dual benefits for a site such as HighJoy.com. For singles, it opens the floor to new relationships with people all over the globe. You don’t have to be a hedonist to understand and experience what HighJoy.com has to offer but there is certainly a lot of room to play if you enjoy a certain kind of lifestyle. For those in committed relationships, it allows for a way to connect with a loved one over a long distance and share and interact during one of the most intimate of moments.

“I think it adds another dimension to phone/internet sex,” says Dr. Joan, a Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy and sex therapist. “The exploration of sex in relationships has not changed in centuries – thankfully! It is important in relationships to learn what pleasures yourself and your partner. Sex is supposed to be fun and it is a way that people can connect without words, although words and sounds can enhance the experience for some people.”

As a dating site, HighJoy is just beginning the long struggle to find its feet. There aren’t many members when compared to other more established sites and there are even fewer members who have connected using the products. However, the site only opened its doors in April of 2005 and selling a dating site based around intimate sexual encounters may be an uphill battle – at least for the time being. However, as time goes on, more people will eventually find their way to the site and new products are bound to find their way to the market, driven by consumer demand for a more connected online experience. Vatan says that HighJoy will work to stay ahead of the market no matter what the future holds.

“I think if you asked people on the street about their concept of virtual sex (in the future) they would probably describe a vision of 3D goggles, a virtual sex suit and a computer image of their dream girl or guy,” he said. “That concept may be way off and pretty cost prohibitive. We’ve created a concept of virtual sex that is both convenient and affordable. However, we also have some really cool things in the works and when they become available, we will be offering them to our members first and then to the rest of the world.”