

I'd had a handful of clumsy threesomes in college, but nothing compared to the wall-to-wall sex fest I had in mind. My encounters with role-playing games were similarly limited. I'd been party to a couple of rounds of D&D in high school because the dungeon master smoked us out and bought us beer, but 15-plus years later I couldn't even begin to tell you what to do with a 12-sided die.

So when I heard about the Red Light Center, "the world's only FREE Massively Multiplayer, Adult Virtual World," I was cautiously optimistic.

I'd come across Red Light Center during my "first-hand quest for the future of sex." The adult massively multiple online role-playing game is an interactive world akin to the SIMs that allows players to interact with each other using teledildonics. It's been decades since I've played video games with any regularity, but a video game you can stick your dick in? I was sold.

Red Light Center boasts virtual worlds for furries, gays, public sex, BDSM, even high-class call girls. My imagination ran wild. I could and would have sex with all the people, maybe even that cat-woman hybrid thing I'd seen in the advertisement.

It may have been my first MMORPG orgy, but it wasn't my first rodeo.

The site encourages users to "live your fantasies," and that's exactly what I would do if the software allowed. In order to connect my teledildonic sex sleeve to the in-game experience, however, I'd have to use the new, limited RLC 2.0 beta. There would be no feline fuck-athon for me.

It may have been my first MMORPG orgy, but it wasn't my first rodeo. In my previous experiences with teledildonics and virtual sex, I'd learned a certain level of patience is required. I charged my Kiiroo Onyx masturbator, read up on the virtual world I was about to enter, signed up for a VIP account and watched a tutorial on how to sync my toy to the game. After about two hours of prep, I assumed I was ready for any and all of the digital dicks. As I would come to find out, though, getting laid, even in a virtual fantasyland, isn't as easy as just showing up.

After another couple hours of boner-killing login attempts and software crashes, I retired for the night. In the roughly four hours I wasted trying to get the game up and running, I could have signed on to Grindr, Tinder, Scruff or even walked 10 minutes to my local gay bar, picked up a flesh-and-blood human, done the deed, washed my ass and been in bed.

That night I fell asleep frustrated, but hopeful, chalking it up to human error. I'm not a gamer, much less an MMORPG player. Maybe there was a steeper learning curve than I'd expected. I spent much of the next day at work searching for hardware requirements, tutorials, FAQs -- anything that could explain my experience. And then I found it: the key to my orgy misfortune. I'd been trying to run the program over WiFi. DUH!

The following night I hardwired my laptop, stripped down, whipped out the lube and turned my sex sleeve on. In minutes I was staring at a crude, 3D rendering of BuddyHudson, a name I gleaned from the copy of Jackie Collins' Hollywood Wives sitting on the coffee table in front of me. I dressed him in a pair of butt-hugging blue jeans, a low-cut button down and some spotless white sneakers, gave him a long, luscious mane and slimmed his overbuilt body to match mine. Buddy was ready to bone.

And then I got stuck in a corner.

After the previous night's failure, I entered the game's "Welcome Tower," a sort of outdoor nightclub, expecting to see piles of naked bodies writhing on top of each other, creating a sea of flesh and flailing appendages. Instead, I saw four white folks, dancing like white people do, on a Billie Jean-style light-up dance floor. The only fleshy writhing came from a naked couple, swaying back and forth like a pair of middle-aged swingers desperately bumping uglies on the dance floor at an off-season Hedonism.

But who was I to judge? I couldn't even figure out how to start a private chat. I spent some time wandering around the rooftop lounge looking for orgy portals, and then I hit a wall. Literally. I'd turned into what appeared to be a virtual dressing room and -- just like that -- my first night in the land of pixelized excess had come to an end. I tried everything I could to back out of that corner on my own, but couldn't muster the courage to ask for help in the main chat room. Just like in real life, I let intimidation get the best of me.

As it turned out, the only dick I'd see would be my own.

I considered throwing in the (as yet unsoiled) towel, but like Veruca Salt in the Chocolate Factory, I wouldn't be satisfied until I got what I wanted. After a two-night hiatus, I returned the Red Light Center for one last try. I skipped the dance floor and found a neon sign beckoning me into what turned out to be a completely empty male strip club. As it turned out, the only dick I'd see would be my own. When the strip club came up short, I set out for a nearby brothel that felt like it shared an interior decorator with the hotel from the Shining. Once inside, I gravitated toward an empty bar. Seeing as I was alone, I stripped down to nothing and took a look around.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, a young blonde named lil_meg strolled up behind my bare ass. She invited me to her place to bone so I summoned the part of my Kinsey score that previously enabled late night makeout sessions with the opposite sex. If I couldn't have all the digital dicks, one virtual vagina would have to do.

We disrobed, hopped into bed and filtered through a series of sex acts, the likes of which I've only ever seen on a blacklight poster. Just as I began to penetrate lil_meg, a button appeared, encouraging me to connect my sex sleeve to my computer. As meg sang the praises of BuddyHudson's impressive member in a floating chat window, I hurried to connect my Onyx. After multiple failed connections, lil_meg was ready to blow. Once again, I'd come up short.

Despite the technical failures, I was encouraged by my encounter and returned to the "Welcome Tower" to see if I could find a willing member. I interrupted the relatively active open chat to ask if any of the men in the room liked to swing. ... Crickets. As I waited for a response, the cold reality of rejection began to set in. Fear of STDs aside, trying to get laid in an MMORPG comes with a lot of the same baggage as it does in the real world.

My fantasies of a wild, open, no-strings orgy had turned into a clumsy, even humiliating, and desperate search for someone -- anyone -- to have sex with. I'm sorry to say, the only real advantage to virtual group sex may be the cleanup.