Design for X?: distribution choices and ethical design

This paper investigates an especially value-laden product category: sex-oriented technologies. Reviewing four systems encountered through qualitative fieldwork at an adult entertainment trade show, we examine how designers make claims for distribution of agency in their systems, and the consequent technical choices. In the face of diverse configurations of systems, users, and designers, we suggest that designers treat their practice less as an expression of enduring or user-specific 'values,' and more as a series of decisions about the ethical distribution of control and responsibility within systems.

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