In fact it looks silly. But so did everything else we wore in the 1980s and people still got laid. Like shoulder pads and skinny ties, pastel jackets and spiked hair of our singles bar past - this is fashion for fucking in the future, without the cover charge.

In fact you don't even need to leave home. Just light a few candles, get comfortable with your desktop and plug the suit in. Your printer port anxiously awaits insertion. Staring lustfully at the body on the screen, you slowly move your mouse and click on the body part you wish to stimulate on your similarly suited cyberpartner. Do you want to send a feather touch,strong vibration or some added heat? Double-click. Good. The sensors start vibrating in the pit of your knees. Not that Tantric shit again, you think, but continue to play along. You tickle, buzz and overheat until satisfaction then enjoy stretching out on your bed, all to yourself.

Welcome to the world of Teledildonics. There is no death from disease here. No unwanted pregnancies. No awkward morning after. And arguably, no intimacy either.

It has been called the future of sex - as far back as ten years ago - and it was supposed to be made a reality by the new millennium. The year 2001 has come and the ability to touch a long distance lover remains virtual with little hope of it becoming reality any time soon. At least not for another year.

This is the second time the developers of the suit, Vivid Entertainment (Vivid Video), a top adult video and online business based in Van Nuys (California), has teased cyberfetishists with promises of the suit's commercial availability. Vivid Video originally blamed the delay on FCC approval, citing concerns over whether the wearer will get fried from a dangerous electrical surge, particularly if the electronic signals are being exchanged internationally between different delivery systems. However, calls to the FCC as well as the FTC and FDA were met with confusion - "A what? What do you do with that suit?" and at times, some federally frowned upon giggles.

None of the feds spoken to were aware of any investigation into Vivid's CyberSuit.

The real problem with the suit is that a few kinks need to be worked out before consumers can work on their kinks. David James, co-founder of Vivid Interactive, says the project is now being delayed until increased bandwidth, the amount of information a computer can suck down via the Internet,is available.

Vivid is also working on technology that will get rid of the need to interact with another human being all together, by allowing the CyberSuit to respond to a porn flick on DVD. Whatever Kira, Janine or Jenna do on your monitor - you'll feel it, according to James.

The company has spent nearly $200,000 in developing the CyberSuit and plans to put it on the market for $170 a pop. Vivid was not forthcoming with cleaning instructions.

There are other research teams developing their own prototypes for a cybersex suit. One group in Germany is working on total virtual reality immersion adding helmets to their sensory suit that allow the wearer to view changing cyberscapes.

Then there are the academics who view the work more philosophically: exploring the divorce of the sensual and mental worlds; seeing the body as text - as a narrative. For example, online discussions of Teledildonics have reflected on an experiment where the suit's sensors failed, however, the participants experienced physical orgasms - giving a new meaning to the term "mind fuck".

Throughout all the lofty discourse and academic dissertations on the suit's implications, the bottom line is that after years of research the suit still doesn't work and some cheesy US porn conglomerate is ahead of any other research group in Teledildonic technology.

But why spend all this time and money on a scuba suit with suction cups?

Alan Sondheim, theorist and author of Being Online: Net Subjectivity, which addresses the new consciousness of the Internet, says that the fascination with this technology is simply the human ascination with sex in general.

"When a new application or communications domain opens on the Net, one of the first things that occur is a sexualization of the space," says Sondheim. "Sexual drives dominate a lot of behavior, especially a lot of young male behavior - and young males are still the majority of programmers and hackers."

These hackers consider teledildonics the "Holy Grail" of Internet sex, explains Sondheim, because "like the holodeck, it gets rid of the technology by immersing oneself in it - there is no interface when everything is interface."

Teledildonics is not a new concept. The term was coined in the 1980s by Ted Nelson.Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey claimed in his 1988 essay Pentagonal Revision that developing artificial human companions was "the forbidden industry. An economic "godsend" which will allow everyone "power" over someone else. Polite, sophisticated, technologically feasible slavery. And the most profitable industry since T.V. and the computer."

Teledildonics is best associated with Howard Rheingold's 1991 book, Virtual Reality (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), and its chapter entitled "Teledildonics"; Rheingold imparts his fantasies of having a virtual reality sexual experience via the Internet but also laments the obstacles in making a cybersex suit a reality. Nearly a decade later, and these fantasies still have gone unfulfilled.

Chris Bell, a 33 year-old self-titled "avid online sex person" and financial analyst, says that he is intrigued by Teledildonics and its vast implications for sexual gratification, however, he does not believe that it will satisfy the sexual appetites of most who go online for sex.

"Teledildonics is too expensive and elaborate for casual cybersex people to use," says Bell. "In fact, a major plus of cybersex for many people is the casual nature and anonymity of the whole practice - the ability to just drop out, disconnect, and type QUIT."

Bell says that the cybersex suit's greatest potential lies in online sexual role playing. "I see many uses for the teledildonics suit, especially for couples who are involved in committed Dominant/Submissive relationships - perhaps with a 'Sub' self-restrained while a 'Dom' controls the suit off site. I can even see a virtual online party devoted to the pleasuring or paining of a Sub who is restrained,humiliated to know that people from across the world who she or he has never met are forcing sensual responses."

While Bell and others anxiously await the coming of a cybersex suit, there are other toys that lurk throughout the world of Teledildonics that may be considered stimulating. A quick click to SafeSexPlus.com finds a plethora of traditional dildonic devices that can be plugged into a box, connected to your computer, and made to jack around at the whim of a your cyberpartner.

While it is not guaranteed that a jumping vagina will get you off, it is nevertheless considered a viable alternative to the traditional one hand typing method.

If holding off satisfaction is a fetish of yours, you might as well wait for Vivid's CyberSuit. It's cheaper than a faux snakeskin purple trench, although, decidingly less fashionable for those who've never heard of geek chic. Don't hold your breath, however, unless asphyxiation is your bag, as the suit has yet to be given a new date for its coming out.