Technology is giving the pornography industry a long-overdue makeover, especially for women's X-rated exploits. The latest innovation in the fun-filled world of teledildonics is the Vibease, a wearable smart vibrator that syncs with audio erotica. The idea is to create a fully sensual erotic experience, which for women generally includes mental stimulation as well. (It's not just size and speed, folks.)
Thus, the product designers create what they call the four main elements of the female orgasm: sound, emotion, fantasy, and physical stimulation. To conjure up the first three in the absence of a real-life human partner, the device syncs via Bluetooth to the Vibease Fantasy app, a marketplace for erotica (available on iOS and Android).
The toy itself provides the last element, touch. It takes cues from the text and vibrates accordingly. The project's Indiegogo page elaborates:
The Vibease and Fantasy app work like this: When the voice in the fantasy app says: "I'm touching you softly", the vibrator vibrates softly. And when the voice says: "I'm touching you hard", the vibrator vibrates hard. The vibrator reacts to the story within the Fantasy. The vibrations are personalized to each Fantasy, and it gives vibrations with different intensities and various patterns at just the right moments.
The 3-inch, battery-powered device itself is designed to be subtle, so as to not break the carefully conjured mood. It's wearable—yep, down there—so you can throw your hands back and fully escape into the fantasy.
To the teledildonics novice, this may sound more absurd than arousing. But there’s an argument to be made that the growing popularity of cybersex and web-connected toys could usher in another sexual revolution. A column in the Guardian put it this way:
The web is all about helping people establish emotional connections. Throw in some erotic imagery, augmented teledildonics technologies, or a bit of sexting or Skyping, and you have the makings of a rather extraordinary, albeit mediated, relationship. Boynton believes that is far more intimate than what you can get from the pages of a magazine and reflects more closely the entirety of the sexual experience. This is potentially transformative.
The entrepreneurs behind Vibease, based in Singapore and San Francisco, said they spent two years researching and interviewing women to design the product. They confirmed that fantasy and emotion, not just busty blondes, are a big turn on— as anyone who lived through the 50 Shades of Grey craze well knows. In fact, the bestseller’s release may have even caused an uptick in vibrator sales.
Internet-enabled sex toys hitherto have combined the cybersex world with a physical manifestation of the act. The most popular are the Sinulator and HighJoy, devices that link sex toys to the computer, so they can be controlled remotely by anyone via the internet—i.e. John playing with Jane from the office while Jane's home in bed.
Continuing on the personalization theme, 3D-printed dildos are breaking into the sex innovation market. The toys are printed from a blueprint of a real-life dick, to produce an anatomically realistic recreation of your man of choice.
These toys are marketed for the frustrated demographic of people in long-distance relationships, a market the Vibease is also targeting. To that end, the Fantasy app can record your partner's voice for later use. Alternatively, you can try your hand as an erotica writer, by recording your own voice describing a fantasy and uploading it to the store, for others to listen to.
While some folks are sure to write off the idea as a funny novelty, but nothing more, there’s clearly a demand for this thing; the project has already exceeded its fundraising goal of $15,000. It’ll cost $79. The apps reached their crowdfunding goal already and are currently in beta.
Turning to the internet for love and romance used to be stigmatized, but is more or less commonplace now. It stands to reason we'll cozy up to virtual reality for the next generation of sex, too.