Whilst the extended polyamorous netowork and I were in Barcelona, we took time out from seeing the Sagrada Familia and doing…um, other stuff to take a ton of photos of the xenomorph sex toy prototypes.
That’s right, now you can order your very own hiphugger, for all your xenomorph ovipositor violation needs.
These things each take about three days of fussy, fiddly work to make, so for the foreseeable future I will only make one of them a month. First come, first served, and yes, they’re expensive.
If you order one, I’ll make it specifically for you, in whatever color you like.
We had a ton of fun doing the photo shoot, and got pics of some other xenomorphic goodness as well, including the xenomorph pacifiers and nipple pasties. (Yes, I made xenomorph pacifiers and nipple pasties. What can I say? My parents brought me to see Alien when I was, like, 12 or so, and it scared the holy hell out of me for the next thirty years.)
In which our hero has alien sex toys scanned for bombs, and urethral sounds confiscated…
Okay, so. I travel a bit, sometimes internationally, and so it was I found myself jetting off to Barcelona for a vacation with the extended polyamorous family a few months back.
I have, as those who follow this blog know, been working for several years on a Xenomorph Hiphugger Strapon, inspired by (a) my lifelong fear of the alien from Alien (a movie my parents took me to when I was, like, 11 or 12 or something, thinking it was like a new Star Wars…no exaggeration, I had nightmares aout that alien for more than 30 years after), and (b) a suggestion by my wife that I should make a sex toy inspired by the alien, because she loves to push my buttons.
In fact, a photo of one of the early prototypes ended up going mad viral on the Internet, and I’m told has even been uploaded to the official Sigorney Weaver fan page, which means Ms. Weaver has likely seen it. 0.o
Anyway.
I cast four prototype xenomorph hiphugger strapons and one xenomorph facehugger gag in the runup to Barcelona, with the idea that having multiple lovers in the same space would be a fine opportunity for a xenomorph gangbang, truly a test of the design.
So it was I packed all these xenomorph hiphuggers in my luggage and jetted off to Springfield, MO, to meet my Talespinner, who would be accompanying me to Spain.
You would not believe what this looked like on the X-ray. Sadly, they refused to allow me to take a pic.
The problem started quite early. Whilst carrying my luggage aboard the plane, the X-ray showed a suitcase absolutely packed with aggressive alien endoparasites, which, as you might imagine, elicited some…excitement at screening. (I didn’t put them in my checked bag because it was mainly filled with photographic gear and clothes.)
The bag got bounced, the TSA checker opened the lid, and gentle reader, if I could have photographed his expression and shown it to you, you would know that it is possible for surprise to take on human form.
Within minutes, there was a crowd around the table: the TSA inspector, the woman running the X-ray, and two other people, all of them staring in slack-jawed astonishment. The TSA checker called for his superior, who was like “What the…?” One of the other TSA screeners said “Holy shit, that looks like the alien from the Alien movies!”
TSA screener: “Should I—”
Supervisor: “Yes.”
And then they, hand to God, scanned the hiphuggers for explosives.
Eventually convinced the hiphuggers weren’t actually bombs, they allowed me to board, where I sat in a chair that through the miracle of Science flew through the air.
But that’s not the end of the story, oh my no.
When the time came for us to head from Springfield to Barcelona, I re-packed everything, in no small part because of the way TSA freaked out about the xenomorphs, but also prompted by the need to rearrange in order to fit two rather large studio lights for the xenomorph photo shoot we had planned. (That was an adventure in itself; the tripods for the studio lights were an inch and a half too long to fit the suitcase, but fifteen minutes with a hacksaw soon fixed that.)
We set off for the airport, confident that this TSA experience would be far smoother. Alas, it was not to be.
During the rearranging, I’d put the more conventional sex toy kit in my carryon whilst the hiphuggers ent in checked baggage with the studio lights, UV-reactive body paints, UV blacklight, and other miscellaneous orgy supplies.
I did not know, Gentle Reader, I did not suspect, that I had planted the seeds of my own undoing.
For you see, in my conventional sex toy kit I’d placed my collection of sounds. If oyu don’t know what those are, I won’t disturb you with the details, except to say that I had about ten or fifteen and they looked like this:
The TSA guy…
…confiscated and threw away the sounds.
When I asked him why, he looked me straight in the eye and told me, you could stab someone with them.”
You. Could. Stab. Someone. With. Them.
Words…words fail. Whatever danger these may pose as a weapon, Gentle Reader, let me assure you that the 100% sustainably made, biodegradable wood cutlery they gave us aboard the plane would be a far better stabby weapon in every single axis.At this point, it’s hard to escape the perhaps paranoid conclusion that my name exists on some TSA list somewhere. I had a slab of Barcelonan chocolate in my computer bag on the way home and it got scanned for explosives every single time I went through security.
Earlier this year, I received a significant sum of money in a settlement for a lawsuit. This settlement was enough to pay my lawyer, with a bit left over, which I had earmarked for a car since I’ve been sans vehicle after the unfortunate death of the Adventure Van (which needed new parts that are no longer manufactured).
I had earmarked some of the settlement for a cheap used car, when I was captured by Facebook. I spotted an ad for a desktop CNC metal-milling machine for almost exactly the amount I’d set aside for the car, and I thought, if I can machine aluminum, I can make molds for sex toys without having to 3D print them any more! The molds would be higher quality, last longer, and produce better toys!
So of course I ordered the CNC machine instead of the car, and arrived home from Barcelona to an enormous shipping crate…
They call it a “desktop CNC machine,” but I don’t own a desk large enough or sturdy enough to hold it—the thing weighs in at almost 120 pounds(!). So it sits on my bedroom floor, still in the bottom of the shipping crate.
And My God, what an adventure.
I didn’t fully realize what I was signing up for. Carving 3D models out of metal is nothing like printing 3D models on a 3D printer. You don’t give it the model and say “here,carve this.” You have to specify the tool to use, the speed, and (this is the difficult part) the exact path the tool will take, over and over and over again, to carve the shape out of metal.
As one wag on Quora put it, “Dude, what you’re trying to cut requires graduating from trade school plus four years of apprenticeship.” (Whoevel writes an AI-driven expert system to automate some or all this process will become ridiculously wealthy, just sayin’.)
Anyway, I’ve been teaching myself CNC milling, and the learning curve is a cliff. This is quite possibly the most challenging thing I’ve ever attempted in my life.
I’ve worked out basic engraving…
…and I’m teaching myself Fusion 360 and Lightburn (it has a built-in laser engraver too). My wife has come up with some very cool projects to help teach myself, like tentacle fans with metal blades, which I’ll probably start selling once I’ve worked out how to make them.
But at the rate I’m going, I’m still quite a distance off from carving metal sex toy molds.
I’ve now been back from Barcelona for a week, but I still don’t have my luggage (thanks, WestJet!). I’m way, waaaaay behind on processing and posting photos from the trip, including from the two days I spent at the Sagrada Familia (which was magnificent beyond what I ever imagined), so here’s a quick teaser from a Barcelona photo shoot of the alien xenomorph hiphugger Borg Queen parasite.
…and all through the house, the hiphuggers were scurrying, searching for a victim to parasitize, a host they could control, forcing the host to violate all around, spreading their eggs in a gush of slime…
My wife decided that, given the alien from the Aliens movie has been the shape of my nightmares for years, I should make an alien xenomorph hiphugger strapon sex toy. And given that she loves cosplay, she’s also decided to do a Borg Queen costume, to go with it.
Because what’s worse than being parasitized by an alien hiphugger? The Borg Queen parasitized by an alien hiphugger, of course!
I’m helping her design those bits of the costume that require a 3D printer, so she’s made a life-sized dressmaker’s dummy casting of herself to better help me make sure the various bits and bobs I print are the right size.
I have the dummy sitting on my couch right now, and, well…
It’s a bit disconcerting when I wake up in the middle of the night to pee.
Orchids are cool, in a “nature is horrifying” way. There are species of orchid that have evolved structures that look like insects, which they use to lure in insects searching for mates.
Some orchids use these insect visitors to pollinate themselves. The insect does its thing and then flies off, horny and frustrated and covered with sticky pollen, but otherwise none the worse for wear.
But some orchids are carnivorous. They lure insects to their doom, slowly digesting their prey alive as the ill-fated insect struggles helplessly.
And some orchids mimic insect pheromones, sweeting the honeytrap with the same signals that female insects use.
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about sexual parasitism of humans lately, in no small measure because I’ve finished the first version of the Xenomorph Hiphugger Strapon, a Giger-esque nightmare sex toy first conceived by my wife Joreth. Imagine an alien facehugger that wraps around the subject’s hips, then incites the subject to seek out victims, violating them in a parasitic frenzy. As creepy as this image is, it’s table stakes in the game of real-world sexual parasitism, which is horrifying.
Anyway, that’s got me thinking: what if an alien species created mimics of human females to lure in the male of the species? (An idea for a horror novel with this theme is bubbling in my brain; stay tuned!)
What I’ve come up with so far is…well, pretty horrifying.
I’ve started work on a small, AI-illustrated graphic novella (is a graphic novella a thing?), though with all the projects in the pipe right now—including a version of the hiphugger strapon optimized for oral violation—it may be a while before it’s finished.
I tried to do a different thing, but I couldn’t do the thing I wanted to do that was different from the thing I did, so I did the thing instead. Then I did the other thing, too, so…things got done.
It started yesterday morning, when I woke intending to post a new episode of the Skeptical Pervert podcast, this one looking at sex work in different cultures. But what to my wondering eye should show up, but a database server error at my webhosting provider. As I waited for them to fix the problem, I…amused. Yes, that’s the word we’ll use. I amused myself by writing a quick and crude web page that generates random horror poetry and pairs it with a random tentacle image generated by a Stable Diffusion AI generator.
It’s still quite primitive, but it looks like this:
You can, if this strikes your fancy, check it out here:
I’ve done it! They said I was mad, but I’ve done it! After almost three years of work and countless redesigns, I present to you:
The Xenomorph Hiphugger Strapon!
Ripped straight from a nightmare
This Giger-inspired monstrosity comes from the deepest depths of my nightmares. It all started when my wife Joreth said, hey, you know what would be cool? A strapon that looks like the facehugger from Alien, but it goes around the wearer’s hips, and the tail is a dildo.
And now, here it is!
This thing is massive—almost eight pounds of silicone—and features a tube and a reservoir so that the tail can be made to spurt fluids. Because it isn’t really an alien if it’s not dripping slime, right?
The tube was actually a late addition—I’d finalized the design when joreth said “hey, can you make it spurt?” The version you see here is a bit of an accident: I’d intended to buy silicone tubing that was 3 mm inside diameter/5mm outside diameter, but accidentally ordered 5mm/7mm tubing instead. So it should, I think, have a rather more…voluminous fluid flow than I’d originally planned.
This has been an incredibly productive year. Well, years, actually. The last three years have been the most creative, most productive time in my life. And I’m pleased to share some of that creativity with you!
First up, a new novel, The Hallowed Covenant! This is the third book I’ve co-authored with the marvelous Eunice Hung. It’s also the third book in the Passionate Pantheon series of far-future, post-scarcity science fiction theocratic pornography.
Yes, we invented a genre.
Anyway, I’m incredibly proud of this novel. We explore (I think) some really interesting ideas about autonomy, responsibility, atonement, and forgiveness, amidst all the really hot super-kinky sex.
This is also the first Passionate Pantheon novel that will have an audiobook version, narrated by the amazing Francesca Peregrine. She had some lovely things to say:
Favourite chapter so far: a description of a festival that basically sounds like Sexy Sci-fi Burning Man. I want to…go there? Like….now? Immediately, please. Give me chaotic, beautiful art blended seamlessly with hot people Doing It. @franklinveaux and @Eunice_Serina
— Francesca Peregrine (@readtomefrankie) June 16, 2022
Just finished recording the final chapter of #TheHallowedCovenant by @franklinveaux and @Eunice_Serina. I am BEREFT. It’s been the most incredible sexy intense trippy magical erotic ride, and I can’t wait to find my way back to The City.
— Francesca Peregrine (@readtomefrankie) June 20, 2022
The book publishes this October. Preorders are up on Barnes & Noble and Amazon, but watch this space! You’ll be able to get a copy before pub date at a special price (and an early peek at the audiobook and the fourth novel in the series, Unyielding Devotion) if you back our crowdfunding next month!
I’ve also just launched a new website for makers who like sex: Tentacle Love. This is a DIY site full of tutorials and tips for making your own silicone sex toys, and includes downloadable 3D printable molds for you to cast sex toys yourself.
I’ve been making silicone sex toys for a while, so from time to time I also plan to put one-offs on the site for sale. These aren’t your typical sex toys, oh no—my tastes being what they are, I’ve made everything from kazoo ball gags (yes, seriously) to double-sided tentacle gags to…well, stranger things.
A few folks have been wondering where we’re at on the Bionic Dildo, as we’ve taken to calling it.
We’ve made a lot of progress in the last few months, starting with setting up a workspace for research, development, and testing. We’ve moved into the new space, where we have a lot of resources we didn’t have before.
The first few prototypes were put together by modifying existing sex toys. This crude approach was good enough to show us that the basic technology is sound, but the prototypes we built this way were limited, fragile, and rather uncomfortable to wear.
Since then, we’ve acquired a 3D printer and facilities for making ceramic molds to cast silicone. This allows us to create custom-designed silicone with electronics, sensors, and electrodes cast right in.
From 3D rendering to printed positive that we use to make a mold.
And yes, those are Lego bricks we’re using as a mold box!
We’ve 3D printed and made silicone test casts of the insertable part of the device. Here’s a test cast of the insertable with electrodes directly embedded in the cast, a huge improvement over our first few prototypes:
Right now, we’re moving into a development phase aimed at answering questions like:
How many sensors and electrodes do we need?
What’s the neural density of the inside wall of the vagina?
How much variability is there in sensitivity between different people, and between different parts of the inner anatomy of the same person?
What’s the best way to modulate the signal in response to pressure on the sensors?
What’s the maximum perceptual spatial resolution of the inner anatomy?
The first-generation prototype had three sensors and three electrodes, and the insertable part was rigid plastic, which as you can imagine was not terribly comfortable and certainly not workable for long-term use. The prototype we’re working on now is an enormous improvement: fifteen sensors and fifteen electrodes, embedded in custom silicone that’s far more comfortable.
We’re excited with the progress that we’ve made, and looking forward to what we can learn in 2017.
