Tag Archives: sex

Robot sex machines? Yes please!

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Of all the deadly sins, my favorite by far is Lust. In fact, I’m actually a bit rubbish at all the other ones, so great is my fondness for Lust. I am also a huge fan of mixing sex and tech. So when I saw a crowdfunding campaign for a “robotic blowjob machine,” as you can probably imagine, I had to get on board with it. Women generally seem to benefit the most from the intersection of sex and technology, so the notion of a sex robot for men had more than passing appeal to me.

The campaign was a success, and I recently received in the mail one “Autoblow 2,” the robotic sex machine whose marketing campaign advertises “unlimited blowjobs on demand.” (Seriously.)

It’s an interesting-looking piece of kit:

Not quite as stylish, perhaps, as the new wave of vibrators from companies like Lelo and JimmyJane, but hey, I’ll take it.

This thing has two parts: the base, which contains a motor that moves a pair of spring bands covered with little rollers up and down, and a sleeve that inserts into the base. The sleeves come in several sizes, and are made of this really bizarre soft silicone material that flops about and feels kinda squishy. (Materials science is an avenue of human endeavor that has, until now, rarely been applied to the pursuit of the ultimate orgasm, more’s the pity. For hundreds of years, leather, stone, wood, and ivory represented the state of the art for Things To Make You Come, so I’m pleased to see improvements in this area.)

Still, when the time came to put my willie in this thing, I will admit I was a little apprehensive. I looked dubiously at it for a bit, until my sweetie zaiah said “oh, give me that” and took it away from me. She squirted some lube into the “insert willie here” end and stuck it over my junk.

No robotic blowjob machine would be complete without a speed control, and sure enough, there’s a little knob on the bottom that makes it go. She turned it on and it whirred to life, stroking mechanically away.

Now, I’ve had some amazing blowjobs from some exceptionally talented partners, so honesty compels me to admit this gadget does not really feel like a blowjob. It’s a fair approximation, I suppose, considering the formidable engineering challenge that a real blowjob simulator would face, but it isn’t quite up to a true blowjob experience. A double-blind face-off between this thing and genuine oral sex would, I suspect, be rather lopsided.

However, even if it doesn’t quite capture the true essence of the oral arts, this robotic sex machine does feel good. Really, really good. I was surprised, in fact. I cranked it up to maximum speed and, yeah, it did exactly what it says on the tin.

I am normally multiply orgasmic; it’s not uncommon for me to get off half a dozen times or more during sex. But this thing…well, when this thing got me off, it was intense and it got me off for good. I was done when I finally stopped screaming.

At which point I discovered a design flaw. The little control knob on the bottom? It’s little. As in, really difficult to find in a hurry when you’re gasping and panting and your body’s still shaking. I tried to yank it off my junk, but my partner grabbed me by the wrist. “No,” she said, and held it there until I found the control.

Which, naturally, brought up a really interesting idea, because I’m a kinky motherfucker and there’s no innocent pleasure I can’t find a way to corrupt with wicked thoughts.

A lot of women quite like the notion of forced orgasms, and it’s pretty easy to do, really–there are entire Web sites dedicated to the high art of the forced orgasm, but when you get down to brass tacks all it really takes is a bit of rope and a Hitachi magic wand. It’s more difficult to find ways to do the same thing to a person with an outie rather than an innie…

…at least until now.

This thing feels good on its own, no question about it, but a bit of rope, perhaps a blindfold, a gag if you don’t want to wake the neighbors, and this gadget can be so much more. Tie your guy down, set this thing going, and wait. You probably won’t have to wait to long. If my brief experience is any indication, the results should be pretty…um, dramatic.

You can find this robot blowjob machine here. (Full disclosure: I liked it enough I signed up as an affiliate.) Get one for yourself or that guy in your life you want to tie down and make scream give the gift of pleasure! You’ll be making the world a happier place and encouraging new high-tech sex toys for men, both of which I think are laudable goals.

Sex Tech: Adopting the Brain’s Plasticity

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Some while ago, I read an article about a gizmo made of a black and white video camera attached to a grid of electrodes. The idea is that you wear the electrodes on your tongue. Images from the video camera are converted into patterns of electric signals on the electrode, so you “see”–with your tongue–what the camera sees.

Early users of the prototype gizmo would wear a blindfold and then try to navigate around just by the electrical impulses on their tongues. What’s most interesting is not only were they able to do this, but they reported that, after a while, their memories were not of sensations on their tongues, but of seeing a fuzzy, black and white image.

The brain is wonderfully plastic, able to interpret new kinds of sensory input in amazing ways. It can rewire itself to accommodate the new input; in fact, the tongue-electrode thing is being commercialized as a device for the blind.

As I do, when i first heard about this, I naturally thought “how can this be used for sex?” And I think it has fantastic potential.

Imagine, if you will, a wearable dildo, rather like the Feeldoe, that’s designed to have one end inserted in the vagina. Only imagine that we take the same kind of electrodes used in the tongue-camera device, and send signals to the electrodes not from a video camera, but from small touch sensitive sensors mounted just below the skin of the dildo.

These sensors would be mapped onto the electrodes so that when something touches the sensor, you’d feel a corresponding signal from the corresponding electrode.

I’m not an artist, but I made a couple of crude animations to illustrate the idea:

What would happen?

I believe that after a period of adjustment, this dildo would be incorporated into the brain’s somatosensory perception. The brain would, in essence, modify its model of the body to accommodate the dildo–it would, rather quickly I suspect, cease to be perceived as a thing and become perceived as a part of the body. Stimulation of the dildo would begin to feel like stimulation of yourself.

And isn’t that an interesting idea.

The neural density in the walls of the vagina isn’t as great as the neural density of the tongue. I don’t think that’s a problem, though; the neural density of the shaft of the penis isn’t as great, either.

One potentially interesting twist on this notion is to map the most sensitive part of the penis, the underside just below the glans, onto the most sensitive part of the body–the clitoris. The sensors of the shaft would map onto electrodes in the bulb worn inside the vagina, except this part, which would map onto the clitoris–mapping the sensitivity of a natural penis.

Another potentially interesting thing to do is to make the sensors on the dildo pressure sensitive, with firmer touches creating stronger impulses from the electrodes.

Now, there’s a lot of experimentation between this idea and a real device. I don’t know the neural density in the walls of the vagina, but it would impose a limit on how many electrodes could be placed on the dildo. Would there be sufficient density to be able to create a fine tactile sense? I think the answer is probably “yes,” but I’m not sure.

I’m also not sure how much processing would be required. I’m guessing not much; certainly much less than is required with the vision sense. The tongue-vision thing is trying to do something far more complicated; it’s trying to register sufficient information to allow you to navigate a three-dimensional world. A circle seen by the camera might be a lollipop right in front of your face or a billboard far away; because the tongue has no way to represent stereo imagery, there’s no way to tell. So the processor has to allow the operator to be able to zoom in and out, to give the user a sense of how far away things might be. It has to be able to adjust to different lighting conditions.

The dildo, by way of contrast, merely has to respond to physical touch, which maps much more easily onto the array of electrodes. It’s pretty straightforward; if something’s not touching a particular sensor, its electrode isn’t producing a signal. The amount of processing might be low enough to allow the processor to be housed inside the dildo, making the device compact, and not requiring it to be tethered to any electronics.

I think this thing could be hella fun. It would allow people born with vaginas to have a remarkably good impression of what it’s like to be born with a penis.

In a world where I had infinite free time, I’d put together a crowdfunding campaign to try to build a working prototype. Even without infinite time, I’m considering doing this. Thoughts? Opinions?

Want to keep up with developments? Here’s a handy list of blog posts about it:
First post
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3

Some thoughts on love and sacrifice

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I recently encountered, during the normal course of my regular trawling across the width of this thing we call the Internet, an essay posted on the Psychology Today Web site. The article is a rejection of the notion that adultery is okay (an argument made by a different essay on a different site) and, as far as that goes, I have no quarrel with it. If you’re going to make a promise of sexual fidelity, keep it. If you can’t,renegotiate the relationship or end it.

But the problem comes near the essay’s end, where the author says:

More generally, the author doesn’t seem to appreciate that the value of commitment is based in part on the value of what is given up for it. Of course, sexual desire has a unique pull on most of us. But promises of fidelity would mean much less if we were promising to give up something we didn’t want! The fact that most of us want sex so much is why it means so much when we promise it to just one person…

And I find this argument to be very problematic indeed.

I reject this premise wholeheartedly. I do not–I cannot–buy the notion that in order for something to be valuable, we have to sacrifice something in order to have it.

This idea is one of the malignant gifts bequeathed on us by our Puritan ancestors, who believed it so passionately they never saw the hypocritical self-contradiction in it (they yearned for an afterlife in which there is no want, no suffering, and everything is perfect forever, and they thought the way to get there was by rejecting what you want, by suffering, and by working against basic human happiness…something they regarded with suspicion at best and hostility at worst.)

I think, rather, that the value of a thing is not what we give up in order to have it, but instead whether that thing is an authentic expression of who we truly are.

There is nothing noble in denying who you are in order to get something you want. Just the opposite: that is the most craven sort of commerce, exchanging truth for gain. We rightly deride dishonesty in politicians and businesses; we understand that pretending to be something you’re not in order to get votes or money is a perfidious act. Why don’t we understand the same thing about love?

There is no virtue in exchanging your true self for the affections of someone else. Love admits no such cynical transaction. Love is most meaningful when those who love us know who we truly are and love us anyway. It is not about what we can make those we love give up; it is about how we can help those we love be the most genuine, the most honest versions of themselves.

We do not make an act of fidelity meaningful because we don’t want to do it. We make an act–any act–meaningful when it most truly represents who we are, when it most honestly shares what we actually desire. Believing that sex is valuable because we pledge it to one person when we really want to do just the opposite is the most crass kind of commoditization of both sex and love. Matters of the heart are not about artificial scarcity and transactional gain.

Some thoughts on rape culture

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A couple of days ago, someone on a (closed) Facebook group I belong to posted a link to a blog post about rape culture.

And, predictably, one of the first comments to that link was along the lines of “this is just another attempt to say that male sexuality is bad.”

It doesn’t even really matter where the linked blog post is (though if you’re interested, it’s here); the “you’re just demonizing men” reaction comes up on any conversation I’ve ever seen about rape culture, as sure as night follows day. And it’s annoying.

It seems to me that if that’s your take-away from discussions about rape culture, you aren’t paying attention.

Male sexuality is not inherently evil, and acknowledging that rape culture is a thing isn’t the same as “demonizing male sexuality.” This seems obvious to me, yet it’s a persistent trope: saying that we have a culture that normalizes, trivializes, and to a large extent even excuses sexual violence is conflated with demonizing male sexuality, as if, I don’t know, male sexuality were somehow inextricably tied to rape or something.

I personally have never met any women who believe that male sexuality is tied to rape, though I keep hearing from other men about that’s what “feminists think”.

When I see a trope become that deeply embedded in a conversation about something, I tend to wonder who it benefits. I definitely think there are men who benefit from this trope. There are some men who want to conflate “discussing the cultural component of sexual violence” with “demonizing all male sexuality.” These men want you to read articles like the blog post that led to all this and respond with “you’re saying men are evil! You’re saying all men are rapists!” That’s the interpretation they want you to have.

There are two kinds of men who want you to have that response: rapists, and men who want power over women.

Not all men are rapists.

There is, for some people, a knee-jerk response to any conversation about rape culture that goes “You just think all men are rapists!” That isn’t what this (and articles like it) say. What they say is that women have to act like all men are potentially rapists, because rapists don’t wear a special hat or have a special handshake or anything.

A strange man is probably not a rapist, but he might be. Since there’s no telltale signal that lets you tell a rapist from a not-rapist, women have to assume that a stranger could potentially be a rapist, simply out of self-preservation. A common analogy here is that not every strange dog will bite you, but it’s usually a good idea not to approach every strange dog you see with reckless abandon–because some of them might bite you, and you have no way of telling which.

Rapists and men who want power over women are quite pleased when people deflect conversations about rape culture with “you’re just saying male sexuality is evil,” because it shuts down conversation about the reality of rape culture…and that suits them just fine. It allows things to continue on exactly as they are–which is to say, allows society to continue blaming victims of rape for their own attacks (“did you see what she was wearing??!), allows rape victims who come forward to continue being disbelieved, allows the courts to continue under-prosecuting rape.

All of this serves the needs of men who rape and men who want to control women, and the only side effect (other than the fact that, y’know, women are marginalized) is that some men are treated like they might possibly be a rapist.

You’re a guy, and you don’t like it? You don’t like the idea that women who don’t know you might respond as though you are a potential rapist, even though that’s something you would never, ever, do? Do something about it! Do something to make our society less welcoming to rapists. Don’t trivialize rape. Don’t whine “but what about false accusations?” when women talk about how claims of rape are rarely taken seriously. Don’t treat tape as a punch line.

Look, this is not rocket science. If you’re a guy, you have a disproportionate amount of power, even if you personally don’t feel like it’s true. It’s not enough to say “Well, I’m not a rapist, and I don’t trivialize rape, so I don’t like it when women treat me like I might be a rapist!” You have to do more. You have to stand up to the people around you who do trivialize rape. You have to stand up to people who are rapists–yes, I’m talking to you, and yes, statistically, unless you live as a hermit in a one-room cabin in Montana you probably know at least one rapist in your social circle. Even if you don’t know who he is.

You don’t like the implications of discussing rape culture? Don’t dismiss those discussions; that doesn’t serve anyone except rapists. Do something about it.

Onyx, the Game of Sexual Exploration, version 3.5 now available!

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  • New Optional Rules
  • New Resizeable Gameboard
  • New Special Squares
  • New Actions
  • Newly Redesigned Graphics
  • New Roles
  • Improved Card Editor
  • Free Update for Registered Users!

Finally, after many months of coding, the new version of my sex game Onyx is ready! This new version is a significant overhaul, and contains tons and tons of new features and new game-play mechanics. It also contains lots of new actions (coming up with lists of hundreds of sexy things that people can do to each other is harder than it sound!).

To celebrate, I’m offering a special discount on registration if you want to play the full version. Of course, the free version is still free, and Onyx 3.5 is a free upgrade for registered users.

Check it out!

I Love Sex and I Vote

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A short while ago, i blogged that I was dusting off my “I Love Sex and I Vote bumper sticker in honor of Rush Limbaugh and the Religious Right’s appalling, savage attack on women.

I made the bumper sticker back in the early days of the George W. Bush Presidency, convinced that the right-wing’s attack on women generally and sex specifically was about as bad as it could get. I’m sorry to report that I was very, very wrong on that count.

Since I re-blogged the bumper sticker and the “I Love Sex and I Vote” icons that go with it, I’ve had a request to make the icons available in different sizes. I’ve also had several readers email or message me to ask if I would be willing to make more than just a bumper sticker with the logo on it.

So I’m pleased to announce I’ve set up a CafePress shop with all sorts of things featuring this logo, in addition to the bumper sticker. I’ve also put the original (100 by 100 pixel and 80 by 80 pixel) icons, as well as two new icons with a blue border available in a lot more sizes.

I think it’s important this election cycle to take a visible stand that slut-shaming is not an acceptable part of our society. It’s time to push back against people who believe that it’s okay to shame people, especially women, for the “crime” of enjoying sex.

Feel free to use the icons below for whatever you’d like.


350 x 350 pixels


250 x 250 pixels


200 x 200 pixels


150 x 150 pixels

          
100 x 100 pixels

          
80×80 pixels

Women’s rights and GLBT rights are human rights

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Note: I’ve started posting most of my writings about sex, culture, and society over to the Promiscuity Keepers Web site. The most recent post is an essay about why I, as a cisgendered straight man, care about the political assault on women’s rights and GLBT rights. Here’s a teaser:

Before I get started, though, let me say this: I am a white, cisgendered heterosexual man. That puts me in a uniquely privileged position; since I will never be pregnant, the assault on women’s right to choose doesn’t affect me directly. Since I am straight, the assault on the rights of gays and lesbians doesn’t affect me directly. Since I am a man, I am almost never the target of slut-shaming. I am, in other words, not the target of the campaign against women and gays that’s playing out on the airwaves and in the ballot boxes all over the United States right now.

But in a way, that’s kind of the point, because even though I am not the target of the attacks on women and gays, they still very much affect me. The thing is, these are not assaults on women’s rights or gay and lesbian rights; they are assaults on human rights. I am not gay and I am not a woman, but I am a human being. It would be a mistake for me to think that these things don’t affect me directly.

Let’s look at contraception. The debate over whether or not women should have easy access to contraception has turned into one of the defining issues in the current political discussion. Last October, presidential candidate Rick Santorum said “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s OK; contraception is OK. It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” …

Want to see more? Read the whole post here!

Up your bumper, Rush Limbaugh

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Some time ago, before Rush Limbaugh and his buddies launched their all-out assault on women in their effort to give the Democratic party a landslide victory this November, I created a bumper sticker over at Cafepress: “I (heart) Sex and I Vote”.

I abandoned Cafepress years ago. However, this sentiment seems far more relevant and necessary today than it did back then, so I’ve set up the store again.

So, here it is again. If you’d like to show Rush’s fans how you feel about sex, click here!

I’ve also created icons suitable for LiveJournal, Twitter, and other blogs and forums from the same design, which you are free to download and use however you’d like:

100×100 pixels

80×80 pixels

Sex for Science! Epilogue

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Sex for Science! Chapter 0
Sex for Science! Chapter 1
Sex for Science! Interlude
Sex for Science! Chapter 2
Sex for Science! Chapter 3
Sex for Science! Chapter 4

Last weekend was edwardmartiniii‘s birthday. Entirely on his own, with no input from me, he chose a theme for the party: a Mad Science Fair. Kind of like the science fairs that grade schools and high schools have, you see, only with significantly more insanity.

Regular readers of this blog are no doubt familiar with the ongoing saga of my quest to make a cheap, homebrew, thought-controlled sex toy.

I’m actually working on two projects in tandem: the Tormentor, a sex toy designed not to allow the wearer to reach orgasm, and a sex toy that is controlled by the wearer’s thoughts. I’ve been making significant progress on both fronts in the past few weeks, with prototypes for both a thought-controlled vibrator and the third-generation Tormenter now complete.

And, thought I, what better Mad Science Fair project than the thought-controlled toy?

I put together a display detailing the experiments to date, most of which took place in an especially seedy motel room in Seattle; you are, I’m sure, all no doubt familiar with that tale by now. I also loaded up new beta-test software into the modified EEG, this time intended not just to record a person’s brainwaves, but also to switch a vibrator on and off in response to them. This suitably equipped, we (zaiah and I) set out to the party, with the lovely shadow-5tails in tow.

The party proved fertile ground for test subjects, with a number of party-goers volunteering to have their brainwaves analyzed as they tried to switch a small egg vibrator on and off. (I have, it must be said, totally awesome friends; they give the best data!)

And, interestingly, more than half the people who volunteered to give the gizmo a whirl were able to make the vibrator switch on and off, even in noisy, crowded surroundings that made concentration difficult. Several people were able, with less than ten minutes’ practice, to switch the vibrator on and off at will, simply by thinking about it.

Which is hella cool, if you ask me.

I’ve put up a PDF of the display for the Mad Science Fair, “Analysis of the Practicality of Detecting Physiological Signals of Arousal in Adult Human Brains with Practical Applications of Brainwave-Controlled Stimulation Via Neurofeedback Control and Regulation of Vibratory Devices: A Hands-On Investigatory Approach,” which those of you who might find this particular flavor of mad science interesting can read at your leisure. Eventually, I plan to provide a detailed report of the equipment, software, and test results of the thought-controlled vibrator itself. Stay tuned!

Purity Bear: a creepy talking animal that preaches abstinence

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I wish I could say tat this is a parody, but it’s not. The folks behind the “Day of Purity” have released an unsettling video in which a creepy bear tells a kid “She may be cuddly, but look at me! I’m cuddly too!” to get him to say “no” to going in the house with his girlfriend.

Will the day ever come when these folks realize that preaching abstinence doesn’t work? How high do the rates of teen pregnancy have to get in the Bible Belt before folks figure this out?

Personally, I’m waiting for the inevitable: a newspaper runs a story involving Purity Bear being caught on videotape doing the nasty with PedoBear in some seedy Detroit motel bathroom.