Sex toys

I used to think “sexual enhancement” just meant “sex toys.” That is, until I started exploring the wonderful—and sometimes utterly weird—world of mechanical and electronic sex augmentations. Here’s what’s happening now and what will happen soon.

As you’ll see, existing innovations take our tongues, fingers, vulvas and penises to the next level. But the future of sex augmentations appears to lie in biometrics and in networking. Soon toys will learn from and interact with our bodies’ responses, with or without a partner, while teledildonics will help people separated by vast distances get closer (and wetter).

via Becoming a Sexual Cyborg (NSFW) – Sex Toys – Gizmodo.

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A call by university researchers for vibrator-seeking women has the local religious community hot and bothered

By Tracy Clark-Flory

Duke University researchers are looking for female students to attend a sex toy party, “engage in sexually explicit conversation” with other young ladies and, if they so desire, buy some titillating playthings at a great discount– all in the name of science. Wait a sec, no, make that “were looking,” past tense — all of the participant spots have filled up rather quickly. Fancy that.

Know who else has responded to the study just as feverishly? A religious leader on campus, whose blood pressure has risen for an entirely different reason: He’s pissed. Father Joe Vetter, director of the Duke Catholic Center, said: “I think it can give the impression that the university is endorsing behavior that I don’t think the university should endorse.” God forbid the university allow its researchers to issue an open call for women — that’s right, adult women — who are interested in attending a sex toy party to help further the study of sex. No one’s being forced into a sex den filled with vibrating silicone and rubber. Women are volunteering to check out some naughty novelty items and, both before and after, speak openly with researchers about their attitudes toward sex.

via Sex – Salon.com.

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In many ways, choosing a sex toy is not unlike buying a car. Walk into most adult shops, and the new-car smell is undeniable. Salespeople tout motor speed and durability. And then there are emissions to consider.

That’s carbon emissions, of course. As the green movement makes its way into the bedroom, low lighting is a must–to conserve electricity–but so are vegan condoms, organic lubricants and hand-cranked vibrators. (See five eco-friendly sex accessories.)

Another big enviro-sex trend: birth control that’s au naturel. Like all good Catholics, my husband and I had to attend church-run marriage prep before we tied the knot last year. I was surprised, however, during the hard sell on natural family-planning (NFP), that this updated version of the rhythm method was being advertised not only as morally correct but also as “organic” and “green.” I was even more surprised when I found out that some of the most popular instructors of NFP–known in secular circles as the Fertility Awareness Method–are non-Catholics who praise it as a means of avoiding both ingesting chemicals and excreting them into rivers and streams.

via Sex and the Eco-City: Getting It On Is Getting Greener – TIME.

During the most unwieldy parts of my pregnancies, the only way I could sleep was by spooning a huge plaid pregnancy pillow called something embarrassing like a Snoozle, or a Froogle, or a Foshizzle, or something or other. With me in my comfy flannel PJs, my pillow and I looked like a huge plaid G-clef, and my husband looked left out. Which is simply to say that yes, I know and embrace the wonder of a well-placed body pillow.

But now there is the Funktiontide — or at least there might be, says its designer Stefan Ulrich — and now, remarkably, we may behold something perhaps even more unsettling than the Real Doll. Ulrich says his pillow prototype, which would use advanced robotics and artificial muscle technology to move and change shape depending on how you hold it, is but a polymer harbinger of the day when bleak, alienated humans will turn to “robots” for emotional satisfaction. (Yeah, like I didn’t already do that with my second husband. Folks!) That, or as we see in this technically G-rated, but somehow NSFW video, maybe the Funktiontide is nothing more than a Shmoo with benefits.

While the video’s human co-star appears rather satisfied with his lot, Ulrich is not unaware that his Pillbury Dough-bot raises some juicy issues. “…[T]he the work’s intention is to create a provocative picture for discussion, which enables us to question how much we want technological products to satisfy our emotional needs,” goes his commentary. “The ambiguity of this scenario is, that it could be understood as a solution to a wide range of different kinds of loneliness. But it might as well be understood as a scenario which should be avoided by all means possible.” Speaking as someone who practically sleeps with her iPhone, I’m sure I have no idea what he’s talking about.

via Move over, Real Doll. Hello, robot sex pillow – Broadsheet – Salon.com.

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