Cell Phones That Do It
By Regina Lynn
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66052,00.html
02:00 AM Dec. 17, 2004 PT
A few columns ago, I mentioned my longing for a Treo 650. It's a cell phone, yes, but it's also a camera, an MP3 player, a phone book, an organizer. You can browse the web, check your e-mail, chat over IM, create spreadsheets and edit Microsoft Word documents, all from a device that fits in a shirt pocket.
With all of the business functions covered, I suppose it's no surprise that the next big thing in cell phones is to turn them into sex toys. In fact, one of the Wired News editors says it was a natural progression, considering everything else you can do with the dang things. (When I put him on the spot with “Would you buy one?” he responded, suavely, “I prefer specialized devices. I'm not an all-in-one kind of guy.”)
First, there's the VibraExciter. This handsome device works in conjunction with any GSM cell phone, responding to incoming signals with a 30-second burst of buzz. It will respond to any phone call or text message within its 1-meter range — whether that call is to your phone or to somebody else's. It could be just the thing to stave off ennui at a Hollywood club, or to spice up the New Year's Eve party in Times Square.
Dial an Orgasm claims to “put the sex into phone sex” with its two cell-phone attachments, a butterfly-shaped clitoral stimulator and a “phildo” (I'll let you figure that one out on your own). These come in four colors, fit many kinds of phones and offer different vibration patterns for different ring tones.
Of course, not everyone wants to carry around yet another piece of hardware. If we did, we'd have no need for all-in-one mobile devices in the first place. If you have a compatible phone, and your provider lets you download Java, you can install Purring Kitty software and take total control over your cell phone's vibrating battery, whenever you want. If you have a Nokia phone, you can try the similar Blissbox Vibi application.
Homemade-Sex-Toys.com offers instructions for using your cell phone as a vibrator even without hard or soft accoutrements. It also provides practical tips, such as use a condom if you plan to put the phone inside you — or if you want to talk on the phone later.
Many of these devices were available in the United Kingdom long before they came to the United States, leading me to wonder just what, exactly, Americans are so afraid of. When Leander Kahney wrote about the launch of Purring Kitty in April 2003, the software developer worried that he wasn't going to be able to offer the product in the United States due to resistance from cell-phone service providers worried about carrying adult products. (And yet, the Yankee Group predicts a billion-dollar market for mobile porn by 2008. Go figure.)
I think it's common for us to greet new technologies with trepidation, even the innocuous ones that exist purely to bring a bit of pleasure into one's life. But video didn't kill the radio star, peer-to-peer file sharing has not put any huge music labels out of business, and vibrators are not actually all that new — the first mechanical stimulators came out in the late 1800s, invented to make doctors' lives easier by automating hysteria-curing clitoral manipulation. (Before the devices, doctors had to massage women's genitals by hand.)
Even the Bible Belt is starting to recognize the joy of “marital aids.” The Los Angeles Times recently reported on the uproar a chain of adult stores inspired in Kansas; a more recent story in the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle details new regulations these toy stores must comply with.
However, despite protests from some who have nothing better to do than judge others' sex lives, the stores have not been shut down. Apparently too many people, including local married couples, are interested in the merchandise for the protesters to force a closure.
There's a case to be made for trying something new and spicing up one's sex life with toys or other “adventurous” practices. According to an ABC News survey of American sex lives, “people who call themselves adventurous sexually are 10 points more apt to be very satisfied with their sex lives, 20 points more apt to enjoy sex a great deal and nearly 30 points more apt to call their sex lives very exciting. They're also much more likely to have sex at least several times a week — 62 percent of the adventurous do so, compared with 36 percent of sexual traditionalists.”
I can see cell-phone vibrators opening the doors for people who are otherwise embarrassed about sex toys. What starts as a joke, perhaps as a birthday or bachelorette party gift, might become the first step into a whole new realm of sexuality. I can also see the devices as a wonderful gift for travelers, who need not endure any more smirks from security guards at the airport. It's just a phone, right?
As for me, I didn't order the Treo 650. Realizing that I am also a specialized device kind of person, I bought a Dell Axim x30 (with portable Bluetooth keyboard) to be my lightweight writing machine and mobile internet access. I keep my cell phone for conversation and my sex toys for sex, and let each device do what it does best.
Links from the article:
http://vibraexciter.com/shop/erol.html
http://www.dialanorgasm.com/
http://www.vibelet.com/
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