The most recent “girlfriends ask, boyfriends deliver” inventor I’ve talked to is Jimmy, of Made to Pleasure, which launched on January 3. Made to Pleasure offers a few “off the peg” sex toys that you can just buy, but what sets it apart is the design-your-own toy boutique.

Using the online design tool, you start with a template and then add or subtract length, girth, swells, and dips. An animated 3D preview lets you examine your work closely from all sides. Choose from clear acrylic, gold, or silver and submit the order. How long it takes to receive your new functional sculpture (heh) depends on how complex your design and material.

The design tool is very well done, simple and effective, and includes enough Help documentation to warm my little tech writer heart.

Prices range from £80.00 for the off-the-peg 5.3-inch Ellipse to more than £500.00 for a 7.1-inch custom-made gold dildo.

I sent Jimmy an email mini-interview to get more background on the company and the custom design service.

Who are the people behind MTP? What is their background?

Myself and my business partner are the founders / owners and are both designers (both men by the way) and have worked in the design industry for 12+ years. We currently employ a female designer who takes the lead on design elements of the site and products and see that women will make up most of the design team as we grow and add product lines.

We came up with the idea for MTP when our girlfriends happened to strike up a conversation about the lack of thought that goes into existing toys. They liked the look and quality of Lelo’s toys but felt that there wasn’t something for everyone. We saw the potential for MTP then.

Have they designed sex toys before?

We haven’t no. But two of the regular testers have … before you ask, I’m not able to divulge who they are or who they worked for though.

How many testers, in total?

We worked with 23 testers on a regular basis and have one off feedback from another 8. We have an ongoing testing program to develop new shapes and materials. They age between 22 and 45 and are all in full- or part-time employment in various professions varying from secretaries right up to managing directors of blue chip companies. The boutique was developed in parallel with the toy designs and proved to be an amazing tool for them to express what they wanted. The feedback split roughly into 6 types of preference of use, which are represented by the 6 Off The Peg designs. As you may have realised, you can take each of the range into the Boutique and tweak them to fit your own preferences.

How long does it take to receive the bespoke toy after ordering?

If it’s clear acrylic we can do it within 2 weeks, maybe faster in some cases, that’s delivered via UPS. Gold and Silver take at least 3 weeks. {Note from Regina: Made in and ships from the U.K.}

Yes, the plan will be to support simultaneous use of multiple devices.

The Vstroker/Fleshlight is a USB device and the Kinect camera and other motion-sensing cameras are typically USB, so as long as there is a device driver for every USB device, we should be good to go.

The challenge of course is making sure the sensations that occur in devices like the vStroker and RealTouch work with what’s happening on screen and in-game and that requires good old-fashioned programming.

ThriXXX’s Hentai 3D title has some non-human avatars. Ever since writing my (non-hentai) story for Tentacle Dreams, I’ve noticed tentacles everywhere in real life, in non-menacing ways: the plant that keeps trying to twine its way into my screen door, the curlicue decorations in a restaurant’s breakfast room, Rapunzel’s hair in Disney’s movie Tangled, a sculpture of a deer in a downtown gallery that has these amazing swirly antlers.

I’d love to see more of this sort of thing. One of the complaints about the current state of 3D sex games is that the avatars aren’t realistic enough and the animation not smooth enough to stop being distracting. Yet, we all know that will improve, and one’s imagination can fill in for a lot anyway. (I wrote about that in Sex Drive: Smart Girls Need Smart Porn.)

But if the characters aren’t trying to look like idealized humans, the engagement of getting into the fantasy can overpower the distraction of “hey that’s not how a boobie would move in real life.” (For me, anyway.) And since it’s going to be more engaging in a game than in a porn movie with actors in costume (I cringe just writing that!), it’s the perfect place to experiment. Especially with the slow but inevitable development of engaging more and more of the senses in various ways.

But.

ThriXXX has been active in the 3D sex game space for years, and you might have already seen its trailer for its Kinect-enabled hands-on game. Sure, the hand is dismembered, but if you’re into the game, you won’t even notice. If you have a powerful enough imagination to hook yourself into a game like this (and I do), a little thing like a Thing avatar isn’t going to toss you out of the scene.

You can already interact with some of ThriXXX’s games with a Fleshlight and the VStroker interface. I don’t know if the new game will support a Kinect for your limbs and body with a Fleshlight for your cock at the same time — I’ll email the guys and let you know their answer, I’m sure I have their contact info around here somewhere — but I sure hope so.

I know a few different folks are working on bringing motion capture to real-time interaction between people in 3D platforms. I see ThriXXX’s Kinect hack as an interim step, or maybe a practice ground, that combines mocap and teledildonics. The games get you used to strapping on transmitters and controlling your avatar with your whole body. The next step will be playing with professional performers through their avatars, and then sex with long-distance lovers.

Perhaps we can even have the cybersex Renaissance some of us have been hoping for, and there will be peace on earth and goodwill toward geeks. RAmen.

But I got all nostalgic yesterday when I brought my packages home and found a press sample! It’s a Fleshdrive, a USB stick pre-loaded with porn videos. The idea is that you can keep all your naughty content on the stick and keep it away from your family, employers, roommates, and dogs.

It would be more discreet if it didn’t say FLESHDRIVE in all caps on the case. But other than that, it works as promised. Plug it in and the porn auto-plays. (It really does. No welcome screen, no menu, no track list. Just bonk chicka bow bow and the option to skip forward to the next track, whatever it may be.) You can add and remove files — all included clips are in Windows Media Player format — and of course Fleshdrive.com makes it very easy to purchase more.

A few years ago I talked to someone at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas about his porn USB product. (His flash drives were shaped like little toys or animals or something innocuous that I can’t remember.) He included a complete browser on the stick, so you could surf the adult internet without adding anything incriminating to your browser history or cache. In fact, I also remember talking with someone who had developed a browser that is completely encapsulated so that while you do run it on your computer, it doesn’t leak anything outside of itself, and you could watch porn and play in chat rooms and use your webcam and all that.

This doohickey is not that sophisticated, but it’s interesting to see that people are still trying to help consumers enjoy porn safely and privately, and to build businesses that depend on sexual stealth.

I figured it would, as the OhMiBod toys vibrate in response to audio, whether music or voice or random environmental sounds (depending on which toy you get). But you never know for sure unless you ask, so I called and spoke with co-founder Brian Vatter. “People already love to use the [wireless OhMiBod] Freestyle for voice, and adding video is remarkably relevant to the conversation,” he said. “It adds that third dimension. It’s a perfect fit.”

We also talked about Steve Jobs and his efforts to protect you from pornography and sex, and the struggle to get OhMiBod apps into iTunes, and whether Brian will be developing apps for Android OS in the near future. (You don’t need an app to use OhMiBod vibrators with any music player, but that’s not the point.)

In the meantime, Debby shares her experience and offers tips for getting the most out of your iThingie.

The Best (Phone) Sex of Your Life
The first thing that strikes you about FaceTime is that the image quality is incredible. Instead of some blurred-out cluster of pixels, your partner looks touchably real. You can see small movements and subtle expressions quickly flitting across faces. The second thing that subtly blows your mind is actually something you don’t notice: Because the screen and camera are essentially in the same place, you end up looking at your partner directly, skipping that weird sensation that you’re both staring at some point off in the distance. This leads to gazing, to intimacy, to locked eyes searching for glimmers of love, sadness, hurt, or mischievous excitement. And we all know where that leads: It’s a direct flight to Gettin’ Busytown.

[[Update: Debby posted her "author's cut" review on her own site, with more juicy details. Click here to read it at MySexProfessor.com.]]

Click here to see all the stats from the manufacturer.

For my first test, I chose the high setting — 120 F — and waited about 15 minutes for it to warm up. (That’s my best guess, as I was playing a word game on my Droid while I waited, which meant that time became even more abstract than usual.)

When the vibrator felt warm, I put the Droid down, lay back, closed my eyes, called up a reliable fantasy (you know who you are), and put the thing through its paces. Because this was for a review, I put up with the rabbit attachment much longer than I would have in real life.

Pipedream touts the bunny as a cock ring that you can use on other phallic structures, but don’t bother. It’s too weak to do anything more than get in the way. Even with my extra effort to position it, to push the bullet vibe deeper to get the ears to vibrate more powerfully, and to try other contortions I won’t go into, I ended up tearing it off the shaft and tossing it aside. It’s probably still under my dresser.

The warmth in the Body Heat shaft, though, is awesome. Sublime, even. I can’t believe a luxury vibrator designer has not incorporated a warming mechanism. Or if they have, why do I not know about it? The closest thing in my collection is an Elemental Pleasures Le Tigre that I got as a gift, and it warms only as a side effect of the powerful motor and the beautiful metal, not as a deliberate feature. Nor does it get this meltingly thermal.

The Body Heat’s rippled shaft creates a lovely massage effect during each stroke, while the angled tip gives you some options if you want to target a particular spot. The rotating beads enhance the massage with three motion patterns and speeds.

One of the reasons I am gushing about the heat and the massage is that I recently had to go off the Pill (migraines + over 35 = bad mojo) and chose the new-fangled Mirena IUD over a tubal or Essure for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the Mirena is more effective at preventing pregnancy. Even 10 days after my appointment, I was achy and sore, in places too deep to massage well, despite some truly heroic efforts. The Body Heat provides a surprisingly effective therapy and should be included with every Mirena procedure.

I ended up using the Eroscillator with the Body Heat shaft — I had that fantasy to finish, remember — and that combination resulted in a rather spectacular climax.

The device feels about the same middle-of-the-road quality as a Doc Johnson rabbit vibe, which is only $40ish (or $85 if you want the one that you can use with the HighJoy teledildonics system).

If the Body Heat replaces the useless bunny with an Eroscillator clone, it will be worth its current price. Until then — or until the Body Heat price drops to $80 — I wouldn’t splurge on it if I were on a tight budget.

In other words, it’s another consumer-level entry into the realm of internet-enabled appliances. Also known as teledildonics. Only in this case it’s a little bit sneaker than systems like HighJoy.

Unlike the industrial robot arm of the telerobotic garden of 1996, which let you water seedlings by controlling a robot over the internet, a hand is actually a sexual body part. But it’s not immediately sexual in the way a vibrator or butt plug is. And this particular manifestation will be relatively affordable: about $100 each, according to The Independent.

That means it will get a ton of press and start to infiltrate sitcoms and talk shows and CSI:Wherever and get people more accustomed to the idea that tech-enabled touch is not necessarily a gateway to a Terminator or Matrix universe. Even the mainstream press has started hinting that the hand will have implications for social media and online dating services.

Of course, that’s the zinger at the end, the subversive afterthought, the application that must be implied but not stated. Like all technological developments that have obvious sexual components, the initial use will apparently be among the most benign of circumstances.

“Although they can show their care through phone calls, physical touch is still a better way to express love. With the system, elderly people and their children and grandchildren can touch and hold hands via the internet and show affection directly,’ Liu said [according to this article].

I wonder why people assume that grandma’s first use of such technology would be to communicate with the grandkids? Does anyone really believe that sexuality ends the moment a grandchild is born? I can think of at least five things I plan to do with a telerobotic hand when I’m 80, and that’s without even trying. If, by then, the hand will be attached to a complete body running on the latest EmotIntel™ operating system, so much the better.

I suppose you and I should prepare to speak to another round of panic about technological touch replacing human connection.

On a personal note, re-reading some of my past columns about teledildonics made me nostalgic. How long ago it all seems!

Online Dating Meets Cybersex, 2005

Ins and Outs of Teledildonics, 2004

Second Life Gets Sexier, 2006

Actually, considering how many women have sex in their heads, the researchers might be on to something about where the g-spot really is. How often has a stray thought tossed you right out of sex? How often have you consciously directed your thoughts down a certain path to increase sexual sensation or pleasure? How many times has someone seduced you with words alone?

I have only reviewed a handful of sex toys in my articles, figuring that lots of people are specifically toy reviewers and my voice isn’t needed. But my beat has been the intersection of sex and technology, and occasionally a toy comes along that bespeaks a new direction or a particular innovation. I’ve highlighted a few of these, such as Je Joue’s original eponymous device and its successor, the SaSi.

Then…

The JeJoue was the first mainstream programmable clitoral massager, with nubs that mimicked finger or tongue motion instead of or in addition to vibration. You used software to create motion patterns you downloaded to the unit, so you or your lovers could customize the experience. Users could go online and share their patterns with other users. The general consensus was that women loved the feel of the device, but the programming was too much hassle.

Je Joue then came out with the SaSi, which had a similar nubby stimulator but scaled way back on the customizations. With the SaSi, you hold down a button for a pattern of movements that you like and hold a different button for a pattern that you don’t, and it remembers your preferences the next time. Not quite artificial intelligence, but not like anything else available, either.

…and Now; Or, the TMI Section

The G Ki is Je Joue’s attempt to make a toy that’s familiar and simpler and less expensive. It vibrates rather than strokes. All you can do is bend it into a couple of different U shapes in hopes that one will simultaneously hit your clit and your favorite internal spot (which may or may not be labeled G).

As vibrators go, I like it as a toy to use with partners, whether in person or online. The hands-free aspect of the toy and the necessity of fully engaging the brain for cybersex makes an effective pairing. Especially if you use a stability ball as your computer chair. (I’m just saying.)

The G Ki vibrating tip does have that clit-numbing effect that its cousin the SaSi does not; I couldn’t orgasm with the G Ki by itself. Your individual body and preferences are bound to be different from mine, so this may not be true for you. But during my solo tests, I had to grab the Eroscillator and keep the G Ki as merely an inside helper in order to get over the edge.

Yes But What Does It All Mean?

On a macro level, the G Ki is a bit of an eye-opener for me. That Je Joue had to backtrack yet another step to enter the sex toy mainstream boggles my mind. But at the 2010 AVN Adult Expo, the developers told me they chose to create the G Ki as a gateway to their more exotic wares.

The economy has something to do with it too — why spend an extra $50 to take a chance with the SaSi when you can get the G Ki for $99? Perhaps retailers are being more conservative with their stock for the same reason. Hitachi massagers, pocket rockets, and rabbit pearls are going to sell no matter what, so a high-tech upstart may need to create something familiar.

It’s a quality toy, with a lovely smooth surface, ergonomic controls, and a choice of four colors. And it’s deliberately less “techie” than the other Je Joue devices. Reading between the lines, I extrapolate that users aren’t quite ready to embrace the extra effort of the other toys even if it meant extra payoff.

As a person enthusiastic about drafting high tech into the service of sensual experience, I’m left bemused and somewhat adrift by this rejection of the more interactive devices, rudimentary as that interactivity is. But I do understand that when one is as busy as most people are, any extra effort may need to be reserved for one’s human partners.

Objections range from the glasses the viewers would have to wear to the excruciating detail that’s possible to capture in high definition 3D video.

Have these folks not seen Avatar? No, I’m not saying that IMAX 3D and James Cameron’s budget should become the new porn standard. But I do think that Avatar used its 3D wisely, in ways that translate well to erotic film. Think of how the little flower-spores drifted around us when the soldier first met the warrior. (That’s all I’m going to say as it’s already a spoiler; you’ll have to see it and you’ll know what I mean.)

Take a porn scene on the edge of a swimming pool. Couldn’t you extend the deck into the 3D space, perhaps add a deck chair to the right of the viewer and a side table to his left? If there’s a splash, let some of the droplets flutter around him? Surround him with sound. Put him in the set, if not into the sexual performance, and don’t overdo it. If he’s alone and the scene is done well, he’s going to forget he’s wearing the glasses.

Besides, a lot of us have to wear glasses to watch video. You get used to them in about 10 minutes. Home-based 3D is improving all the time, and people are going to start demanding — and then purchasing — good, solid 3D glasses. And they will get used to wearing them.

Extend the idea further to the guys who have a Virtual Sex Machine or a Real Touch device. Both of these products add physical stimulation keyed to video, with the video often shot in first person, to give the illusion that you are the guy in the scene. This sounds like the perfect opportunity to experiment with 3D. You have a guy willing to deal with buying and setting up a sucking/stroking/warming/squeezing machine, willing to put himself into the action as best he can despite the crudity of the current state of the art. A subtle use of 3D is just the thing to extend his experience.

The challenge is convincing adult producers to do it right.

It’s interesting and cute, a home version of the intimidating, industrial, and totally hot Chainsaw Masochist at fuckingmachines.com.

I’m annoyed by the marketing, though. I know it’s tongue-in-cheek (heh), but to claim that because this machine feels so good that “your boyfriend should be worried” just ticks me off. There is still too much worry about this ludicrous idea for me to find it funny. I’m not offended by it, I just think it’s an irksome way to go, and that it has the opposite effect of of the intention: selling the toy.

For one thing, if a man actually believes that and gets nervous or even prevents his partner from having sex toys, then both partners are deprived of a pleasurable exploration and also won’t buy the Sqweel. For another, this toy will work just as well (or not-well) on a man as on a women. It’s the vibration that makes vibrators so “meh” for a lot of men, not the fact that it’s a sex toy — don’t you think this might feel great on the head, shaft, scrotum, or perineum? Or even nipples?

Love Honey does recommend trying it on various areas, using it with partners, and that it is in actuality a machine for any and all sexes. Perhaps I’m just cranky because I’m traveling without a partner or a Sqweel to ease my tension. *evil grin*

Anyway. So far that’s my gripe as I haven’t actually used it yet. I have my testers — man and woman — lined up for the weekend of October 24th, after which I will share our thoughts on the subject right here in this very blog.

Look at what this engineering major with sexuality minor came up with:

Photos & Story of Sleek Steam-Powered Vibrator

its been proven to work (and vibrate) off of compressed air, I’m seeking a more powerful boiler than my pressure cooker so I can actually run it off of steam so please let me know if you know of one.

this is prototype so its got some quirks, the engine isn’t quite as optimised as I would like (it takes way more pressure than it should to get it working) and the offset weight I need to machine some more.

it weighs about a pound (5/5: measured it and its close to 2.5lbs exactly) and is pretty damned smooth to the touch. when I tried to run it off of steam earlier though it got REALLY hot, you have to wear like welding gloves to hold it and even then its almost too hot to handle. another reason I’m using compressed air for the moment.

She says she’s going to “bend it” into a g-spot vibrator next time she’s at the shop.

I think it’s awesome. Although, I do wonder how you make welding gloves fit you on the … never mind.

Earth Angel Wind-Up Vibrator
Why? Because the new vibe from Irish company Caden Enterprises is the world’s first 100% green sex toy. It’s made from totally recycled material and it never needs replacement batteries because its power comes from a patented rechargeable cell.

To get the vibe to work, you have to wind it up using a handle in the base. It’s like cranking up one of those Freeplay Radios, only with much more pleasurable results…

Crank the handle in a clockwise direction for 4 minutes and you’ll earn yourself 30 minutes of vibrations. If that’s more than you need in a single orgasmic session, you can use the on/off button to store up the power for later.

Wind it for 8 minutes and you’ll get an hour of vibrations, which is a good job because your arm won’t be good for much else after you’ve been winding like a mentalist for that long.

Happy sexy Earth day!

I’ve seen couple of sex toy recycling program websites over the years that turned out to be hoaxes, but just this year a legitimate program :

sex toy recycling program
The Sex Toy Recycling Program, was launched in December 2008, and was certified by the Institute For Green Business in January, 2009. This “non-profit” program was founded by David Kowalsky of Dreamscapes, LLC and Jean Kozlowski in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the adult novelty industry. To view or Green Certification documents click here.

We take pride in our country and support our economy, by making certain that all the post recycled materials stay within the United States and are used to produce a variety of environmentally friendly and recycled products made by US manufacturers. Furthermore, we strive to purchase working materials that are made in the USA.

We give back by donating all monies we receive from the purchased recycled materials to local and national environmental causes.

We are the first and only Sex Toy Recycling Program that is nationally recognized as a Green Certified Business. Ninety percent (90%) of items we receive are recycled by material specific recycling centers. To clarify, the rubber, silicone, hard plastics, metals, motors, e-waste, and packaging are all separated and sent to designated recycling facilities.

As a consumer driven program, we look to the consumer as well as within our industry for program support. We thank all of our corporate sponsors, program affiliates and environmentally supportive consumers who make this program a possibility.

I feel like I need a ticker to scroll across the lower third: Not this ugly IRL.

So, for those of you who have wanted to play with webcams as part of your sexual exploration or working on improving your body image, I amend all my previous writing about webcams to add this suggestion: invest in a good webcam or video camera that you can plug in and use separately from the integrated cam.

The on-board cam is great when in stealth mode (coffee shop, airport, office) chatting with people I already know (because, of course, they know I’m pretty IRL, LOL). But as a first impression in an adult cam room? No thanks!

This is the one I use: