DOLPHIN CO.

Teledildonics is the field of computer-controlled sex toys. They have been around since the '80s, and show great promise, though in a lot of cases we are still waiting for that promise to be delivered.

Consider the possibilities of computer-controlled sex toys: couples in long-distance relationships can have sex even when they are apart; servicemen deployed overseas can still mainain a sexual relationship with their partners, and even people looking for casual sex can do so without fear of STDs and stalkers. Sure, it's not as good as the real thing (as anyone who has tried "cybering" knows), but it is a lot better than just "hot chatting" at the keyboard. Another use is enhanced porn, with physical stimulation, for those who are not in a relationship. So why isn't everyone using teledildonics?

The problem is availability. A lot of the early teledildonics devices were very expensive, one-off devices, like this one from Thrillhammer. Very impressive to read about, but most people can't afford one.

There have been a couple of widely available teledildonics devices: the first one we ran into was the High Joy. Their main product is a Doc Johnson rabbit vibrator that has had some electronics added to it. (They also have a control box that can be used with egg vibrators.) It plugs into your computer and, as long as you have a membership on the High Joy website, other members can control the device over the web. The devices are well made; they actually seem a little more robust than the usual Doc Johnson stuff. This is a good setup for a couple that wants to do remote sex. It is not so good for those looking for casual hookups, since you are limited to people who are members of the website. (By the way, the devices can also be used as regular sex toys when you are not online.)

Sinulator was another device like the High Joy. It had a very nice control box that could be used to control two egg vibrators, or any other plug-in accessories. It had a series of modes that would turn the two vibrators on and off in various sequences. It had a little dongle that plugged into your computer, and communicated with the controller the same way a remote mouse or keyboard would. This is nice, because you aren't tethered to the computer all the time. Unlike High Joy, the Sinulator did not require a website membership; once you bought the device and registered it with Sinulator, you could let anyone control it through the Sinulator website by giving them the ID of your device. This was a lot more convenient than the High Joy, since you could play with people who were not members. Unfortunately, just selling the devices, and not having the continuing revenue stream from monthly website memberships, may not have been enough for Sinulator, as they seem to have disappeared, and their website is no more. Although it is no longer possible to control the Sinulator devices over the web, if you have one, you can still use it locally as a sex toy.

Real Touch is an interesting device. It is a male stimulation device that works with specially-created porno movies. The idea is that the movies are taken from the point of view of the man, and the device simulates the sensations you would feel if you were really there. They have some videos about it on their website, and it looks like they have put a lot of work into providing accurate sensations. The only problems I see with it are that it is kind of expensive (about $150) and it only works with their videos. If you decide you don't like their videos, or they don't release them fast enough, or, worse yet, if they go out of business, you are stuck with an expensive, useless piece of equipment.

The Interactive Fleshlight is a variant of the popular Fleshlight male masturbation devices. It adds a pressure sensor to the Fleshlight that plugs into your computer via a USB cord. As you stroke the device, it senses the changes in pressure inside the device, and can be used to control games. Slashdong, a website that writes about Teledildonics a lot, had a review of the Interactive Fleshlight last year that was pretty unfavorable. At that time, there was only one game available for it, and they thought it was pretty lame. Looking around on the net, I see that there are apparently several more games available now, so it probably deserves another look.

A sort of oddity of the teledildonics field is the Rez Trance vibrator. Rez was a game for the Sony Playstation 2 that was apparently like a first-person shooter game, unlike most FPS games, you were not shooting people. It has been described as a "music shooting game". The player is a futuristic hacker, navigating through the inside of a computer, sort of like in the movie Tron. While you are playing, the music changes based on what you are doing. To enhance the feeling of the game, they included a USB-controlled vibrator, which would pulse in time with the music. In an article on the Game Girl Advance website, a woman described sharing the game experience with her boyfriend by putting the vibrator in her panties.

A lot of what is going on in teledildonics these days is amateur stuff, which can be fun, but is not a universally accessible as something you can buy over the web. Most of the people using this home-brew stuff are computer geeks or girlfriends or boyfriends of computer geeks. (This is similar to the situation with computer-dating bulletin board systems in the early '80s, since only computer geeks had computers back then.) Of course, if you or your partner is a computer geek, this may be find.

The Rez Trance vibrator that I described earlier can be obtained from eBay for $40 to $50 dollars. Then you just need some software to control it. The Rez Trance vibrators are no longer being made, so they will continue to increase in price. Luckily, there is someone who sells the Drmn' Trance Vibrator V2, which is software-compatible with the original, but sells for a little less and is in current (though low-volume) production. The original Rez Trance vibrator has a somewhat awkward rectangular shape. This Drmn' Trance vibrator comes with a large bullet vibrator. If you don't like that, you can unplug it and plug in any other accessory sex toy your have.

So how do you control this device? One place to look is the Open Dildonics Wiki website. It has listings for commercial and open-source teledildonics software. There are sample programs that will run your Rez Trance vibrator, but I have not yet seen one for running it remotely. One interesting project used the Twitter public timeline to control a Rez Trance vibrator.

So the promise of teledildonics seems even farther off for the homebrew stuff. I am doing my part though. I have a few low-priority projects in the works:

• —Making the software for the Twitter-controlled Rez Trance vibrator more accessible. It built of several open-source components, and you have to be a computer geek to get it working. I would like to make it possible for anyone to use it.
• —Figuring out how to use any software that can control a Rez trance vibrator to control a Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator. Hitachis are very popular, and I have had a lot of fun using them with Rockler router speed controls. I am looking into how to remotely control the speed control via USB.
• —Way in the future, I'm considering whether setting up an Auto Suck device for remote control would be fun. (I first heard about the Auto Suck about 30 years ago. Someone was passing an ad for it around the office as a joke. I just discovered that they are still around. It would be fun to bring them into the 21st century by adding teledildonic control.)

While we are are still waiting for the promise of teledildonics to be available to the masses, there is enough going on that we can still remain hopeful.

—SexNRope