Interactive Toys
I can always count on my friend George to keep me up on the latest currents in popular culture. Just last week, for instance, we were talking in a casual way about recent events around the country when the conversation — somehow — naturally touched on sex toys, dildoes in particular.
I wondered whether anyone had yet interfaced a GameBoy to a dildo. "Yes!" was George's answer. Well almost: not a GameBoy but a video game controller, to achieve novelty in control and interactivity. Do dildoes these days come with USB ports, I wondered.
Everyone was skeptical about the USB ports — there might be a patent in there someplace — but interested in this concept of the XXXBox + Dildo. There's even a name for it, George explained. Naturally, we bated out breath in anticipation.
"Teledildonics," he said.
Teledildonics. We rolled the name around in our mouths, trying it out. It's a little awkward, perhaps, but it does have a certain ineffable je ne sais quois.
Sure enough, I'm behind the curve on this one. Google returns some 112,000 results for "teledildonics". The idea, it seems, is bigger than just a dildo plus a video-game controller — it's more like a total-body experience between you and your computer, assisted by one or more friends out on the network somewhere.
Wikipedia claims (entry for "Teledildonics") that the word was coined by Ted Nelson in the 1980s — see also "cyberdildonics". Boing Boing mentions it briefly ("Violet Blue's Teledildonics show-'n'-tell photoblogged"). Wired News has a story on it ("Ins and Outs of Teledildonics" — it seems the puns are irresistable). Even Time magazine has a story about it ("Will Cybersex be Better than Real Sex?"). Teledildonics.com wants to be our one-stop resource for all things teledildonics, but it's way too heterosexually oriented to be a success.
The concensus seems to be that teledildonics will be a great new thing in the future, but that the technology isn't even close yet. Sort of the AI and natural-speech recognition of the sex industry. Still, those pioneering efforts can be, um, satisfying.