This article contains sexually explicit material.
In a contest reminiscent of the mythical battle between David and Goliath, a group of teenagers is crowdfunding a product to compete with one of the biggest names in porn. The goal: to create the one true wearable masturbation device.
Pornhub announced last week that it had created the Wankband, a device that stores usable energy based on the wearer’s wrist movements. The day before the announcement, a group of Virginia teens launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund a wearable device that aims to “count your strokes” and make men into better lovers. They call their product the Beater Meter.
As with all great American inventions, the idea for the Beater Meter started with some sophomoric bullying. One of eighteen-year-old founder Rishub Nagpal’s friends got a smartwatch, and after his friends teased him about the design, they asked him if he had watched porn on it. The logical next step, obviously, was to create an app that could analyze a smartwatch-wearer’s masturbation data. Nagpal discovered an app for Pebble smartwatches called Fapp, but it wasn’t up to his standards.
“It didn’t have good reviews,” he told the Daily Dot. “It was pretty basic. My friends and I decided to expand it, make it integrated, and make it fun.”
The teens have tuned their algorithm to produce pretty reliable results, but co-founder Forrest Cinelli said that the next step is to incorporate noise-detection data and the watch’s accelerometer.
Although their Indiegogo page says that they’ve done most of their testing with “a single Moto 360, exchanged across our team time and time again,” Nagpal said that they’ve been taping their phones to their wrists to do the bulk of the testing. It has worked so well for them that they’ve made one of their campaign’s rewards a “special wrist strap so you can attach your smart phone [sic] to your arm and still use the app.”
Masturbation apps have a tricky history. Just last month, Jonas Zamora told the Daily Dot about his unresolved quest to bring a cheeky masturbation app to the App Store. Apple CEO Tim Cook has kept App Store rules tight based on Steve Jobs’ belief that Apple should offer its users “freedom from porn.”
These problems aren’t just limited to men, either. Last April, an educational app called Happy PlayTime, which aimed to teach women about self-pleasuring, was swiftly rejected from the App Store.
The Beater Meter might not be able to charge your iPhone like Pornhub’s device can, but what the teens lack in technical offerings, they make up for with a positive spirit—and good PR. Once they get their product off the ground, they plan to donate a portion of their ad revenue to their company’s charity program. It’s called Beat it to Beat it and it aims to “raise awareness and fund research for testicular cancer.”
Pornhub may be the giant in the wearable-masturbation-tech field, but no polished marketing campaign from smut-peddling adults can match the earnest spirit of horny teens.
Screengrab via Indiegogo