FleshPuppets.Com
Let me be upfront. Fleshpuppets.com is
preverted with a capital prevert, and _highly_ unsuited for children,
the elderly, those with pets, heart conditions, and anyone else with a
shred of human decency. We here at SurReview have only seen it because
someone we know was contracted to write some Javascript. That
disclaimer aside, FleshPuppets.com is a Thailand-based live video
conferencing pronography website that gives us a funhouse view of the
future of sex: a melding of man and machine both fascinating and
horrifying.
Before you get too excited, the URL doesn't
work yet. The whole site is in serious beta (as will become clear,
there is more here to debug than JavaScript) and the operators are
paranoid enough about the authorities that for now it functions on a
need to know basis -- if you're a big consumer of internet
pornography, especially one with 'exotic' tastes, the odds are that
they know about you and will be sending you a sales pitch shortly.
Some history: Jeff Ballentine was a
graduate student at MIT's department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
during the mid-eighties, researching ways to overcome paralysis by
mimicking nervous system function with artificial electrodes. After
being expelled for allegedly distributing experimental psychoactive
drugs to undergraduates, he bummed around Europe and Asia for a while,
eventually gravitating to Thailand where the political climate was
tolerant of his more esoteric research. Rumors have it that he got
involved in the Thai sex industry, providing customized chemicals and
electrical stimulation to enhance the pleasure of those long jaded by
the appeal of raw Thai flesh.
Ballentine has put that knowledge to use at
fleshpuppets.com. It's a live video-conferencing site, where
'fleshpuppets' perform a wide variety of sexual acts. But instead of
performing a set show, or being told what to do, the fleshpuppets
really are puppets -- their 'strings' are electrodes subcutaneously
implanted into their muscles. By using a custom-built controller to
control the signals those electrodes send, you can make the
fleshpuppets move almost any way you want; rub, stroke, massage, jab,
punch, or writhe on command. As an added bonus, pressing the F3 key
(why the F3 key, I wonder?) injects your fleshpuppet with a large dose
of Noratrazol, a drug that causes spontaneous orgasms in women.
The system is not perfect: the controller
has a moderate learning curve, and the movements are often
clumsy. Once my fleshpuppet's right arm convulsively jerked upward
again and again, sort of like a black power salute. Since there's no
control over the tongue, if you want them to speak you have to tell
them what to say (undoubtedly they're well trained), but all in all
this is so close to mind control it's frightening.
On top of this basic setup there are a few
extras. If you get tired, there are pre-recorded programs. And you can
record a favorite sequence of actions as a macro, to be replayed again
and again -- by repeated application of this, one could theoretically
work up some pretty interesting modern dance routines, just like Stelarc.
Future plans include pairings of
fleshpuppets -- it's impossible to control two at once, but one could
be either set on autopilot, left to their own free will, or be
controlled by another person. Perhaps this will be a great aid to
couples separated by space -- if they can't be near each other, at
least they can telefuck each other each other through fleshpuppets in
a dank room in Thailand. Maybe it's better than phone sex -- who
knows? And no doubt those interested in gender-blurring will rapidly
colonize this niche of the pornographic ecosystem as well.
One suspects that this job is hard on the
fleshpuppets; all of the ones I saw had a few bruises. Although only
God knows where those might have come from in the Thai sex industry, I
imagine most of them came from fleshpuppets.com. I have no doubt that
much of the appeal of fleshpuppets is S&M oriented -- the ability to
make one of the fleshpuppets grab herself and squeeze, harder and
harder, through cries of agony, until she nearly passes out from the
pain, undoubtedly appeals to someone. Perhaps
It is proper SurReview protocol to write a
paragraph exploring the future implications of all this; however, I
don't think I can. Pornography has always been a big motivator of
technology, and I'm sure this technology will be even further
exploited. Maybe they'll move into snuff, and let you kill someone for
a little extra. What's next? Horses? Strippers hooked up to Nintendo
game controllers? I'd rather not think about it.
