So Franklin Veaux has been working for awhile on a sex toy controller he calls “The Tormenter.” Apparently it features a programmable Arduino board so that an insertable buzzy sex toy can be turned on and off in unpredictable patterns over a lengthy period of time, for the purpose of arousing, but not satisfying, the user.

I’ve seen his tweets from time to time, but I’ve been kinda “Meh, mad science” about the idea. But he recently tested a prototype, and I have to say, I quite enjoyed reading the test subject Lapis Lazuli’s subjective impressions:

The device cycles between 11 different patterns (for now), and is USB enabled so that more can be uploaded. But those patterns aren’t static. Like, there’s one that’s just on-off pulses, but that pattern picks a random number of pulses each time. Even if I recognized it, I didn’t know how long it would last. And there were a few longer patterns that started with on-off pulses, too, so I didn’t know that it wouldn’t turn into one of those.

So, between the randomness of pattern order, and the random variables within individual patterns, I couldn’t recognize any of them. This functioned as intended.

Some of the patterns were really short, some were really long, most were in between. The short ones were just enough to remind me that I was wearing a vibrator in public, but not long enough for me to get any pleasure from. The long ones were agonizing because they actually did arouse me, and yet weren’t long enough for me to do anything about it. The medium-duration ones were sufficiently arousing and frustrating. I believe at the time I said the average duration should be longer, so that there would be more arousal (and therefore frustration) and less simple startle.

Just more proof, as if we needed any, that mad science is nothing without enthusiastic test subjects.