It’s smooth, it’s curved, it vibrates; it could even, if so desired, animate pictures of George Clooney’s fingers. It’s no surprise then that there are already some 25 “massage” apps competing on the iTunes Store, jostling for attention like so many buxom babes in the back of a local city guide. Some focus on the serious business of physical therapy and raise the bar with yogic text and oriental graphics; others coyly reference ‘emotional stimulation’; few come out and risk the wrath of Apple’s censors by telling it like it is.
Which is, Ladies and Gentlemen (or just you ladies then, since the lads are on Safari searching for visual titillation), a Pocket Rocket you can talk on! A mini orgasmatron that integrates with your social networks! That’s right, Christmas has come early - pun intended. The geeks have been promising it for years, now the fully converged, handheld entertainment device has arrived. Is that a massage app in your pocket, or are you just very pleased to see me?
Stop. Deep breath… Now, before we go any further… an important disclaimer: Application developers cannot control the hardware that vibrates the individual handsets. (Nor, as we shall see, can they control the susceptibility of individuals to those vibrations). Most massage app promotion pages mention this, along with frequent reminders to turn off the ringer. The prominence they give the disclaimer reflects which side of the therapy vs stimulation dial they favor.
Of course, like most mobile apps, they do basically the same thing as the other apps in their group (in this case, activate the silent ringer mode/vibrate mechanism of the handset at varying speeds). The differentiation is in those devilish details. There’s the Neck Massage, the Sole Massage, the iHand Massage, the Japanese shiatsu Massage… then there’s the little chap that boasts ‘unlike other iPhone massage apps, this is advertisement free!’ (What, no online dating click-thru?? Boo!) On the classier side, we have the Pocket Massage from Saltlick Labs. With its promise of ‘a portable spa experience’, tasteful rice paper screen door designs and ‘authentic background music’, this is surely one for the discerning business traveler on the go, the Aman beach resort of Toys-in-Babeland. iMassage Me on the other hand opts for lack of pretension with the simple description “A great relaxation tool :D”, leaving it’s user-reviews to push home the message. “Wow, I just wish it was stronger!” comments LotusGurl.
Indeed, the user reviews are generally most telling. “This little gem puts the spark back into my long stressful day,” says BellaBuzz about myMassage. “I also like that this icon is more discrete on my screen.”
“This has enough speed and variation to provide me with a quick massage during my lunch break,” writes LoFlo19. “This helps turn my day around.”
But iTunes shoppers in search of cheap thrills are better off leaving Healthcare & Fitness for Entertainment, where apps like the Emotion Toy get down to business. With its Age 17 + download restriction, warnings of smut content and promisingly Chinglish product description “Have you ever imagine iPhone can listen to your desire and serve you align with your emotion?”, this app has so much red light district appeal you might think it was marketed at men.
It is of course interesting to note that this gradation of services and the way they are sold correlates to the physical world and its yellow page classifieds and free hotel hand-outs, with their nuanced strata of professional masseuses, escorts and thinly-disguised hookers. The app store is fast becoming a virtual analog of our cultural behavior, and mobile media too has to play by society’s rules.
But let’s not get caught up in morals, when we can run with the fun stuff instead. Now that the collective twisted genius of the developer community has figured out how to make this wonderful invention buzz on demand, what happens in future when they integrate the rest of the functionality? How will film-makers picture it? Next year’s steamy screen romance could be “10 and a half Weeks”, and instead of the ice cube scene, the audience is treated to a Gen Y Mickey Rourke filming his mouth in close up and transmitting the video in real time to his love kitten writhing round her candy-bar Samsung. Think this could give the term ‘Phone Sex’ a whole new meaning? It’s already being done. Check out an app called Remote Masseuse. “Enter a Network Session to find someone else to massage you over the Internet,” says the iTunes page. “Great for long-distance relationships,” comments Goemon047. “It VIBRATES – weeeeee!!”
All you have to do is join the dots with say, another app called iBrate Vibrate. “One finger for slow kneading pulse, Two for fast-paced percussion effect, Three for invigorating massage.” Just two fingers and you get full-on drums? Yowza! Could four, one wonders, bring on ze double bass? For anyone familiar with the revolutionary controls of the iPhone, it’s not hard to imagine a time when teenagers will be teased about their touch screen technique.
“Are you - giggle giggle - a slider or a pincher?”
OMG, the possibilities for parlor games are endless!
But before you dismiss this as the drooling fantasies of some gadget fetishist sicko (I stand accused), keep in mind that it was fully 10 years ago when an entrepreneur friend was threatening to distribute “Pager panties” to novelty stores across America. Indeed, it might yet happen. And who could forget that other milestone in the convergence of telecom and sex from back in the ‘80s, the transistor radio condom that played the Japanese national anthem at the point of ejaculation? Since Mercury and Eros first disco danced over the Acropolis, the histories of their respective arts have been inexorably intertwined.
So just think twice before handling Auntie’s phone. Or when someone asks you to give them a buzz, feel free to raise an eyebrow.