I realize that iPhone apps are a lot like those stupid Facebook quizzes people keep sending me. They don’t mean shit. They’re fun and easy and not to be taken seriously. So I guess I can’t really get too annoyed by the new Love Vibes iPhone app, which grades its owner’s lovemaking skills. The app, with its use of the motion sensors and accelerometer on the phone, and referencing the results of surveys done on “thousands of couples,” measures your performance based on several criteria and gives you a score on a scale of one to ten as to your prowess in the sack. It is the first motion-sensor oriented adult themed (and one of very few adult-themed) apps that Apple has officially endorsed by putting it on the Apple iPhone App store. One of its creators, Taylor Bayouth, partially explained his weird invention by saying, “I think there are two big questions people ask themselves. ‘What is the meaning of life?’ and ‘Am I good in bed?’ With the science we’ve utilized for Love Vibes(TM)
Dude. Really? You think people really need their phones to answer this? I mean, if our phones started trying to wax philosophic to us about the meaning of life, wouldn’t we be skeptical? And correct me if I’m wrong here, but aren’t your sex partner’s reactions, and your own, usually a pretty measure of good sex? Or, if you’re in the porn biz, the jizz-spewing, clit-crushing reactions of your fans? Sure, chicks can fake orgasms, and sure, guys sometimes think their moves are hotter than they might really be, but…is it that hard to figure out? Do you really need an app for it?
I know, I know, “there’s an iPhone app for everything.” And I do know people with iPhones, and I how addicted they can get to their sleek little devices. The magnetism they exert over their owners is really astonishing, especially to little old me who’s still got a non-touch-screen flip phone. But being unwilling to put down the phone at dinner is one thing—taking it to bed with you is different. Imagine trying to convince your significant other, or one night stand, that it’s a good idea. And, for that matter, how are you expected to keep a grip on the damn thing during your sex sesh? I mean, if you’re really good at what you’re doing, shouldn’t it go flying? And crashing to the floor. And breaking…
Wait a second, I think I detect the scheme behind the first motion-detecting app to be approved by Apple! They’re hoping that, while boning, you’ll go so crazy to impress your phone that you’ll break it. Maybe Steve Jobs is sitting back behind his impossibly sleek, modern desk, grinning and waiting for the money to start pouring in.
Anyway, back to the real issue here. Namely: OMG WTF! Sure, sex sells, and sure, everyone wants to know if they’re good at it. But the question of whether you’re a good lay is as subjective as questions come—pun intended—and how the hell is a cell phone supposed to know? According to the app’s website, “While personal preference plays a big role in this question there are many things that people tend to agree on. […] Our researchers have coalesced hundreds of data points taken from thousands of surveyed couples.” Using their input, the app uses the iPhone’s motion sensors and accelerometer to record your duration, stamina, variety, and passion, giving each one a rating from one to ten; compiles your overall lovemaking score (again, one out of ten); and then compares your score (on a scale of one to ten) to the thousands of experts they polled. And that’s how you know how good you are in bed.
I’m wondering how these people came to be such know-it-alls. And what they’re like. Are they heterosexual? If not, how did they measure the lesbians’ sessions? How about foreplay? Oral sex? I bet a lot of gay couples who primarily engage in oral sex can’t use Love Vibes. How will they ever know if they’re any good in bed? Discrimination in even the smallest of things, folks.
Again, I realize that iPhone apps and their results aren’t meant to be taken as the gospel truth and I’m probably getting in way deeper than I need to. I realize they’re just for fun. Games, gimmicks. And this one perhaps even more so than most. But, in all seriousness, do we really want another outside source peeking into our bedrooms, telling us what to like and feel and do during sex? We’ve already got the government, organized religion, parents, societal norms, Cosmo, and Hollywood sex scenes breathing down our necks, telling us what’s ok behind closed doors, turning us into a nation of paranoid sexophobes all convinced we don’t measure up. Do we need our phones in on the mess, too?
That’s why we like porn here at WHACK! It doesn’t tell us what to do or give two shits whether it’s done right or wrong. If it looks good, and it’ll get somebody off, then great! Put it on camera! That’s why we love porn stars, too. They won’t judge us for our sexual habits or preferences because they’ve all seen and done a lot worse. They’re out there, on camera, having dirty, filthy, kinky sex on camera and they don’t give a fuck who sees or who disapproves. That’s how we should all be doing it. Fuck the rules—it’s fucking!
At WHACK! we recommend more out-and-out porn apps. Forget the judgmental hoo-ha and just let people get off! I know that Apple doesn’t approve of such things and will never officially endorse any really explicit apps for the iPhone, but the mobile device porn market is a-booming in Europe and Asia, and any manufacturer who wants to be on the forefront of technological advances in mobile devices would do well to remember that porn has always driven the direction of technology by its sheer profitability. In the 80’s, VHS tapes took over the market rather than BETA because porn went that route. In the 90’s porn went to DVD before most other media, and it’s already made the internet its own. Anybody with an eye for technological profit should be jumping on board the phone porn bandwagon.
And many have. Love Vibes is far from the first iPhone app to have an adult theme. iPorn, an independent app with its own website and absolutely no approval from Apple, netted 45,000 users in its first month on the market. iVibe turns your phone into a vibrator (although I imagine that could be a little on the unsanitary side). There are multitudes of titillating apps you can enjoy—some of them for free—without having to deal with Love Vibes telling you how you should be fucking. You might be chuckling and saying, “Oh, Lagsalot, you’re always getting all uppity about silly things. It’s just an iPhone app.”
But, really, people, I want you to think about this. Who the hell are these people to tell us what to like and what not to like, what’s good and what’s bad? If we let ourselves be influenced by all the thousands of people out there who think they know about what makes good sex, we’d all be Indian-burning dicks and jiggling balls like dice as Cosmo suggests, or trying to get men to turn their pecs into female breasts, which Armani seems to enjoy.
The thing is, there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to “make love.” As long as everybody and everything involved is in it for good reason and enjoying it, sex is kind of a free for all. Nobody besides the person or people you’re having it with should be able to tell you that you’re good or bad at it. If they try to, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, do they? And a phone? Not even a phone but an app on a phone? C’mon people. Do what you like.
But, then, I don’t even have an iPhone. Personally, I prefer to keep it that way and avoid such moral conundrums as this. But maybe there’s something I just don’t know. I guess I can see how Love Vibes would be fun to play around with, if sex isn’t quite fun enough on its own. Or, I’m sure you could get creative with ways to try to convince the program you’re having sex when you’re not—would sitting on a washing machine on the spin cycle work? Riding a city bus? Shaking it vigorously apparently does not.
Has anyone out there in pervert-topia downloaded this weird application of technology? We assume a lot of you don’t get laid often enough to get away with occasionally bringing your phone along for the ride, but if you have, let us know how it goes. – Miss Lagsalot