My introduction to the Destructoid tip line

Sex Shorts and other weirdness

So, one of the main benefits of joining the writing staff here is that I’ve been included on the tip line. Basically, anyone in the world can send an e-mail to tips@destructoid.com, and the writing staff can sort through those submissions and see what’s worth investigating further. As you might imagine, that inbox can fill up pretty quickly, and some of the stuff that lands in there is tangentially related to video games at best.

While I haven’t been doing this for long, without question, my favorite news release so far is for Vylyv (pronounced Vill-liv), which is basically a Fitbit for your crotch. It’s a set of stretchy shorts with a sensor that clips in so that you know how often you’re exercising your pelvis. Wearable technology is an emerging field, so I’m not surprised that someone went and combined it with a sex trainer right away… I’m just disappointed. I invite you to watch the YouTube video explaining the product:

I’m not sure if my favorite part of the video is at 1:45 when the personal trainers start yelling at our hero’s meat banana, or later on at 2:35 when he uses his grundle to play a stripped down phone version of Audioshield. I think that latter bit might be why it landed in our inbox. You’ve gotta admit that it’s a new, innovative way to play a game. According to the e-mail we got, “it’s the first pelvic floor strengthening (Kegel exercise) shorts for men and it enables guys to play app games using their own ‘joystick!'”

I’d like to see this concept taken further, actually. Endless runners like Temple Run seem like they could easily be converted to be compatible with this technology, but why stop there? Perhaps they could make it so that one person could play Rez with their shorts, and another can just enjoy the ride. 

Maybe it’s just me, but this seems like a lot of expense and effort to go to for an exercise that you can pretty much practice by interrupting your pee stream midflow. To be perfectly honest, I’m also a little wary of having anything that carries a current and wires so close to my frank and beans. And I don’t necessarily want to disparage the electrical engineering that went into this product, but the spelling in the fabrication video leaves a lot to be desired.  

Senor… Cardgage?

Anyway, I thought the rest of y’all might get a kick out of this, a little peek behind the curtain, as it were. And hey, who knows? Maybe this is exactly the product you’ve been looking for. Their Indiegogo page very specifically says you can fund the project while remaining anonymous, so go nuts.