Thursday, December 4, 2008
Safe sex and spontaneity have always been odd bedfellows. It’s tough to stay in the moment and still have the forethought to have a condom handy. So, anything that allows safe sex and even gives condoms the mere potential to be more romantic would be a welcome innovation, indeed.
Sadly, this isn’t it.
This is, however, likely to become one of the greatest novelty gifts of all time.
It’s the Force-Sensitive, Sound-Playing Condom. The U.S. patent holder, Paul Lyons of Southbridge, Mass., has found a way to combine tried and true prophylactic technology—your basic condom—with piezoelectric sound transducers—think old-school cell phone ringtones—to create the first musical condom.
Though it would look and function just like a regular condom, this invention would also allow the user to record a song, message or sound effect to the tiny chip contained in the base of the condom. This sound would then be played on a loop when the contacts of the circuit are closed during use, and the transducer is “activated by forceful movements.”
The recorded sound could be anything from a romantic message, a clip of your partner’s favorite love song, or the dirty talk you’ve been thinking to yourself but hadn’t yet got up the nerve to say out loud. If it doesn’t go over well, you can just blame it on the condom.
Though it’s currently just a patent, the Force-Sensitive, Sound-Playing Condom might not be far off. As the ringtones of cell phones have improved, we could soon see a polyphonic prophylactic that’s capable of producing some high-quality audio. And if the speaker were sufficient, this condom could even add some bumpin’ bass to your love-making.
“I might just get one for the novelty of it, just to see how it works,” says Dhyana Coil, Colorado Springs, Colo., senior. “But I think the sound would get kind of muffled from all the action.”
No matter how thoughtful the sentiment behind the musical condom may be, the condom in its existing patent would probably sound at best like a Casio keyboard from 1981, which isn’t likely to improve the quality of your sex life.
Unless you’re into that sort of thing.
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