 I haven't checked in with John "Halcyon" Styn for quite a while. I guess I assumed his web projects had expired along with the rest of venture capitalism in web properties. Of course I have no idea if the sites he has maintained for oh so long have been funded by some kind of get rich quick scheme (me thinks highly unlikely) but I just haven't gone by in a while. A big mistake on my part it seems.
Well it turns out that John, the Malcolm McLaren of internet sex, is involved with quite a few projects: the real house, prehensile tales, cockybastard, citizensex, the feel the love radio show, teledildonics. and of course globalgasm, where you cum together to save the planet.
Derek M. Powazek interviewed John as part of the web site produced for his book Designing For Community. John was a very enthusiastic member of collegeclub.com in its original community. And he was also interviewed at TechTV in 2001.
One of the more interesting aspects of John's media empire is his teledildonics site. According to another teledildonics site: teledildonics.com, "These devices are designed solely to bring you to orgasm under external control. You slip the device over your penis (probably with a couple drops of lubricant), plug the control cable into your printer port, and the device slides up and down under control of the software you are running. This way you could be talking to a live girl on a website watching her, and she could remotely pleasure you. Or the device could be used while playing a game, mimicing the action you see on the screen."
John has a set of java controls for his teledildonics site so when he is wearing the device you or I could mosy on over to his network and massage his cock for him. This shows the datedness of the jargon file on teledildonics. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices by Debra Love says in its glossary that teledildonics is "arousal from computer sex games." As recently as 1994 Wired quotes Howard Rheingold as saying "we don't have the basic transducer and tactile-feedback technology necessary for this digiterati fantasy to become a reality anytime soon." Yet today in July of 2002 I can reach across cyberspace and stroke John Styn's dick. Now that's truly safer sex. But could it be considered to be abstinence?
I can see how someone could set up such a tool for pleasuring two partners between continents. Such devices could be part of a monogomous long distance relationship. I know given some of the hot telephone conversations I had with my fiance when we were seperated by several hundred miles that I could have made use of such an apparatus. But would you?
2:23:37 PM 
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· editor: christopher l. filkins