It’s amazing that vibrating haptic suits can help deaf people enjoy music, but it makes me notice that sexual haptic technology seems to be pretty stagnant.

After a year of research, Belquer’s team finally settled on a haptic suit — similar to the one used for virtual reality or video games — with 24 vibrating plates or actuators. Twenty are attached to the vest, which fits snugly around the body. The remaining four are wrapped around each wrist and ankle.

A software program allows musicians and DJs to easily integrate the haptic suits into their program. While the vibrations are not synched to the songs, they complement the music experience.

Vibrators have been around for 200 years and there a million kinds of vibrators and dildos… and that’s about it. Sure, there are other novelty haptic sex toys for both men and women, but none of them seem to be particularly popular or effective. People are working on sex robots, but the best “sex robot” we’ve seen has been the one that vacuums our floors. I suppose that adding remote control capability to vibrators was a significant advancement, but it seems like so much more can be done! Here are some user stories for sexual haptics, written from the perspective of a husband — but all these stories could be written from a wife’s perspective also.

• Hold Hands. I’d like to hold hands with my wife remotely.
• Kissing. It’s sure hard to imagine how this one would be possible, but I’d like to be able to kiss my wife remotely.
• Hugging and holding. I’d like to be able to hug and hold my wife remotely.
• Detect arousal. I’d like to know my wife’s arousal level remotely.
• Finger tracing. I’d like to be able to run my fingers over my wife’s skin remotely.
• Gaze alerts. I’d like my wife to know when I’m looking at her breasts or butt, or otherwise checking her out.
• Fingering. I’d like to be able to finger my wife’s clitoris and vagina and feel her wetness and arousal remotely.
• Squeezing. I’d like to be able to squeeze my wife’s breasts or butt remotely.
• Direct stimulation. I’d like to be able to remotely control my wife’s level of sexual arousal.

We get a ton of emails from husbands and wives who are geographically separated for various reasons (e.g., military service) and struggle to maintain intimacy, and we don’t have a ton of good advice for them. It might seem far-fetched to imagine that haptics could ever bridge this gap and facilitate true intimacy, but there are literally millions of marriages that would benefit from more advanced sexual technology.

(The image at the top of the post is of the TESLASUIT, which is available for $13k and doesn’t appear to have any sexual technology.)

Is there anything I missed in my list above that you’d want to do with sexual haptic technology? Leave a comment and let us know.