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[Replaced_Texan]

Holy shit.

Vatan and I had arranged this weirdly intimate encounter so he could demonstrate the kinky technological offerings from HighJoy.com, his 4-month-old dating site. Unlike other matchmaking sites, High Joy provides forums where singles (or married folk, as the case may be) can chat with each other live, as well as see their partners and hear their partners (if they have an Internet camera and microphone). And if they've purchased one of the male or female versions of the Doc Johnson HighJoy-enabled sex toys, partners can also rotate each other's shafts.

Since Howard Rheingold discussed the field of "teledildonics" in his 1991 book "Virtual Reality" and hypothesized we'd all have "portable telediddlers" by 2020, a plethora of mostly unreliable, clunky Internet sex toys have entered the market. The sensor-packed full-body "Cyber Sex Suit" became a flaccid venture in 2000, when the company couldn't assure the Federal Trade Commission that the suit wouldn't cause heart attacks. Soon afterwards, a sex toy that could be operated by brightening and dimming a computer screen got bland reviews.

The one major success has been the Sinulator, a wireless adaptor that can transform almost any sex toy into one that can be used over the Internet. The Sinulator is user friendly -- it's operated through the Sinulate site, therefore requiring no downloads -- and, aside from the initial cost of the adaptor ($119.95 including two free vibrating bullets that can be inserted into many toys), it's free to use. Sinulators started out being mostly used by companies that train cameras on live "webcam girls"; site visitors are charged extra to manipulate a girl's -- or sometimes guy's -- dildo over the Internet.

HighJoy, however, represents a real shift in teledildonics: It's reaching beyond the realm of late-night porn surfers to a much wider audience. There's not a porn-site ad to be seen on its pages. The site and toys are instead being marketed to a heretofore overlooked population: people who want to have sex with other people in the hopes of possibly founding or furthering a relationship.

Spree: salon.com article