Is Connecting Your Genitals to Badly Developed Software a Good Idea?

Last Updated February 26, 2021

You’ve probably heard by now about the chastity cadge sex toy with an online interface that is full of security holes. If not, then go read this:

Security researchers are all over this topic, it is not the first time that teledildonics and buggy code have intersected, and it makes for good headlines and the chance to make clever-sounding generalizations.

I can’t agree with the idea that smart sex toys are an inherently bad idea, and despite this Twitter thread going on to mention many cases in which there have been problems with them, it doesn’t mean that the whole is bad.

Just that it has been done very badly many times.

As with any cam girl who has heard the ‘ding’ and felt the buzz of tips going directly to a Lush, I think smart connected sex toys are a brilliant idea but just implemented very badly indeed.

They tend to have unreliable hardware that dies under continuous use, or disconnects when used in very normal situations. And most importantly, they have software that is woefully inadequate.

Yet despite all of these negative points the toys such as the Lovense Lush, and before that the OhMiBod, have been massively useful for me and many other cam girls .

Basically they pay-the-bills.

I remember my first toy paid I purchased. Wearing it in a show for two hours and I had already got extra tips that covered the cost of the toy, including shipping.

That’s why I’m not overly concerned that I am now up to number 5 of the same device, and that I know it won’t last that long. They have become consumable.

What annoys me more is the hours that I have spent installing and reinstalling software, apps, Chrome extensions. Loading settings via flakey web interfaces, having to struggle with poorly documented APIs, and generally mess with the software

And I am, just for context, trained as a professional software developer. I worry for the many cam girls who rely on these devices for that income but don’t have the tech background to find workarounds for all the inadequacies in the software.

At the same time, I’ve seen software pretty much as bad from my local McDonalds, from the bus company, from banks. Something seems to be just wrong with software development.

Maybe things have changed since the days when I write specifications and developed COBOL programs for large companies. But back in those days, which are admittedly quite a long time ago, we didn’t release code that was this unusable!

Do developers not do testing any more?

How about user acceptance?

Proper specifications and unit testing?

Perhaps not.

Sometimes I think the world isn’t going to end due to nuclear war or a global pandemic or climate change. The world will end due to buggy badly documented software nobody knows how to fix.

But then I hear another ‘ding’ and my toy buzzes and I’m pretty content with that. Let the tips keep rolling and I’ll not worry too much about the bugs in the code.

@misc{Tsoi_2020,
  title={Is Connecting Your Genitals to Badly Developed Software a Good Idea?},
  url={https://www.adult-webcam-faq.com/2020/10/09/is-connecting-your-genitals-to-badly-developed-software-a-good-idea/},
  publisher={Adult Webcam FAQ},
  author={Hony Tsoi},
  year={2020},
  month={Oct.}
}