Euphemisms in real life: An interview with the makers of The Joydick

Image by MrPogo.

You’ll recall that very recently that I posted video of The Joydick in action — with the item about to go on display for a local kinetic art exhibition, I took the opportunity to contact The Joydick’s masterminds and ask them way too many questions about their interesting hardware hacking preoccupations. They responded very kindly (and humorously) to having a total stranger ask them about their Joydick. Here’s a snip from this week’s SF Chronicle column, Pervy Kinetic Art – Violet Blue: Joysticks just got a lot sexier (not my original title; they would not allow me to use “The Joydick” in my title even though it’s factually accurate):

When I saw that “The Joydick” was going to be on display this Friday, February 20, at the multi-artist kinetic art show “40% An Art Show For The New Economy” by SF Media Labs in Oakland, it seemed that the allusions between video game joysticks and male members were finally coming true.

Chances are good that if you’ve heard of the Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game World of Warcraft, you’ve likely also heard of “Warcraft widows.” These are the romantic partners of such gamers who feel “widowed” by the interest and obsession that their gaming lovers seem to have swapped out for actual human contact. Or sex, when the gamer is too tired, bleary-eyed, or has debilitated hand-eye coordination/motor functions preventing sexual contact with any success.

Gaming interruptus, indeed.

Gaming widows aside, jokes about joysticks and penis substitutes (and yes, “first-person shooters”) have finally met their makers with “The Joydick.” Instructables makers Randy Sarafan and Noah Weinstein collaborated (with no small amount of dry humor and serious hardware hacking skills) so that men can, “Play Atari with yourself and friends in the manner that you always dreamed of and never have to decide between sexual stimulation and video games again.” The Joydick essentially uses a reconfigured Atari controller — but instead of the joystick, the apparatus is fit to the male (erect) penis which then controls the joystick’s typically joyous-function of player movement onscreen. An optional ring (on the finger) can be worn so a “down stroke” activates the “fire” button.

Look out, Space Invaders. Of course, The Joydick isn’t the only item of wonder on display at the SF Media Labs 40% art show; favorites in the lineup include Benjamin Cowden, Mitch Heinrich and Shelly Cournoyer among many others. But since Randy Sarafan and Noah Weinstein have a virally popular video about the fully-functional art piece and detailed instructions to make one’s own Joydick, I had to ask them a few inevitable questions about their gaming habits.

Violet Blue: I see you have a detailed manifesto. But was there a defining moment where The Joydick came from?

Randy: In college, I wanted to make my senior thesis centered around teledildonics because it would have been the only marketable thing I could have done with my art/electronics education. The school “suggested” that I shouldn’t do that.(…read more, sfgate.com)