Masturbation Challenge Interfaces - Fap Gauntlet and Cock Hero
In doing some research for an upcoming project, I've been looking through different internet related interfaces for stimulation display during masturbation. Or, in non-faux-academic parlance: jackin' games. I figured I might as well write up my notes on the interfaces and ideas behind Fap Gauntlets and Cock Hero.
Both of these "games" focus on masturbating for as long as possible, using different properties (speed, pressure, etc...). The differences come in how they're built, and the interfaces they use to set the properties of the game.
Fap Gauntlets
A fap gauntlet is simply an image thread where with each image posted by a forum member, masturbation metrics are provided for that post. These types of threads seem to pop up on chan forums of various shapes and sizes, though they seem to be popular on hentai and furry related boards.
The metrics dictated usually consist of:
- Time to spend masturbating to picture
- Pressure to use
- Strokes per second
The fchan furry porn board has a couple of fap gauntlet threads live at the moment. However, note that these threads die over time, and will most likely not be live in weeks/months after this post is made, but are valid as of 2012-11-19:
While googling around for more info on this, I found that someone had actually written an automatic fap gauntlet generator. This is a python program that automatically indexes images off 4chan threads, then uses wxwidgets to display pictures from them, with random timings, pressures, and stroke speeds.
While it can't be seen in the picture above, the stroke speed is set by the color of the font fading from green to black and back to green at different speeds per picture, to set a visual cue. FapGauntlet also allows you to choose a local directory of images (which is good because as of this writing the regex for the forum scraper is broken). Once you're all done, it'll also give you a printout of your stats, that looks something like this:
extremely light:
images: 1
strokes: 0
time: 0
medium:
images: 2
strokes: 2
time: 0.0163331031799
hard:
images: 1
strokes: 0
time: 0
extremely hard:
images: 1
strokes: 2
time: 12.3221650124
tight:
images: 1
strokes: 0
time: 0
very hard:
images: 2
strokes: 0
time: 0
loose:
images: 1
strokes: 4
time: 6.36375236511
Total:
images: 9
strokes: 8
time: 18.7022504807
This gives you a breakdown of stroke pressures, types, and timing over a certain number of images. It is basically quantified self for fapping. Neat!
As the program is currently being hosted via zip archives on mediafire, I decided to take the python code and put it on github. It's now at
http://github.com/qdot/fap-gauntlet
Whether I'll actually update it is another question completely, but this at least makes sure the code won't disappear off the net.
Cock Hero
Let's move on to masturbation DDR, aka "Cock Hero".
Cock Hero takes the ideas of Fap Gauntlets, replacing still images and text instructions with videos and music.
Cock Hero 15 brought to you by PornHub
These videos are usually upwards of an hour long, containing multiple scenes. The text instructions are now inherent in the properties of the video, as the length is simply the length of the scene, and the speed actually becomes dynamic, since it is set to the changing BPM of a song.
Visual cues scroll along the bottom of the screen, for those that have absolutely no sense of time (if someone makes one of these videos to some properly weird math rock with ridiculous time signatures, I'll love you forever)...
As an added "bonus", some authors of cock hero videos will insert messages along the bottom of the screen to warn or inspire the player to greater speeds/pressures or upcoming breaks, or else just to be dorky.
There's a few key differences in these interfaces that make them both viable. I see Cock Hero as a more cohesive experience; sense is integrated with command, since the temporal and speed elements are just properties of the video and sound. However, the compilation aspect is handled by a single creator (though could certainly be automated much in the same way FapGauntlet works), so you're currently stuck with whatever they like. For Fap Gauntlets, well, there's forms of porn that simply don't have enough animated content to work as a Cock Hero medium. There's certainly enough hentai out there to fill a few Cock Hero rounds, but furry porn might get one, maybe two, and would require encoding from flash animations mostly, making it a horribly time consuming process. Since fap gauntlets are based on a message board thread, the community aspect could be seen as crowdsourced masturbation directions, which in and of itself could be a new/emerging fetish.
Both fap gauntlets and cock hero could be implemented via hardware means, simply taking the movement and time commands (as well as pressure if the toy actually has capabilities for that) and mapping them to a toy. This could work for either vibrators or things like the RealTouch or Virtual Hole.
The interfaces for masturbation challenges, while keeping their vocabulary male focused, seem genderless at their core. Everyone exists in time, speed and pressure are valid metrics for multiple different kinds of genetalia. There's some interesting questions as to whether the interface actually appeals to a certain type/gender, but I'll leave that for the gender theory and games bloggers.
Cock Hero and Fap Gauntlets interfaces provide specific communities with new ways to interact with porn based on available content. Be it still media or motion, they both have their place in the masturbation challenge landscape. I wouldn't be surprised to see these interfaces continue to evolve into new and more immersive experiences, or be co-opted by toy makers in the future.
(PS: I will also pay good money for an impressionist painting of the masturbation challenge landscape.)
