Laura Dale is a trans woman who got a “new vagina” through “bottom surgery”; afterwards, as she cast about for ways to strengthen her pelvic floor muscles, she discovered Perifit, a Bluetooth kegel-based video-game controller that registers every time the user bears down on it with their pelvic floor muscles.
The controller is not a simple on-off switch, but rather it registers subtle gradients of pressure, making it suited to controlling a variety of video-game sprites.
Dale describes the games she played: Catch the Lotus (a Flappy Bird clone), Manage the Gate (a block-the-falling-objects game) and the actual Flappy Bird, though Perifit calls it Perifit Bird.
With all the prepackaged games played, I was honestly a little disappointed by the lack of compelling software for this new gaming controller. Off the top of my head, I am pretty sure I can come up with a decent list of other gaming applications this vagina controller could be used for.You could make a slot car racing game, where you have to contract harder to speed up on the straights, but lessen your pressure on corners to not fly off the track and lose time. How about using the controller to play a music rhythm game, with contractions done in time with the music. Maybe a Pong-style game, where players contract to raise the paddle and relax to lower it? You could use it as a boost button in a racing game, or to launch your ultimate attack in a fighting game, or even use it to mash through dialogue in a text adventure game until the next actual choice based moment comes up. The possibilities are endless.
How I kegeled my way through Flappy Bird [Laura Dale/Syfy]