From period trackers to a vaginal sound system, new devices imply that there is something wrong down there that needs to be monitored with constant vigilance

Women have been tracking their menstrual cycles since at least the time of Saint Augustine, and yet when Apple introduced its much ballyhooed smartwatch and Health app in 2014, there was one glaring omission: a period tracker.



The fact that it took Apple three months longer than it takes a woman to gestate a human life to update its app to include periods and other reproductive health data was hardly surprising coming from a company – and industry – that systematically excludes women. Apple’s tech workforce is just 22% female, about in line with the rest of the major tech companies – or thumbs as a percentage of fingers.

But while it is frustrating when the world’s biggest tech companies overlook the existence of 51% of the world’s population, it may be even worse when tech engineers start to pay too much attention to us. In recent years, an alarming number of startups have come up with the terrible idea that what women really want is to shove an Apple Watch up our vaginas.

SmartSnatch, anyone?

In 2014, two separate companies came up with the genius idea of taking tech wearables in a more insertable direction.



The connected vagina: monitor how full your tampon is – with a new app Read more

Chiaro, a British company with a female CEO, and Minna Life, a San Francisco company with a male CEO, both produce doodads that provide “instant biofeedback” on the strength, speed, and agility of a user’s kegel exercises. (Kegels strengthen the pelvic floor muscles and involve clenching. There is no need to visit a gym, and until now, there was no exercise equipment required.)

Both Chiaro’s Elvie and Minna’s kGoal resemble colorful little hand grenades. Once inserted, the Bluetooth-enabled devices transmit data to a smartphone app so women can track and optimize their “workouts”. Minna even allows you to play a version of the classic arcade game Breakout with your clenches. What fun!

(Notably, Minna Life also offers a smart kegel gadget for men, but users are instructed to sit on it, rather than put it inside an orifice.)

Another class of insertables has arisen to take on our period blood.

Last year, the idea of a “smart tampon” seemed so far-fetched it was the subject of a well-executed parody.

French advertising firm LTV Prod produced Pusshy, a satirical startup that offered a “connected tampon” that could analyze your period fluid, predict mood swings, upload your data to the “VagiCloud” and broadcast your menstrual status to your social network and anyone within 150ft.

Like so many parodies of tech startup culture, the shelf-life on Pusshy (it’s funnier with a French accent) was less than a year. Last week, the Guardian reported on my.Flow, a startup that is producing a Bluetooth-enabled tampon monitor.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Women will soon be able to use special tampons made with ‘medical-grade conductive steel’ in the strings to monitor the exact saturation of their tampons. Photograph: my.Flow

Women who can’t bear the “menstruation mortification” of leakage will soon be able to use special tampons made with “medical-grade conductive steel” in the strings, connect the strings to little wearable devices, attach the wearables to their waistbands, and then monitor the exact saturation of their tampons on a smartphone app.

As Guardian reporter Arwa Mahdawi points out: “You’re walking around with a period monitor on your waist trying to make sure nobody knows you have your period.”

It’s Pusshy, minus the fun of special time-of-the-month Spotify playlists.

Another company has raised more than $150,000 on Kickstarter to produce “the world’s first smart menstrual cup”: the Looncup.

Unlike dumb diva cups, which just capture period blood, the smart diva cup analyzes your monthly effluence, using (wait for it) Bluetooth to transmit data about menstrual fluid volume and color to your phone.

“It’s amazing, how much menstruation fluid can tell us about ourselves!” the company, which is based in San Francisco, exclaims in its materials.

There is, of course, an entire range of products that can be inserted in vaginas for the sole purpose of a woman’s pleasure. But what all of these new devices have in common is the basic premise that there is something wrong down there that needs to be monitored with constant vigilance.



Now women can get push notifications with the latest news on how politicians want to regulate our uteruses at the same time that we get push notifications from our actual uteruses.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Looncup: the smart diva cup analyzes your monthly effluence, using (wait for it) Bluetooth to transmit data about menstrual fluid volume and color to your phone. Photograph: Looncup

Taking the shame up a notch is the Babypod, which purports to fix the average vagina’s lack of a sound system.

Pregnant women have long been urged to play music for their fetuses to make them smarter (a premise that has little to no scientific foundation), and many companies produce prenatal speaker systems.

The makers of Babypod argue that the problem with products such as Lullabelly and Bellybuds is not that they are stupid, but that external sound doesn’t penetrate the “multiple layers of soft tissue” between the fetus and the outside world.

“The only way the music can really reach the baby is vaginally,” the Babypod website states.

Rather than take this as a sign from nature that fetuses don’t actually need to be serenaded every night to develop just fine, Babypod manufactures a special pink speaker that plugs into your iPhone at one end and your vagina at the other. (The accompanying app has playlists of “the most stimulating songs for your baby”, which presumably include a lot of EDM and crunk.)

If anyone is tempted to buy this for an expectant mother, I might suggest offering to help with chores, a fistful of cash, or literally anything else instead.

Perhaps we should be happy that tech startups are making products for women rather than entirely overlooking them, as Apple did. But I can’t help but think that if the tech industry really wants to innovate for women, maybe they should focus on something like an app that makes the gender wage gap disappear.

Then more of us could afford to buy Apple Watches and shove them wherever we please.

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