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My Magazine > Editors Archive > Sexpert > It's Erotic; It's Electric
It's Erotic; It's Electric   by AdultFriendFinder with Eric Forbes

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Eric Forbes tells us in his bio that by the time he was 16, he had a pretty large arsenal of single-purpose sex toys for himself. Cobbled together out of copper wire, aluminum foil, and various power sources, everything in the young Forbes' toy chest was designed to deliver electrical current to sensitive parts of the body -- especially his balls and cock. And when Forbes saw a Sears catalogue ad from 1900 boldly promoting a device dubbed the "Giant Electric Belt," Forbes began to realize that throughout history many other people have found electro sensations erotic, stimulating, or thrilling. Over the years, Forbes' obsession and tech instincts and training all came together in the development of the optimum gear for great electro-stimulation experiences. These days, power units delivering a steady, titillating current can be attached to nipples, cock, balls, pussy lips, and can be remote controlled -- exquisite for devilish love games between lovers. And as our Sexpert Paige White of Madam S Leather reported last week, these units are flying off the sex toy shelves.

During his busy Christmas rush, Forbes was kind enough to save out a little time to talk to us about his e-stim world. And so we're giving you the up-close view of this new sex play.

AdultFriendFinder: You run a company that provides equipment specifically designed for erotic electro stimulation. What is your equipment like in relation to some things we might know? For example, those muscle stimulators women use to firm their faces. Or the the violet wand, which gives a jolt, or the TENS unit, which can be quite shocking, also used by the BDSM community.

FORBES: Our equipment is most like a TENS unit in that it delivers short electrical pulses to various parts of the skin, and causes sensations to felt in and around the electrodes. Where the TENS unit is designed to block pain signals by generating a monotonous sequence of pulses, our units are designed to arouse and do so by automatically changing frequency, output levels, and other parameters. Ordinary TENS units and most commercial made-for-play devices need constant user interaction in order to feel erotic.

AdultFriendFinder: You basically started the business because of your own (roughly 20-year?) quest for the ultimate erotic self-stimulation package. What are some of the early developments, detours, contraptions, or mistakes you came up with or came across in your quest for the ultimate e-stim experience?


FORBES: I experimented with my own setups at first, from my beginnings as a teen, using power supplies I salvaged from old office equipment and then discovered the joy and danger of using a home stereo amplifier as the power source. I never thought that commercial devices like this existed, but saw some early "battery belt" examples in a reprint of the
1900 Sears & Roebuck catalog and realized that electricity and sex were not necessary new. As far as developments, I always had (and still have) an attraction to athletic and other gear, and made my first conductive hard cup at age 16, which lead to the current E-Cup sold on our site. I experimented with more powerful electro-muscle stimulation
(EMS) machines that took awhile to save up for, and continued stereo amplifier stim until I discovered a ground path to my bed frame that I almost could not pull away from. That got me thinking, and I employed isolation transformers and the like to prevent such problems again.
However, using a stereo amplifier is not safe, for a variety of reasons, and now that better and safer devices exist for erotic e-stim, I've abandoned that setup completely.

AdultFriendFinder: Along those lines, what are some of the wildest (read: unsafe) home-made estim contraptions you've seen or heard about?

FORBES: I experimented in my early days with a variety of power sources that are now understood to be very unsafe due to their inability to regulate current -- which is but one thing to consider -- but which can lead to more permanent nerve and tissue damage in the worst cases. By far the most dangerous homemade setup I can think of today is the easiest to make -- the home stereo amp connected to electrodes instead of speakers and used to create stim signals. Even with proper isolation on the outputs, there is usually no way to ensure that a safe amount of current reaches the body regardless of the audio program played. Of course, I've also heard of remote-controlled "fart machines" that are rigged to create a stimulation signal instead of the sound of someone farting, and I am sure there are other projects out there that fall into the "unsafe" category.

AdultFriendFinder: Did you have any horrendous experiences with e-stim in your early days?

FORBES: I've seen and experimented with a few inherently unsafe devices including hand-crank generators designed to ring Army field telephones, home stereo amplifiers, power supplies of various types, using a stepdown transformer in conjunction with a dimmer switch, and a few others. In many ways, I am lucky to be alive and to have normal use of my genitals after some of the experimentation I did. While others tried drugs, I tried e-stim, and looking back, even with my seemingly innate knowledge of electricity, I did some stupid things and survived. The transformer / dimmer switch toy worked fine until the transformer overheated and started smoking during a play session! Nothing destroys a hard-on for me faster than the smell of wires burning.

AdultFriendFinder: So basically the set up involves a power unit that generates the zap, an electrode that delivers the zap to the skin, and some sort of way to keep the electrode in contact with the skin, like a band or a jock cup or something insertable like a butt plug. Is this accurate?

FORBES: Yes, although the word "zap" isn't the best way to describe the sensation in most cases.

[To be continued...]