This New Sex Toy Gives You Personalized Sex Tips

More than a year ago, we told you about Lovely, a wearable sex tracker that also gives you suggestions to make your sex life better. Now the company is back and ready for testing — which is where you come in. The original idea for Lovely came over two years ago after a particularly vigorous night of sex, explains 28-year-old founder Jakub Konik. "We started wondering how many calories we just burned," he writes in an email to R29. But he and his partner couldn't find an app that would tell them what they wanted to know. "I talked to sexologists, industrial designers, and engineers," he explains, "and decided to create a wearable that could not only tell you how many calories you burn during sex, but also suggest [to] you how to diversify and achieve even more pleasure from sex." That wearable turned out to be Lovely, which is essentially a vibrating cock ring that also stimulates the clitoris while the wearer engages in penis-in-vagina sex. Additionally, it's connected to an app, which tracks your favorite positions as well as your sexual frequency and duration. And, yes, it'll tell you how many calories you burned. From there, the app will suggest new positions and stimulation ideas to help you try new things you and your partner might enjoy. "Both partners can view these suggestions anytime after sex in the Lovely app and express their feedback and desires to get tips and tricks that fit their style of lovemaking," explains Konik. The idea is that, on top of making sex more enjoyable, this will encourage better sexual communication between partners, which hopefully fuels even better sex. Now, after months and months of working with experts, refining the Lovely, and raising funding, the company is ready to let 100 couples test its product. Testers will get the Lovely at a discount ($99 instead of $169) and simply use it — and the app's suggestions — while having sex. They'll also fill out the occasional questionnaire about their experiences. That data, which will remain mostly anonymous, will be used to fine-tune the suggestions for everyone and inform future updates to the app. That's especially exciting, because it's hard for even established sex researchers to do these kinds of projects on such a large scale — which is why the data will also be shared with a few selected scientists looking to understand certain aspects of sexual behavior. "By becoming a Lovely tester, you are helping everyone to have even better sex," notes Konik. The only major drawback is that, despite Konik's assurance that Lovely was designed for "basically any couple who likes to have sex and would like to try something new and exciting in bed," there are some clear heteronormative hardware requirements here. Still, the Lovely can be used with two partners who have penises, and it's stretchy enough that it could be used with a strap-on or dildo. The question is: Would you want to be a sex-toy beta tester?