This last year, has been anything but smooth sailing on the Bionic. The pandemic pretty much ground everything to a halt and the progress we did make, was absolutely not hurdle free.

In many ways it feels like a wasted year, but perhaps it’s a year that needed to happen in order for me to get here. What I’ve been increasingly asking myself over the last year is whether I’m becoming a victim of the sunk cost fallacy (or should we say the sunk cost phallicy?) The idea that because you’ve gone this far down this road, you just need to keep going even if it’s ultimately taking you further and further in the wrong direction, and so I finally made the decision.

I’m changing tack on the Bionic.

Up until now, I’ve been pursuing a hydraulic (liquid based) solution, because I REALLY wanted to be able to achieve an erection at the flick of a switch, but it’s just becoming more and more apparent that this just isn’t worth all the trade offs, namely:

  • Not being able to significantly increase the length of the shaft due to being very limited by how much liquid a scrotum can hold.
  • Too much weight, meaning the attachment methods become more complicated and overall ergonomics just aren’t as good as I’d like.
  • The valve system and scrotum being too big and bulky for the device to feel natural.
  • Then there was also the inconvenience of priming the high pressure reservoir in anticipation of sexy time.
  • And we also had issues with a tiny bit of air being introduced into the system over time, making the prosthetic “gurgle” in the final stage of erection, which is just very unsexy.

So I’ve finally made the call.

The Bionic is going pneumatic.

…meaning an air based inflation system. This comes with the one con that it will take about a half a dozen quick pumps to get the device into erect state, but what I’ve realized is that it takes about the same amount of time to give a testicle six quick pumps than to feel around for a valve to open. Also, unlike the hydraulic version, this will not need pre-planning in terms of priming the high pressure reservoir.

In any case, it comes with quite a few pros, namely:

  • It will make a huuuuge difference to weight. This means that it’s looking very promising that an attachment system can be integrated that will NOT require osteo-integration surgery. With something this light, it should be possible to get a genital bar piercing, which the device can then snap on to. This means pretty much any body piercing studio will be able to place the bar at the fraction of the cost of a $5000+ osteo integration surgery where the attachment studs would actually be drilled into the bone. The piercing would be very discreet and would pretty much be invisible with some pubic hair and very subtle when shaved. And if it turns out it’s not your thing, it’s very easy to just take the bar out and forget you ever had it. It will also mean that doing product testing on the attachment method will be far less daunting.
  • A pneumatic system also gets us around the problem of being very limited in just how much the shaft can grow. This means that the 4 inches flaccid, 6 inches erect is now very achievable.
  • And due to weight, it wasn’t really possible to make the erection stand up when it was water filled. Now that the shaft is mostly just air, we can also give the erection that nice upward curve.
  • The scrotum and balls will also be much more compact, lightweight and natural feeling, with the right testicle being the pump, and the left testicle being the release valve. It simply wasn’t possible to have two distinct testicles with the one way hydraulic system, as it required a low pressure reservoir, and a high pressure reservoir, meaning neither of them really felt like a testicle.

Now, that I’ve made the decision to pivot, things are really falling into place and I’m feeling a new burst of motivation and energy for the project. At times it’s definitely felt like it just might never happen, and I’ve had plenty of moments of anxiety over this project, but sayings like this definitely help:

“When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”

-Leo Burnett

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