why is this a thing that exists?

[sciatrix]

I mean, it does make objective sense that it would be difficult for a fetus to hear music through all the layers of muscle and fat and uterine wall that compose a gestating abdomen, but "we made a vaginal music player so the fetus can hear better!" seems unlikely to take off as the next big prenatal fashion must-have.

Comments

[siderea]

I think you underestimate the crazy of parents-to-be demand for this sort of baby-enhancement technology.

I also am suspicious that it's a sex toy with plausible deniability.

ETA: I am very curious what the bass response on that thing is. One of the great outstanding problems of urbanization is how to play rock music loud enough that it's experienced in the cavities of the torso the way it should be, without antagonizing the neighbors. Having a speaker system that delivers sufficient bass frequencies right into the body would be a welcome development in human harmony *coff*.

[jesse_the_k]

*snorfle*

[sciatrix]

It's possible I had set my faith in the sanity of a panicky pregnant parent-to-be convinced that they're going to singlehandedly screw up their kid for the rest of its life by doing (or failing to do) something before it's even hit the third trimester a smidge too high, yeah. The more I read about development and trade-offs organisms make, the more startled I am in how absurdly flexible and simultaneously sensitive and also tough babies are--and the more enraged I am at the whole "parenting: you're doing it hideously wrong" industry. I mean, I get that inflaming that particular crazy is hella profitable, but--ashflghl.

I kind of suspect it's not intended to be a sex toy given the genesis of the damn thing, which involved testing to see if fetuses could even hear music in the first place and subsequently won the authors an IgNobel. This does not mean that the basic principle hasn't already occurred to sex toy manufacturers, of course...

Heh.

[siderea]

Is it panickiness, though? I don't ascribe it to a "parenting: you're doing it hideously wrong" industry. Especially the baby!Mozart phenomenon. I recognize that from my family: that's classism. That's aspirant bougie parents trying to throw their progeny up the class ladder.

I mean, the subtext here isn't that this will allow your fetus to be exposed to the collected works of Guns 'n Roses. This is for the delivery of the sort of music a parent wants to expose a child to. And what kind of music is that? Music that will "make them smarter". And what kind of music is that? Classical music, of course. Just coincidentally the type of music that represents the upper class to the lower classes. (I see no evidence the upper class sees classical music as a class marker of theirs.)

This is about middle class class striving, and if it's about anxiety, it's about class anxiety.

I have no problem with anybody who wants to profit off this. (Most especially any classical music teachers who can make rent from it.)