In an attempt to flesh out the nascent The Skies Belong to Us mood board, I have been combing through reams of patents for anti-hijacking devices. Most are deliciously zany, such as this capture chamber or this trick chair. The hijacking epidemic of the late 1960s and early 1970s certainly seems to have fired up the imaginations of inventors who spent their formative years watching secret-agent flicks at the local movie palace.
Reading slightly off-center patents is a true pleasure for those who enjoy tangents, for each document offers handy links to related inventions. By perusing the citations for the trick chair, for example, I was led to this bonkers gadget, which presents a classic case of best intentions gone awry. The first paragraph of the abstract speaks for itself (with apologies for the anatomically frank language):
An anti-rape device having a hollow housing adapted to be worn within the human vagina. The housing has a front opening and contains a hypodermic syringe having a volume of rape-deterring fluid and a needle facing and aligned with the front opening. Actuator means in the housing are provided which include housing means such as a spring to force the needle through the front opening and inject the fluid, cocking means to cock the device into a position which totally shields the needle within the housing, and prevents action of the spring, and trigger means which automatically releases the cocking means, upon forceful penis penetration of a vagina containing the device, to permit the spring to protrude the needle and inject the fluid into the penis. Preferably, the fluid is a quick-acting, safe narctoc such as scopolamine, or the like to render the rapist unconscious.
More detailed (and, I assure you, completely safe-for-work) drawings here. I could unearth no evidence that this device ever went into production, perhaps because early market research revealed that the target consumers might be a wee bit skittish about carrying around scopolamine-filled needles inside their bodies.
Jordan // Mar 2, 2013 at 12:26 am
Getting that past the various regulatory agencies would be… heroic…
zeb // Mar 4, 2013 at 11:56 am
I can see the informercials now: “As seen in Snow Crash!”
Brendan I. Koerner // Mar 4, 2013 at 3:02 pm
@zeb: Heard so many Snow Crash references after I posted this. Ashamed to say that I’ve never read that obvious classic, which is why the comparison never occurred to me. An oversight in my reading history that I should probably correct as soon as humanly possible.
Jordan // Mar 5, 2013 at 11:34 am
Snow Crash is worth your time if only for the opening section about pizza delivery. The rest is also good, but never manages to top the brilliance of the beginning.