Cock-a-doodle-don’t!

Margot Huysman reviews the Little Rooster, a new sort of alarm clock for women.

“Post coitum omne animal triste est sive gallus et mulier” reads the quotation by Claudius Galen. I studied Latin at school, but you don’t need to have recited declensions in your teens to understand this one: “Every animal is sad after sex, except the human female and the rooster”. I don’t remember having to translate that one in my finals!

The quotation is printed on tracing paper in the packaging for the Little Rooster, a new kind of vibrating alarm clock for women that wakes you up with – how do I put this delicately?  - a knee-trembler. As the only woman in the Kernel office, the task of reviewing this delightful object has fallen to me. So here goes.

The Rooster comes in a white box. The Latin and the satin traveling pouch ooze luxury. Well, they try to. The truth is, there’s nothing very luxurious about a piece of plastic that sits in your underwear, ready to hum you into life.

The Little Rooster, which costs £69, comes in two colours: white and hot pink. Maybe the white looks better, maybe it makes it look a little less tacky. For me, the pink didn’t do it. It reminded me of a sinister, orgasm-bearing Tamagochi.

* * *

The alarm clock has 30 different settings, from a gentle vibration to full-on “turbo” mode for the heavier duty woman. (I imagine Katie Price would leap straight to turbo.) You set it up like you would any other alarm clock, except you you pick the level at which you want it to start vibrating and how powerful you want it to get.

You also get to set up the level of vibration for “snoorgasm” mode; a sort of snooze mode, but with continuous vibrations for a set amount of time.

I suppose you want to know if it works.

Well, last night, I opted to wear my panda boxers and positioned the Little Rooster as indicated by the instruction booklet. (It is worth noting that nothing goes inside. The body of the device lies against your pubic bone, its “tail” strategically placed.) I went to sleep.

* * *

And I woke up Wednesday morning… to the most irritating bloody vibrating sensation in my underwear. It took me a few seconds to remember that I had the Rooster down there, and another couple to turn it off. The Little Rooster had somehow found a way to dislodge itself and move nearer to the top of my thigh.

In a way, I was thankful. The sensation was so uncomfortable, I was happy it wasn’t buzzing against anything else. Worse, in my morning confusion, I hit the snooze button rather than sliding the button to turn it off. This means that I got another round of obnoxious buzzing about five minutes later.

I was smarter though, and this time around I actually removed the damn thing. Further experimentation yielded irritating buzzing no matter where the device was located. What kind of woman gets pleasure out of this thing? I’d rather be slapped into consciousness with tax returns.

Did it wake me up? I guess it did – but not in the manner advertised. I don’t see how anyone could get off on that thing, frankly. Forget waves of pleasure, it was vibrations from hell! Like stuffing a handful of bees into your drawers. To top it off, having that plastic thing in your knickers all night is far from comfortable.

Roosters may not be sad after sex, but after a night with mine, I’m practically homicidal. Not recommended.