Exploring the Mysteries of the Female Erection With Bryan Johnson’s Girlfriend

Welcome to LOST WEEKEND, VICE’s hungover news briefing.

It must be said that when it comes to female erections, I am far from an expert. So I was obviously intrigued when I received an email from Bryan Johnson‘s girlfriend late last week about lady boners. Just what are they, and what should be done about them?

Kate Tolo is probably well placed to answer that question, as she is officially in the “top 1% of all vaginas”—a bold claim made by her tech-millionaire-and-longevity-enthusiast partner, with whom she co-founded the longevity brand Blueprint.

Tolo is on a mission to be the world’s most measured woman (it’s great when a couple has a shared hobby). As part of this, she’s harvesting data on her own nighttime erections. No, not using “bean calipers,” as Bryan’s freaky online fanboys have suggested, but with a piece of $15,000 lab equipment—for context, the device Bryan uses costs just $275.

The 49-year-old, who claims to have a 22-year-old’s dick, says this price gap sums up the current status of female health, which is primed for a revolution. “If nighttime genital blood flow predicts heart disease in women the way erectile function does in men, this is one of the most important measurements we’re looking at.” I love it when he talks dirty like that.

But as much as I like to poke fun at the whole longevity movement, improving our understanding of women’s health feels like something that could genuinely benefit millions of people. So I got Kate on the phone to find out more about her “techno tampon.”

VICE: So, female erections?
Kate Tolo: The clitoral area has the same erectile tissue as in men. Women go through the same erection cycles, particularly during REM sleep. Men wake up with morning wood; women wake up with the morning bean. Men’s erectile issues can predict heart attacks by two to five years. Is this true for women too? We have the same vascular network, so theoretically, it could be. Science hasn’t looked into it yet.

What’s the difference in longevity for men versus women?
I’ve never been about optimizing or longevity for women. I’ve been about, “What the hell is going on with our bodies?” We have not characterized the female body to the same degree as the male body. It’s extremely hard to measure a female body. The infrastructure is not built for that purpose.

And this “techno tampon” is gonna change that?
It looks like a tampon and has a light and a sensor. Because light is absorbed by blood, you’re able to deduce how much blood flow there is. It’s really archaic. Bryan measures his erections with a $275 wireless device that gives him an erection score. Mine’s like $15,000, with a long wire taped to my leg and software that looks like it’s from the 1970s. It took us three months to get it running. It disrupts my sleep and is not fun to wear.

Outside of this device, what does your female health protocol look like?
I measure around 1,900 biomarkers. I have a five-hour morning routine. Everything stays the same: food, water, exercise, schedule. At 6.30AM, the alarm goes off, and the F1 race starts.

Does optimization present challenges to your romantic relationship? Not sharing a bed for sleep quality, every romantic meal is Nutty Pudding…
It’s kind of cute. We’re living parallel paths. We have this ritual where we check his resting heart rate before bed. He can’t look at his phone because of the blue light, so he closes his eyes, and I’m like, “Alright, it’s 44, it’s 43…” We have all these weird rituals that only the two of us can possibly appreciate.

That sounds strangely romantic. Are you always chill about Bryan posting about you? “The 1%” is the famous one.
Sometimes I meet people in real life, and I can just tell they’re thinking about these tweets that have gone viral. He never posts about me without checking with me first. A lot of men don’t know about endometriosis—we’ve genuinely moved the needle on that. I support trying to gather as much attention around these things as possible.

I saw these tweets: “If Bryan Johnson solves endometriosis, all of his experiments will be worth it,” and “Okay, he can be crazy in peace forever if he keeps this up”—people seem to see him differently now.
Bryan and I started the business together and only started a relationship after that. I’m a shy person, and we kept things private for the first three or four years. That let us go through the normal turmoil of a relationship and be like, “We’re locked in. We’re good.” Once I came into the picture, they were like, “Oh, right. He cares about someone, and this is his person.” We’ve been doing this together from day one. It’s been both our brains—as a love project, ultimately.

Does being in love complicate the idea of wanting to live forever?
We have an 18-year age gap—that means something when you think about life and death. The funny thing about this project is none of us will get definitive answers for, like, 80 years.

So how do you make sure these findings benefit as many women as possible?
I am trying my hardest to get the word out there. The techno tampon is interesting because I grew up Catholic, and so I know how much taboo there is around sex. This is nonsexual and could be a really important cardiac marker for women to know.
OTHER NEWS

• One of the internet’s most annoying children, Jack Doherty, is supposedly banned from posting after signing a deal with a casino without reading the fine print, a blunder which is ultimately great promotion for both parties. Now, who wants to pay me to log off?
• Why walk around the world like Karl Bushby, who is back in the UK after 28 years, when you could just “visit” all these countries using AI, never leaving the comfort of your own home, or experiencing a single real thing, and still somehow ending up with a bigger carbon footprint in the process?

PREDICTION FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

• Bored and with nothing better to do after curing cancer, scientists will start shooting smack because, unfortunately, AI is unable to solve the fundamental problem of the ultimate futility of all human existence.

BRAND NEW SENTENCE

• “This disgusting spectacle will involve rolling him out in a wheelchair, then live-streaming his body as it’s pumped full of bullets.”

BONUS PREDICTION: A BIG NIGHT FOR ERECTION HAVERS

• Bryan Johnson and Kate Tolo will take their relationship to the next level becoming DJ partners. Their Berghain set will consist of 140 bpm techno transmitted directly to erection measuring devices.

Follow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoi

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