A ton has been written about vibrating “jackets” for your, er, chicken. Every once in a while someone writes about a supposedly emerging field of sex toy technology called “teledildonics” or “cyberdildonics.” From Vibrators-FAQ.com:

Teledildonics was once hailed as the future of cybersex and the ultimate in safe sex. However, nothing much has happened with this technology since its inception in the late ’90s, probably due to the difficulty of implementing it over the Web.

The way it’s supposed to work is that you plug a vibrator into your computer, then you establish a connection with your cyber partner via Internet. This may involve using Webcams to enhance the experience visually. Your partner, using their keyboard or other controls on their computer, can then operate your vibrator, switching it on or off or adjusting the speed. During the experience you communicate with them over Internet chat.

There was also a little bit of press in the late-1990s about a bodysuit that plugged into your computer. Here’s a Salon piece from 2000 about ‘em. The suit had little electronic zappers in various erogenous zones. Someone sitting at a computer in another city or state or across town would be able to zap you at will, and you would be able to zap them back. The suits were, I believe (never got to field test one), cumbersome and the stimulation wasn’t enough to actually get anybody off. Some people can come from e-stim, as it’s known in fetish circles, but the e-zaps have to be more intense than those provided by a body suit and the person doing the zapping—usually it’s the person wearing the zapper—has to be in the room in order to gauge the zappee’s response, ramp up the zaps, etc. You can read more about e-stim here.

So what’s up with this chicken suit? I suspect the suits at Al Jazeera are winking at their readers and viewers. They’re finally getting around to writing up these new/old sex toys but, in deference to the generally sexphobic attitudes of the Muslim world, they’re pretending it’s just the latest in chicken-stimulation technology.