Well, this gives new meaning to “takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
In his quest to remain the center of attention even in the midst of an entire NBA Finals series, Drake turned heads last week not only for his courtside antics but for wearing a $750,000 watch that proves that maybe money can buy you love—or at least, lust.
In what can only be described as a sexually-charged Magic 8 ball for your wrist, watchmaker Richard Mille has figured out a way to keep the mood going for his luxury customers. Formatted much like the Urban Daddy “Next Move” app, the brand’s RM 69 Erotic Tourbillon timepiece perpetually suggests a choose-your-own-erotic-adventure, minute by minute.
As the Cut reports, Drake’s watch provocatively read, “I’d love to kiss your pussy” during the June 10 game—though we can’t imagine who got close enough to report back on that. But a bit of investigative reporting on the part of the Cut actually credits this seemingly revolutionary piece of technology back to the Chinese, the English and the French (also proponents of the French kiss and ménage à trois); specifically, these pieces gained popularity with King Louis XV.
“He was very open with his sexuality and encouraged people in France to be open with theirs. This trickled down into the watches that were being developed in France, as well as in media and art,” Nate Borgelt, head of sales for Sotheby’s New York watch department, told the Cut.
And, as in the 18th century, these explicit contraptions were intended for the wealthy, Borgelt confirmed.
A lot of traditional erotic watches are visual depictions, like enamel paintings or small etchings. The really complicated and expensive ones are the ones that feature automatons. Those have moving parts. (You can imagine how they’re moving.) Those were made for aristocrats and people who were on the outside of the higher echelons of society. So they wanted to make fun of their peers by having these watches that depicted priests and kings in these interesting positions.
Borgelt also noted that these were considered less pornographic than satirical, and points out that in the 18th century, pocket watches were the norm, meaning they weren’t necessarily for public consumption.
And yet, here we are.
Borgelt calls the Richard Mille iteration sported by Drake “a fitting, new way of creating an erotic watch,” using utilitarian presentation and words to describe what intricately detailed tableaux used to portray in explicit detail—while still keeping you on time for your maintenance man (or partner of choice), of course.
“It’s just a different way of going about it, with words rather than images. And with other erotic watches, the majority of people just see it as the visual depiction, and they think it’s silly and then move on,” Borgelt said. “But there’s a lot in there telling you about the time period and what people were thinking. There’s always this sexual freedom that wanted to be expressed in one way or another.”
Or maybe Drake is just doing the most with a watch to help him forget the fact that you used to call him on his cell phone?