from www.forbes.com – Last year I attended the Asia Adult Expo, a three-day orgy where vendors pitched products, tourists wielded massive cameras and porn stars strutted around with very little left to the imagination. For my titillating story, Pleasure’s Stiff Price, I interviewed one exhibitor, Australian jeweler Colin Burn, who aimed to take the sex-toy industry upscale by creating the world’s most expensive dildo. (It’s Forbes. Anything with a superlative, money and gemstones is like our catnip.)

“In contrast to the thousands of neon, rippled, rubber products for sale at the convention, Burn sat at a sleek booth, surrounded by bejeweled items set against black velvet,” I wrote.

“‘This is the most luxurious sexual product in the world,’ said Burn, a silversmith from Broome, a town of 15,000 in northwestern Australia known for pearls harvested from the South China Sea. ‘I find the jewelry industry stuffy and conservative. I want to be the jeweler who is not afraid to let go.’”

Almost a year later, as the expo approached, I wondered: Whatever happened to Burn’s grand scheme?

It turns out Burn has, in fact, designed the dildo and is preparing to piece it together. A press release exults its opulence: “A lavish vibrator cast in solid platinum, embellished with over 1,000 sparkling white diamonds, royal blue sapphires, lustrous South Sea pearls and the finest pink diamonds on the planet.”

More than just a sex toy, the pearl at the top serves double-duty as both an on/off and speed-control button and detachable necklace.

Once complete, Burn wants to take the vibrator, along with the other gem-studded creations in his line, called Scarlet Amour, on the road in a show that will make stops in Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Paris and New York.

“It has been a challenge of mine for the past four years to create the world’s most luxurious sexual object and what I personally regard as a serious work of jewelery art,” he wrote in an e-mail, after I asked how the project was going. “My main concept was to create something along the lines of the crown jewels, with old-world charm and … crafted from the finest gems in the land. It had to be a design fit for royalty!”

When asked whether the device would be — ahem — gentle enough for its eventual users, Burn assured me that it would. Though he sees it as a status symbol and collector’s item, he emphasized that the diamonds are “flush set,” meaning that they do not protrude in an angular fashion.

Though Burn did not attend this year’s Asia Adult Expo, he is working with a chain of 26 adult boutiques in China that will sell his products to mainland buyers. (Who are, apparently, keen on this stuff. See Forbes Asia’s 2009 story on China’s sex-toy industry. I guess China’s burgeoning luxury goods market dovetails nicely with the same trends in its adult-entertainment market.) Last weekend’s convention, nicknamed the “sexpo,” attracted around 30,000 visitors from 37 countries, according to Arosia Tong, a project manager who worked on the convention.

Those interested in purchasing the Pearl Royale, however, will have to wait until next year.