Sex Toy History
Many people assume that sex toys are Asian inventions. Asians have used sexual aids for more than 1,000 years. Ben-wa balls are clearly Asian. And today many sex toys are manufactured in Asia. But two of the most popular sexual aids, dildos and vibrators, have surprisingly Western roots.
Historians don't know who invented the dildo, but the world owes its popularity to the ancient Greek port city, Miletus, on the west coast of present-day Turkey. Miletan traders sold what the Greeks called olisbos around the Mediterranean. Today's dildos are often enjoyed by couples, but in ancient Greece, they were sexual refuges for lonely ladies. A Greek literary fragment from the third century BC tells the story of a young woman named Metro, whose husband is away. She visits a friend, Coritto, to borrow her olisbo, only to learn that Coritto has lent it to another lonely maiden. Metro departs crestfallen.
In Renaissance Italy, olisbo became "dildo" probably from the Italian diletto, to delight. But compared with today's lifelike models, early dildos were hardly delightful. Made of wood or leather, they required liberal lubrication with olive oil for comfortable use. Modem rubber dildos did not appear until the mid-19th century.
Dildos have always had a frankly sexual purpose, but vibrators are another story. For most of their history, they have been a "camouflaged," their sexual purpose hidden behind a medical use in "massage therapy," which to some extent, is still the case. The first vibrators were developed 130 years ago to treat an illness called "female hysteria." Hysteria, from the Greek for suffering uterus, involved anxiety, irritability, sexual fantasies, "pelvic heaviness," and excessive vaginal lubrication, in other words, sexual arousal during the Victorian era, when women were not considered sexual beings. Physicians treated hysteria by massaging sufferers' vaginal lips until they experienced relief through "paroxysm" (orgasm). During the 1860s, health spas offered higher-tech alternatives to manual therapy, massage with water jets, and steam-powered vibrating devices.
When electricity became widely available in the late 19th century, the first electric vibrators appeared, still camouflaged as therapy for hysteria and sold only to doctors. But as the years passed, magazine advertisements began offering vibrators to, women for self-treatment of hysteria at home. The 1918 Sears Roebuck catalog touted one vibrator as a "very satisfactory...aid every woman appreciates." And an advertisement ill a 1921 issue of Hearst’s magazine urged men to buy the devices for their wives as Christmas gifts to keep them "young and pretty" and free from the scourge of hysteria.
But during the 1920s, early "blue" movies showed women using the devices not for their camouflaged purpose but for sexual stimulation. Early pornography stripped vibrators of their social camouflage, and by 1930, they were no longer openly advertised.
Today, of course, vibrators are popular sexual aids sold for sexual purposes. But many outlets continue to camouflage them as "massagers." One large consumer catalog says its dual-speed massager is "perfect for those hard-to-reach places." True...and a few places within easy reach as well. |
