The strange history of vibrators
The invention of the vibrator had nothing to do with women's pleasure. Mention vibrators, and most people immediately think of women’s sexual pleasure. No wonder An estimated one third of adult women now own at least one. Clitoral stimulation with vibrators produces orgasms reliably even in women who have difficulty experiencing them in other ways. And women who use vibrators consistently report sexual enhancement in both solo and partner sex.
But ironically, women's sexual pleasure was the furthest thing from the minds of the male doctors who invented vibrators almost two centuries ago. They were interested in a labor saving device to spare their hands the fatigue they developed giving hand jobs to a steady stream of 19th century ladies who suffered from hysteria, a vaguely defined ailment easily recognisable today as sexual frustration. Therein hangs a strange tale that provides quirky insights into both the history of sex toys, and cultural notions about women’s sexuality."
They believed that women were simply fleshy receptacles for male lust
But ironically, women's sexual pleasure was the furthest thing from the minds of the male doctors who invented vibrators almost two centuries ago. They were interested in a labor saving device to spare their hands the fatigue they developed giving hand jobs to a steady stream of 19th century ladies who suffered from hysteria, a vaguely defined ailment easily recognisable today as sexual frustration. Therein hangs a strange tale that provides quirky insights into both the history of sex toys, and cultural notions about women’s sexuality.
Until the 20th century, American and European men including physicians believed that women did not experience sexual desire or pleasure. They believed that women were simply fleshy receptacles for male lust and that intercourse culminating in male ejaculation fulfilled women's erotic needs. Women were socialised to believe that ladies had no sex drive, and that duty required them to put up with sex in order to keep their husbands happy and have children.
Not surprisingly, these beliefs left an enormous number or women sexually frustrated. They complained to doctors of anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, erotic fantasies, feelings of heaviness in the lower abdomen and wetness between the leg. This syndrome became known as hysteria, from the Greek for uterus.
Medicine was at best, primitive. Most doctors had no scientific training. And their standard treatment, bleeding, killed more people than it helped. But thanks to genital massage, hysteria was one of the few conditions doctors could treat successfully, and it produced large numbers of grateful women who returned faithfully and regularly eager to pay for additional treatment.
To make vibrators socially acceptable their real purpose was disguised. They were called personal massagers and still are in some catalogues today. But discerning women and advertising copy writers knew very well what massagers were all about. One 1903 advertisement in a Catalogue touted a popular massager as a delightful companion all the pleasures of youth will throb within you.
Today dozens of models are available: plug in, battery powered, waterproof, large, small, and tiny travel models (bullets). One third of adult women own at least one vibrator, many own several, and about half of vibrator owners use them in partner sex. And just think, we owe it all to physician fatigue.
Before buying a vibrator you should think long and hard (ha ha) xxx
Kristina Yorkshire Escort xx
