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vibrators mention the word, and most people think of a womans personal sexual pleasure. But this however was the furthest thing from the thoughts of the male doctors who invented vibrators more than a hundred years ago. They were more interested in a labor saving tools to spare their own hands the fatigue caused by treating/solving "female hysteria." This condition involved a number of vague, chronic complaints in women, including: anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, erotic fantasies, and to much moisture inside the vagina. Female hysteria was actually women's sexual frustration. The history of vibrators is a strange tale that provides insights into both the history of sex toys, and cultural notions about a womans sexuality.
vibrators Until the 20th century, American and European men believed that women were incapable of any sexual desire and pleasure. Women of that era basically concurred. They were socialized to believe that "ladies" had no sex drive, and were merely passive receptacles for a mans un-bridled lust, which they had to endure to hang on to their husbands and have children. Not surprisingly, these beliefs led to a lot of sexual frustration on the part of women.
Over the centuries, doctors prescribed various remedies for hysteria this leas to vibrators (named for the Greek for "uterus"). In the 13th century, physicians advised women to use dildos. In the 16th century, they told married hysteric women to encourage the lust for their husbands. Unfortunately, that probably did not help too many wives, because modern sexuality research clearly shows that women rarely experience orgasm from intercourse, but need direct clitoral stimulation. For hysteria unrelieved by husbandly lust, and for widows, and single and unhappily married women, doctors advised horseback riding, which, in some cases could provided enough clitoral stimulation to spark off an orgasm.
But many women found little relief from horseback riding, and by the 17th century, Vibrators and dildos were less of an option because the arbiters of decency had succeeded in demonizing masturbation and the use of sex toys as a kind of "self-abuse." Fortunately, an acceptable, more reliable treatment had started to emerge: having a doctor or midwife massage the genitalia with one finger inside, using oil of lilies or crocus as a lubricant. With enough genital massage, hysterical women could experience sudden, dramatic relief through "paroxysm," which virtually no medical authority called orgasm, because, of course, everyone knew that women did not experience sexual feelings, so they could not possibly experience a sexual climax.
continue reading the history of vibrators and dildos in (history of vibrators and dildos part2)