History of sextoys
1869 - Debut of the first vibrator. Developed by an American physician, George Taylor, M.D., it was a large, cumbersome, steam-powered apparatus. Taylor recommended it for treatment of an illness known at the time as "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. However, since it was the Victorian era, women were not considered to be at all sexual and it was therefore deemed a disease. Physicians of that era treated hysteria by massaging sufferers' vulvas until they experienced dramatic relief through "paroxysm" (orgasm). Unfortunately, hysteria was a recurrent condition and repeated treatment was often necessary. Taylor touted his steam-driven massage device as speeding treatment while reducing physician fatigue.
1890 - Invention of the motion picture. Almost immediately after movies appeared, early filmmakers began producing pornography, some of which featured women playing with vibrators and dildos, including strap-ons.
1899 - Publication of America's first advertisement for a home electric vibrator, the Vibratile, in McClure's magazine -- as a cure for headache, wrinkles, and "neuralgia," or nerve pain, a term that included hysteria.
1900- 1920 - Popularization of the home vibrator. As electricity became widely available around the U.S., plug-in home vibrators were one of the first electrified home appliances. Marketed to women as health and relaxation aids, vibrator advertising copy was filled with double-entendres, for example, "all the pleasure of youth ... will throb within you." They were advertised in many consumer magazines, including Needlecraft, Home Needlework Journal and Woman's Home Companion, and even sold in the Sears & Roebuck catalogue as an "aid every woman appreciates."
1921- The first vibrator advertisement aimed at men. Published in a 1921 issue of Heart's magazine, it exhorted men to buy vibrators for their wives as Christmas gifts to keep them "young and pretty" and free from the scourge of hysteria.
1930 - Vibrator advertisements disappear from magazines and catalogues. As more pornographic films showed women using vibrators for sexual self-stimulation, it became impossible for manufacturers to defend the polite fiction that they were simply innocent "massagers." Self-appointed guardians of rectitude branded them immoral, and very quickly, vibrators virtually disappeared.
1965 - Re-emergence of the vibrator. You just can't keep a good sex toy down.
1998 - The Rabbit vibrator makes an appearance on HBO's multi-award winning show, "Sex and the City®" as the once timid character Charlotte's new best friend. After the episode aired, demand for the toy skyrocketed.
1869 - Debut of the first vibrator. Developed by an American physician, George Taylor, M.D., it was a large, cumbersome, steam-powered apparatus. Taylor recommended it for treatment of an illness known at the time as "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. However, since it was the Victorian era, women were not considered to be at all sexual and it was therefore deemed a disease. Physicians of that era treated hysteria by massaging sufferers' vulvas until they experienced dramatic relief through "paroxysm" (orgasm). Unfortunately, hysteria was a recurrent condition and repeated treatment was often necessary. Taylor touted his steam-driven massage device as speeding treatment while reducing physician fatigue.
1890 - Invention of the motion picture. Almost immediately after movies appeared, early filmmakers began producing pornography, some of which featured women playing with vibrators and dildos, including strap-ons.
1899 - Publication of America's first advertisement for a home electric vibrator, the Vibratile, in McClure's magazine -- as a cure for headache, wrinkles, and "neuralgia," or nerve pain, a term that included hysteria.
1900- 1920 - Popularization of the home vibrator. As electricity became widely available around the U.S., plug-in home vibrators were one of the first electrified home appliances. Marketed to women as health and relaxation aids, vibrator advertising copy was filled with double-entendres, for example, "all the pleasure of youth ... will throb within you." They were advertised in many consumer magazines, including Needlecraft, Home Needlework Journal and Woman's Home Companion, and even sold in the Sears & Roebuck catalogue as an "aid every woman appreciates."
1921- The first vibrator advertisement aimed at men. Published in a 1921 issue of Heart's magazine, it exhorted men to buy vibrators for their wives as Christmas gifts to keep them "young and pretty" and free from the scourge of hysteria.
1930 - Vibrator advertisements disappear from magazines and catalogues. As more pornographic films showed women using vibrators for sexual self-stimulation, it became impossible for manufacturers to defend the polite fiction that they were simply innocent "massagers." Self-appointed guardians of rectitude branded them immoral, and very quickly, vibrators virtually disappeared.
1965 - Re-emergence of the vibrator. You just can't keep a good sex toy down.
1998 - The Rabbit vibrator makes an appearance on HBO's multi-award winning show, "Sex and the City®" as the once timid character Charlotte's new best friend. After the episode aired, demand for the toy skyrocketed.
The rest is as they say... History
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