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In the U.S. alone, the vibrator is a billion dollar industry. But how long have they really been around, and who invented them?
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An early vibrator ad. Image Source: Wikipedia
A sex toy staple, the rise of the vibrator has always been linked to the hysteria treatments of Victorian England. But the Victorians were hardly the first to employ “pelvic massage” as a medical treatment. As it happens, the history of the vibrator is much longer than that:
The Vibrator’s Ancient Origins
The term hysteria — from the Greek word for uterus, hysteros — originated some 2,500 years ago and described a triad of symptoms experienced by women: fatigue, nervousness and depression. Hippocrates believed that these symptoms were caused by a “wandering uterus,” and given the science of the time, it was as logical an assumption as anything else. Questionable anatomy aside, dildos apparently appeared as an answer to this set of problems, having been found in places dating back to this period. In Ancient Egypt, legend has it that Cleopatra filled a hollowed out gourd with bees and used it for clitoral stimulation. It’s likely just an urban legend, though: she probably just used dildos, like every other woman of her time.
From Medieval times throughout the Renaissance, village doctors viewed hysteria as a sign of sexual deprivation, and thus encouraged married hysteria sufferers to engage in rigorous sex to cure their ails. In fact, for much of history, the pursuit of the female orgasm was more important than we’ve been led to believe: even in the Victorian era, sex guides touted the female orgasm as essential to pregnancy. If a man wanted an heir, the female orgasm, and foreplay, were essential.
Vibrators In The Victoria Era
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A Victorian era doctor comes to the aid of his patient. Image Source: Wikipedia
The Victorians did coin a term for the orgasm: hysterical paroxysm. The clinical definition added a degree of scientific legitimacy to the experience, but was concurrent with a belief that masturbation was sinful and even harmful (although a few doctors conceded that it might have been okay for women on their periods). If a “hysterical” woman was unmarried and didn’t have the option or interest in “rigorous sexual intercourse,” she still had to achieve that curative hysterical paroxysm somehow.
At first, midwives and medical doctors — predominantly men at the time — manually massaged a woman’s vulva and clitoral region in order for the woman to experience a “hysterical paroxysm.” The intended effect did wear off, meaning that women would come back for more treatment — and after a while, physicians ran into a significant challenge: their hands and wrists were getting tired and, in some cases, probably bordering on repetitive motion injuries like tendonitis.
The necessity for an automated massager begat the first of many automatic “vibrators”: more specifically, a rather large, steam-powered one that practically took up an entire room and was known as “The Manipulator.” Perhaps the most well-known iteration, in part because of the major motion picture that dramatized the story, is Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville’s 1880 invention of the first electric vibrator. Granville never meant to treat “hysterics” with his device; rather, he meant for it to treat musculoskeletal pain in men. Nevertheless, these devices reduced the time it took for women to achieve her paroxysm — helpful as at the time many doctors feared a “hysteria” epidemic — and soon became smaller and more portable, opening up the door for new innovations by actors outside the medical field.
The Modern Vibrator
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The “hysteria” epidemic. Image Source: Wikipedia
In a 2012 interview with The Daily Beast, sex historian Dr. Rachel Maines said that by 1899, $5 battery-powered vibrators appeared in Sears catalogs as household appliances, adding that, “After a while, patients realized that if they could order one from Sears for $5, why should they go to the doctor for $2 to $3 a visit?”
By the early 20th century, women had the ability to treat their “hysteria” independently and at home, eliminating the need for office visits and saving the wrists of their grumbling doctors. The advertisements in Sears catalogs at the time called vibrators “aids that every woman appreciates.”
Once vibrators became widely available, the scope of their intended use broadened. In the early 1920s, they started popping up in brothels and later, porn films. By 1952, the the American Medical Association dropped the term “hysteria” from its diagnostic terminology. The term may have exited the lexicon, but the attitude toward women’s health and the suppression of their sexual needs continued: Once it was apparent that vibrators had an explicitly sexual connotation, they disappeared from the consumer market almost as quickly as they’d appeared.
The 1970s sexual revolution ushered in a more open approach to the vibrator, most notably with the famous Hitachi Magic Wand, which hit the scene in 1973. The concept of objects created specifically for sexual use — particularly women’s sexual pleasure — succeeded through the evolving perception of women socially and politically. Even though sex toys had existed for centuries, they had mostly been used in secret. Now they were coming to the forefront, so to speak.
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A Hitachi “magic wand.” Image Source: Wikipedia
Today, vibrators exist in just about every iteration you could possibly imagine, varying in shape, size, color and intensity. Babeland, one of the first websites devoted to their sale (in 1993), continues to be one of the most prolific sellers of sex toys to date.
One study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that over half of women they surveyed had used a vibrator — and hearkening back to its medical origins, linked the usage of sex toys to health-conscious behaviors such as regular gynecological exams.
The post The Strange, Surprising History Of The Vibrator appeared first on All That Is Interesting.