[Essay] The History of Sex Toys

A sex toy is any object or device that is primarily used in facilitating human sexual pleasure. This is also often referred to as adult toy. The most popular sex toys are designed to resemble human genitals and can be classified as vibrating or non-vibrating. (Wikipedia 2006)

The first vibrators were developed 130 years ago to treat an illness called female hysteria. Hysteria which literally means womb disease or suffering uterus was used to describe a woman’s display of mental and emotional distress. The medical treatment for hysteria was to bring the female to orgasm. Physicians treated hysteria by massaging their patients' clitoris until they experienced relief through paroxysm or orgasm. With all being to consider, doctors would use the hands of midwives, the strokes of a husband or anything else that could substitute his own finger. (Maines 1999)

Then in the 1880s a British physician develops the first electromechanical vibrator after several attempts at various mechanical substitutions. In 1869, an American doctor invented the steam-powered massager. Within 20 years, a British doctor introduced a more portable battery-operated model. And finally, the American Psychiatric Association officially removed hysteria from the disease paradigm. (Maines 1999)

Today, we seem to have more appealing ways of curing hysteria and sex toys have become more than a taboo even with their overwhelming popularity and variety. These include penile toys like masturbators, cock rings, ball rock and penis sleeve; the anal toys like the butt plugs and anal beads and the toys for vaginal or clitoral stimulation such as the different kinds of vibrators, dildos, Ben Wa Balls and the Kegel exercisers. (Wikipedia 2006)

Bibliography:

Maines, R. (1999). The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator and Women Sexual Satisfaction. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Sex Toy. Wikipedia. 23 November 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 November 2006. .