I do a lot of gender and anatomy talk in this post. Though we should all remember that not every woman has a vagina and not everyone who has a vagina is a woman, many historical accounts ignore this. I’ll be referencing women a lot since that was likely the majority of the population affected, but I do want to be able to account for those who were treated and socialized as women because of their anatomy, even if that wasn’t how they identified. The historical conversation also frequently leaves out intersex folks.
One of my favorite podcasts is Sawbones, in which the host and her husband discuss the origins of common medical practices and ailments. Medical history is endlessly fascinating to me, so it only makes sense that I’d be interested in the historical uses of sex toys, as well. So I did some digging. I’m far from the first person to talk about this, so I’ll be doing a lot of linking. Read to your heart’s content!
Physicians, thinkers, and vulva-owners have long known the benefits of genital massage, and appears as early as the first century A.D. Hippocrates, Galen, and Celsus all touched on genital massage as a way to relieve “hysteria”, which literally translates to “womb disease”, so like… not the best name. These are the same folks who thought the uterus was a free floating organ that would just roam around the body and wreak havoc. It wasn’t exactly the golden age of medicine.
One of my favorite stories is that Cleopatra had a bunch of bees encased in a tube or box or gourd and got her rocks off on the buzzing. Far-fetched, but I do enjoy the idea of a Pharaoh knowing that vibrations would be much more convenient and stimulating than anything else.
There have been many different examples of 30,000-year-old phallus carvings, conceivably the first dildos, but the idea that vibrators were invented for doctors first tends to float around, and it’s largely correct. “Hysteria”, the poorly-defined, vague amalgam of symptoms that was something of a catchall for physicians treating women, was found to be treated– if not cured entirely– by orgasm. Physicians, and sometimes midwives, would massage the vulva of “hysterical” women until they climaxed, at which point the women would experience relief from their symptoms.
Naturally, this was a burden on men.
Massage to orgasm of female patients was a staple of medical practice… mechanizing this task significantly increased the number of patients a doctor could treat in a working day. Doctors were a male elite… and efficiency gains in the medical production of orgasm for payment could increase income. Physicians had both the means and the motivation to mechanize.
Bring in the robots, boys! In order to speed up the nauseating process of giving a woman an orgasm, doctors looked to mechanical assistants. Joseph Mortimer Granville had created a device meant to massage sore muscles, but it was quickly appropriated into an early vibrator, very much like our beloved Hitachi Magic Wand.
Apparently, newspaper ads claimed that vibrators could help indigestion? I don’t know, man. Some of my favorite things that vibrators/orgasms could “cure” or “restore”:
- Headaches
- Asthma
- Tuberculosis
- Weight loss
- Wrinkle reduction
- Stiffness and weakness
- Neuralgia
- Lumbago (low back pain)
- Rheumatism
- Hair loss
- Tired feeling
- Nervousness
- Nerve ailments
- Lung troubles
- Morbid irritability
- Health and vigor
- Beauty
- The essence of perpetual youth
So basically, vibrators will cure anything and keep you young and beautiful forever. Sounds good to me.
Vibes definitely became more mainstream as time went on. The first cordless vibrator was patented in 1968, and the media helped push vibrators more into the spotlight as well. Particularly the entirety of the Sex and the City series on HBO and that episode of Oprah where Dr. Laura encouraged parents to buy their 15- and 16-year-old daughters small clitoral vibrators and talked about different kinds of vibes.
These days, you can buy vibrators pretty easily, thanks to shops like SheVibe and more inviting brick and mortar sex toy shops. They’ve gotten pretty fancy too, from handsfree usage to custom vibrations to partnered toys that let you play with a long-distance partner to self-thrusting dildos and apps for vibrators.
I can’t say that any of my vibrators have given me the essence of perpetual youth or cured my tuberculosis, but I enjoy them anyway. I’ll stick to western medicine for my rheumatism, thanks.
Thanks to We-Vibe for sponsoring this post! Though this was a sponsored post, all opinions are my own. If you want to help support me and my work with sponsored content like this, contact me and let’s talk!