2 Shy 2 Ask

Vibrators were used as a cure for hysteria

Sex toys have been around for years. The human urge to produce a tool to aid sexual enjoyment can be traced back to the stone age, whereby alongside axe heads and knives archaeologists have found instruments they believe to be Neolithic dildos. Stone phallus’s have been found to date back 12,000 years, making our innovative glass and ceramic dildos so passe. It is considered that these dated dildos are probably symbolic and religious items, yet these objects are the same shape and size of our modern day dildo. Whichever way you look at it sex toys have been around for years and are not the modern day invention that lines of shelves of sex shops and adult stores.

Whilst it is a matter of debate whether stone age women were disappearing with their dildo for a bout of self pleasure it is very likely that women in ancient Greece did. Artistic objects such as a Greek vase housed in Denmark depicts a woman about to insert a dildo in her vagina whilst raising a second to her lips. Other vases show people holding small egg shaped vessels used for holding sex lubricant. The Romans manufactured their own sex toys from leather, bone and wood. Depictions on the walls of Pompeii’s Brothels are testament to the use of dildo’s at the time!

In the 12th Century a Bishop in Europe berated women in his flock for fashioning an object to replicate a male member and using it to commit fornication with other women and pleasure for themselves. His words had little effect though as the use of dildos continued throughout the following Centuries. The Industrial Revolution had an effect on sex toys as any other product. The advent of rubber companies saw the arrival of rubber dildos and clitoral stimulators for women. A French mail order firm offered women a rubber sheath with nodules which fitted over the finger for clitoral pleasure and the company also made stimulator’s to be fitted over the penis the beginnings of couples sex toys.

The first vibrators appeared in 1869 when George Taylor an American Doctor produced the first steam powered vibrator apparatus. Unfortunately they were expensive to make and cumbersome units to move around so the dawn of mass produced sex toys to slip into your hand bag were a way off yet. Up until 1900 vibrators were used by doctors only to administer a ‘medical massage’ to women, yes that’s right masturbation on the NHS. The first battery operated vibrator was produced by Joseph Mortimer in 1880 and by the turn of the Century more than a handful of manufacturers were making battery operated and plug in models of the vibrator.

Buying your sex toy through the post was the initial way of obtaining your pleasure object in the first half of the 20th Century but in the 1960’s sex toy stores began appearing as an alternative source. Today mail order continues with on line sex shops aplenty to purchase your toys. New inventions appear every year and sex toys have now become a more acceptable part of our lives.