Perhaps till today in 2020, sex toys are still a private topic for women, even if sex is no longer a taboo topic, and most women have solutions to their physical needs, but people still keep silent on sex toys.
However, the shame which always comes with sex toys did not exist at the beginning of the invention of the vibrator. Before the 20th century, most people in medical profession believed that women did not have sexual desire, and the symptoms including neurasthenia, fatigue, anxiety and depression, etc. caused by sexual repression was labeled as the disease Hysteria. According to the book The Technology of Orgasm published by the famous sexologist Rachel Maines (Rachel Maines) in 1999, this disease was first recorded in 450 BC. It has never been resolved for centuries and people start to explore until 19th.
When a Victorian women was experiencing the troubles caused by hysteria, she would turn to the doctor for help, and received a kind of treatment service called “pelvic massage” in a serious manner, and “Hysterical paroxysm” is the end point, which is called “clinical orgasm” today. At that time, masturbation by private female was prohibited, but it was generally accepted as a medical activity! The British doctor who invented pelvic massage didn’t know that he was masturbating against thirsty ladies in a scientific rigorous manner, the doctor’s fingers are sore and swollen every day because they have too many patients to cure. Even if they use ice, the pain cannot be relived completely. So later, people invented a hand-cranked device to reduce doctor’s burden.
Source: www.thesheaf.com
The mechanical devices have greatly improved the doctor’s situation, but it still cannot completely solve the increasing demand of more and more patients. Finally, In the steam age, the doctor called George Taylor, invented the first steam-driven physiotherapy massage bed. The patients sat on a bed with a round hole and relied on the metal ball of the steam vibrator to get treatment, and that’s the prototype of the first vibrator. As Tanya Wexler, the director of "Hysteria", said "When self-orgasm is born, people are constantly trying to orgasm with each other. What's funny is that modern vibrators are invented to reduce the burden of work."
The manipulator
Although the creation of the massage bed solved doctor’s troubles, it still can’t allow women to solve their physical demand easily and quickly anytime, anywhere. Dr. Joseph Granville asked his friends who are engaged in electrical appliances and then the first "Granville electric hammer" was invented! This has epoch-making significance with the vibrator. For the women at the end of the 19th century, self-satisfaction from sexual pleasure gradually entered family life. The release of sexual desire is gradually no longer a serious medical process that can be completed in the clinic, they can enjoy this pleasurable activity in a private and unmanned personal space.
Granville Electric Hammer
Source: www.revelist.com
In 1899, vibrators came into people’s ordinary life as a household appliance. Doctors are still trying to persuade patients to spend two or three dollars each time to go to the clinic for treatment with the giant manipulator.
Vibrator became the fifth household in 1899, even 20 years earlier than vacuum cleaner and electric iron. The number of household vibrator in America is larger than toaster - Desire is much more important than bread!
Perhaps it was out of consternation or fear of the “degenerate” behavior of women’s “sexual self-stimulation”, or perhaps it was because of the great difference of power between the vibrator itself and the male genitals, in 1952, the American Psychiatric Association believed that hysteria is not a disease and does not require treatment-the sale of electric massage sticks is prohibited. What’s more, numerous legislative measures were introduced to prohibit the sale of vibrators in 1970 to 1990. For example, Kansas drafted legislation in 1969 to prohibit the sale of "designed or sold penis or artificial vaginas mainly used to stimulate human reproductive organs, except for medical or psychological transmission or promotion of equipment treatment", and it was abolished in 1990.
Sexual desire won't be gone because of prohibition. After a lot of "social disguise", vibrators began to be sold to women again.
In the name of "more shocking where the meat is", the vibrator is claimed to help women lose weight. In the 1960s, feminist Betty Dawson believed that the vibrator was a symbol of women’s sexual rights. The Joy of Sex, published in 1972, also became a bestseller. Driven by this book and the feminists, the vibrator returned to the world.
After such a history of the development of magical sex toys, people have reached a consensus: "Sex is a part of life, and pleasing yourself is a normal and interesting thing."