Sex on Tuesday: History 69

Okay, so the last thing anyone wants to get from a column about sex is a history lesson, especially around midterm season, but bear with me my little skeptics. This isn't going to be anything like your 8 a.m. lecture. Welcome to History 69: the development of the sex toy.

Bluntly stated, people have been having sex for a really long time. This should be obvious enough, or else none of us would be here, right? So with many thousands of years of creative experience, it should come as no surprise to anyone that sex toys have existed for thousands of years. But because we need to cover a few millennia in about 600 words, let's focus on the origin of two of our modern favorites: the dildo and the vibrator. Who said history couldn't be stimulating?

It's All Greek to Me

Dildos owe their popularity to ancient Greece, where traders sold what they called "olisbos" around the Mediterranean. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, right? Not quite. Although the olisbo was the veritable great-granddaddy of the dildo, it was hardly delightful. Fashioned from stone, leather or even wood, the olisbo required liberal lubrication with (no joke) olive oil for proper usage.

This gynecological nightmare was advertised primarily as a sexual refuge for single women, though how much of a "refuge" that really was, we will thankfully never know.

Ironically enough, considering their crude origins, the word "dildo" came from the combination of "olisbo" with "diletto," the Spanish word for delight. The lifelike, rubber dildo did not appear until the mid-19th century.

You could say that today is the golden age for dildos, now available in many colors, shapes, sizes, widths-you name it. The myth that dildo ownership is the domain of single women persists today, but the truth remains that dildos are enjoyed by many, including couples and people of both sexes, from all walks of life.

Crazy? I Was Crazy Once ...

Unlike dildos, vibrators were not always the sexual supplement they are enjoyed as today. The first vibrators were developed 130 years ago to treat an illness called "female hysteria."

Symptoms of this hysteria included having sexual fantasies and excessive vaginal lubrication; that's right, female sexual arousal was considered a mental disorder. Talk about girl interrupted!

The word hysteria itself is derived from the Greek word for uterus, stemming from that misled notion that psychiatric disorders in women spring from disturbances with their reproductive organs.

So if that's what they considered an illness, what was the cure? Doctors treated hysteria by massaging sufferers' vaginal lips until they experienced relief through "paroxysm" (orgasm). In the 1860s, spas offered high-tech alternatives with water jets and steam-powered vibrating devices, one of which, "the Steely Dan," was the inspirational namesake of the 1970s band.

Vibrators were even advertised in the 1918 Sears catalog as a "very satisfactory ... aid every woman appreciates." They were even popular Christmas gifts (and no doubt still are), with the guarantee to keep wives "young and pretty" and free from the scourge of hysteria. It was only after vibrators began to be used in early pornography in the 1930s were they no longer openly advertised. Whatever happened to doctor's orders?

Now whether you feel like you've just prepared yourself to play erotic jeopardy or you're busy thanking fate for your being born in the modern age, take a moment to stand back and marvel in the miracles of modern science-we've come a long way from splinters and olive oil.

This is a golden age for sex toys, which can be a way to enhance you and your partner's sexual pleasure. Sex toys are not some new pornographic sexual phenomenon; why, you might even call them historical.

Tags: