KissinBlueKaren

Social Acceptability Of Sex Toys

2012 has seen sales of sex toys soar through the roof. With the hugely popular ’50 Shades of Grey’ storming through the bestsellers charts, online retailers of all things pleasurable have been feeling the heat, with products they guarantee will take the place of diamonds as girl’s best friend. Whilst jiggle balls and handcuffs have seen massive increases in popularity, the classic or rabbit vibrator is still considered the most popular sex toys among many women, available in many shapes, sizes and textures. Gone is the embarrassment that came with admitting you owned a sex toy, with women everywhere – whether in a relationship or single – taking charge of their own sexuality.

Origins Of The Vibrator

It’s a far leap from the humble beginnings of vibrators. The vibrator was invented in the eighteen hundreds to tackle ‘hysteria’, the female disease which had been diagnosed by Hippocrates and which had had little update since. More than one in four women were said to have the disease with symptoms that could encompass everything from fatigue to stomach cramps, and the most effective cure was ‘hysterical paroxysm’ – otherwise known as ‘orgasm’. Other cures included sensory deprivation and removing yourself from anything too taxing, but pelvic massage was often considered the most successful. Whilst it’s tempting now to see this as sexual deviancy, it seems the doctors of the late 1800′s were less than happy about the application of this treatment.

Until the vibrator was invented, the unfortunate doctors of those days found themselves overwhelmed with women diagnosed with the disease, and they’d suffer cramps in their hands as they spent hours ensuring they cured the women of their illness using pelvic massage. By 1870, a clockwork vibrator was invented and the physicians found themselves cured of their problems, and overbooked with patients.

Commercial Release Of The Vibrator

It took many more years for vibrators to be used outside the doctor’s office, but in 1900 they were finally released as a retail product. It became the fifth electrical appliance to be released for consumer use after the sewing machine, fan, kettle and toaster and was released years before household necessities such as the electrical vacuum or iron. However, in the days when ‘female hysteria’ was still considered a valid illness, it would have been embarrassing and very much frowned upon to admit to owning one of these devices for anything other than medical purposes. Therefore, they were marketed as body massages offering to cure anything from headaches to asthma.

The Sexual Revolution

It wasn’t until the sixties that vibrators started being accepted as a form of female masturbation in a previously prudish society. Whilst they still carried a certain amount of stigma, being seen as a lesser form of pleasure than intercourse, women now found themselves investigating facets of their sexuality in a less judgmental age, where masturbation was not something to be frowned upon or discussed only in a doctor’s office but something to be enjoyed in the home.

By the seventies, vibrators were marketed to women as a sex aid and since then women have been taking responsibility for their own pleasure. As the use of vibrators became more and more mainstream, with hit television shows such as Sex and the City praising them, women have become more and more comfortable in the purchase of these gadgets to the point where now, in 2012, they are openly discussed on television and purchased not only by women but by couples worldwide looking to spice up their love life. No matter why they were invented, women the world over are reaping the benefits.