A BRIEF HISTORY OF VIBRATORS.

Fourth Century B.C.—Second Century A.D.

Did you know that the foundation for the eventual creation of vibrators dates all the way back to the fourth century B.C.? It all started with a theory put forth by Hippocrates, the fourth-century Greek physician known as the father of Western medicine. He claimed that a woman’s uterus could become too light and dry from lack of sexual intercourse. He named this condition “hysteria.”

In the second century, the great physician Galen expanded upon Hippocrates’ original definition, saying that “hysteria” was caused by sexual deprivation in passionate women and was most prevalent amongst virgins, nuns, widows and the occasional married woman. The prescription was stimulation of the clitoral area. The prevailing thought was that a woman’s sexual frustration could be cured with an occasional session of female clitoral massage, helping her achieve orgasm.

The Middle Ages to the Victorian Era

During the eras of medieval and renaissance medicine, the cure for female “hysteria” was sexual intercourse for married women, marriage for single women or, for women who remained single, vaginal massage by a midwife.

At the dawn of the Victorian Era, “hysteria” had been a common diagnosis for decades in Western Europe. Its wide range of symptoms included faintness, nervousness, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasms, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex and a “tendency to cause trouble.” “Hysteria” continued to be a diagnosis for hundreds of years in Western Europe, well into the Victorian Era of the 1860s.

During that time, doctors concurred that masturbation by hand was difficult and tedious. Referring patients to a midwife meant a loss of business for the physician. Medically prescribed masturbation became a highly profitable part of a doctor’s practice as many patients needed and requested constant treatments, some of which could take hours. It was from this situation that vibrators were born, dramatically shortening treatment time, increasing physicians’ business and eliminating the need to use midwives in this capacity altogether.

Initially, this came in an early form of hydrotherapy, where a high-pressure water hose was aimed directly at the clitoris. But as the years rolled by, and with the advent of the steam age and then the electric age, the vibrator was on track to make a permanent move from the doctor’s office to the bedroom.

1900s—1950s

In 1902, Hamilton Beach® patented the first take-home vibrator, becoming one of the earliest electrical appliances to be introduced for the home, just after the sewing machine and approximately ten years before the electric iron. Not surprisingly, these vibrators were large, cumbersome and noisy.

By 1917, there were more vibrators than toasters in American homes, claiming to cure everything from headaches to polio, deafness and impotence. Some ads for vibrators even claimed to be able to put a glow on your face.

During the 1950s, vibrators became a bedroom secret shared by unspoken masses of single women, housewives and couples. Ads for vibrators were relegated to the backs of magazines.

1970s—Present

As the roots of the women’s liberation movement began taking hold, vibrators began to emerge from the shadows. One of the most visible signs of this change occurred in 1973, when Betty Dodson started masturbation groups for women to “awaken their sexual consciousness.”

In the years since, vibrators have increasingly become an accepted part of culture: In the 1990s, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop included vibrators as a safe-sex option in government literature, the rise of online shopping made it easier and more discreet for people to buy them and women around the country hosted sex toy shopping parties in their homes.

Today, vibrators have also become a regular part of pop culture, mentioned frequently in books, magazines, TV shows, digital discussions and everyday conversation. In fact, 53% of American women and 45% of men have used a vibrator!

Source: The Vibrator Museum, goodvibes.com