I am listening to Womans hour on Radio 4 and they've just said vibrators were advertised in knitting magazines in the 1920's!!! Did anyone else know this?? They must have been quite new tech contraptions back then! Just goes to show that the older generation not as po-faced as they seem(ed) - prob depends on class, as the vibrators must have cost a fair bit!
Not so much a thread but thought you all might wana know?!?! D69x
Yup, women didn't get horny, they got 'hysterical', and they were considered a medical device for curing it.
Avrielle_Aniko wrote:
BashfulBabe wrote:
Yup, women didn't get horny, they got 'hysterical', and they were considered a medical device for curing it.
That was it! Thankyou. I couldn't remember exactly what the 'illness' was.
Like when there was a full moon and women went 'mad' but really it was PMT and the powers that were (men) just didn't understand it so they locked up the mad women?
Divine69 wrote:
I am listening to Womans hour on Radio 4 and they've just said vibrators were advertised in knitting magazines in the 1920's!!! Did anyone else know this?? They must have been quite new tech contraptions back then! Just goes to show that the older generation not as po-faced as they seem(ed) - prob depends on class, as the vibrators must have cost a fair bit!
Not so much a thread but thought you all might wana know?!?! External MediaD69x
And of course your parents/grandparents never had sex, eh? External Media
paradise found wrote:
Divine69 wrote:
I am listening to Womans hour on Radio 4 and they've just said vibrators were advertised in knitting magazines in the 1920's!!! Did anyone else know this?? They must have been quite new tech contraptions back then! Just goes to show that the older generation not as po-faced as they seem(ed) - prob depends on class, as the vibrators must have cost a fair bit!
Not so much a thread but thought you all might wana know?!?! External MediaD69x
And of course your parents/grandparents never had sex, eh? External Media
I wasn't saying that, I just meant that in the realms of sex toys they were (I guess) all abit new and not as acceptable as now - must have caused more poeple to blush than nowadays. Everythings got more front these days. Sex wasn't really talked about like it is now(blatanly)esp in my g'parents time, all lights off etc. Altho am sure there were some couples/people breaking the boundries - just not like now, y'know?
Anyway really I was amazed at hearing the word 'vibrator' on Radio 4 - I could hear Jane Garvey blushing!! Lol!!External Media
Funnily enough, vibrators were sold quite candidly in magazines as massagers and ways of curing women from "Hysteria." The first vibrators were invented in 1870.
Another common way of curing hysteria was "pelvic massage" provided by your doctor to induce "hysterical paroxysm" or as we'd know it, a good old orgasm. And now ladies, you may fantasize about a dashing doctor curing your corseted form of terrible hysteria!
It wasn't untill people started thinking of them as pleasure objects instead of medical ones that people started to get iffy about them.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Technology-Orgasm-Hysteria-Vibrator-Satisfaction/dp/0801866464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304839903&sr=8-1 This book has a little information about the history of toys and mentions about the knitting magazines.
Toys really aren't a new thing, if you look back throughout history you will find, the oldest know insertable tool was found in germany and dates back to about 26,000 Bp. Within Ancient egypt tools were often used for stimulation, from craved stone to live snakes with there mouths sewn shut. You will find on tombs and other sorces hyroglifics about sexual practises, these would have been read and observed back then as if they were magazines if you think about it. In acient greece there were sex shops, one that's been unearched athens and women often were buried with sex toys. So it's not uncommon, hysteria came about first in roman and greek times but wasn't labled till around 1500.
Not only were sextoys advertised in sewning and knitting mags there were posts and other forms of advertising.in 1930 there was a magazine called sexology in the USA, this was a magazine about sex mainly aimed at married people. Things within it were from articles about someones sex life, chastity, to historical figures sex lives such as napoleon. Sexology has came a long way since this and is now a scientific study (1980) of sex.
Hi, yes I heard this part of woman's hour too, it's a brilliant programme. They also discussed this subject several years ago in a bit more detail. If I remember rightly, vibrators are actually one of the first electrical inventions ever, and may even have preceded the electric light bulb. Apparently the vibrations occur as a result of oscillations in AC current, and technicians working with AC current found that many of their experimental devices were spontaneously vibrating, even though they had not been designed to do that.
It was then only a matter of time before somebody thought up a use for this phenomenon. I have also heard that there was quite a lot of opposition from the medical community, since doctors had "enjoyed" a monopoly on the treatment of hysteria, and did not want to lose one of their favourite little earners to a mechanical device.
So three cheers for vibrators, for playing pivotal roles in the development of modern technology and women gaining more independance in their own health care :)
Haha, I'd read that it was doctors who started using them (And hydro machines aswell) first because doing it manually all the time caused them wrist strain and took ages. ^^
Avrielle_Aniko wrote:
BashfulBabe wrote:
Yup, women didn't get horny, they got 'hysterical', and they were considered a medical device for curing it.
That was it! Thankyou. I couldn't remember exactly what the 'illness' was.
lol so I don't supper from depression... its just hysteria!!! dear me the things they thought of many moons ago!!
The Nymphomaniac wrote:.
Not only were sextoys advertised in sewning and knitting mags there were posts and other forms of advertising.in 1930 there was a magazine called sexology in the USA, this was a magazine about sex mainly aimed at married people. Things within it were from articles about someones sex life, chastity, to historical figures sex lives such as napoleon. Sexology has came a long way since this and is now a scientific study (1980) of sex.
Interesting, I do wonder if the USA approach sex and promoting it in a different light to the UK! I find them different.
Sounds like an interesting read actually.
