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The History of the Female Vibrator
Female Vibrators were initially invented for the medical profession in the late 1800s
The first ever female vibrator was invented in the 1880's by a British physician. There is some dispute about the actual inventor, but astonishingly the vibrator was invented as a labour-saving device for the Medical profession! The female vibrator has certainly come a long way since. Sadly inventing the vibrator was not a radical support of women’s sexual freedom, instead it was originally a labor-saving device to help doctors give their female patients a ”hysterical paroxysm” — that is, an orgasm. What in the world were doctors doing vibrating their female patients to orgasm? The simple answer is simple that their fingers got tired!
The complicated answer is delivered by Maines’ a female Doctor who wrote ”The Technology of Orgasm: ‘Hysteria,’ the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction.” The female vibrator, Maines continues is the last in a long line of devices and techniques that were used to combat hysteria. The classic symptoms of hysteria — ”anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, erotic fantasy, sensations of heaviness in the abdomen……” are the symptoms of chronic arousal. If this was hysteria, the recommended therapies made perfect sense.
The diagnosis of hysteria was a profitable one for doctors, who had an endless stream of patients, but the drawback was that Physicians understandably did not like performing genital massage. Their fingers got tired and they often had difficulty “sustaining the treatment long enough to produce results.”
Incredibly, to help with this exhausting task, doctors had a range of alternative techniques available, such as a helping hand with a massaging midwife, wind-up vibrators or ”percuteurs,” pneumatic equipment…the list goes on. And so enter the first female vibrators made for the medical profession.
The first Female Vibrators to buy were sold in 1918
Commercialization of the female vibrator as a product to general households did not start until some 30 years later in 1918, and was started by American company Sears, Roebuck. In fact the first commercial vibrator model was made with different adapters which could even mix your cakes!
The device had an interchangeable vibrator attachment for a hand held motor that would also drive a churn, a mixer and a sewing machine! Versatile to say the least!
The models of portable vibrators were advertised using lines such as ”Such Delightful Companions”, and ”All the pleasures of youth . . . will throb within you.” In fact thinking about it probably not too dissimilar to how we would find a vibrator marketed today.
The end of the vibrator used by the medical proffession
But the female vibrator for medical purposes outlived the Hysteria disease it was supposed to cure. In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association removed hysteria from its list of mental illnesses, and the rest they say is history the vibrator lived on…….
