History’s precedents to your favorite sex toys
Most great innovations weren’t just spontaneously dreamed up out of the clear blue sky by a single Wizard of Oz genius. Hell, there had been patents on lightbulb designs for decades before Edison famously “invented” it – he just tweaked it to be more commercially viable. Some of the wonders of the modern world probably aren’t quite as modern as you think.
This fact applies to the stuff we use for auto-gratification, and about which we lie through our teeth when our significant others ask which gets us off more: the human or the machine? Some new ideas obviously never existed before a previous invention set the stage – no one would have thought up headphones before it was possible to record and play back sound. But we’ve always been equipped with our genitals, so sex paraphernalia has an awesomely long and rich history. Here’s a look back at some of the more notable ancestors of stuff you might have in a bedside drawer right now.
1.)Olive Oil lube
Olive oil is one of the darlings of modern chemists and nutritionists, since it’s one of those rare things that has glorious flavor, can be used in just about anything, and is packed to the gunnels with valuable nutrition. The scientific evidence is new, but our history of infatuation with the stuff is not. Olive oil was the first major product to make olive farming in the Fertile Crescent and Mediterranean a commercial success, but those folks weren’t just dumping it on their bread when they’d go to their local Olive Garden down the street. They turned it into soaps, lamp fuel, and skin care products as well. Greek Athletes apparently rubbed it all over themselves, and there’s no way, just no way that all those dudes got all lubed up without one of them discovering that it gave him a way easier and less chafe-ey experience with the ol’ low five. I mean, what do you do when you’re covered head to toe in warm, oily lubricants?
From there , this intrepid sexual pioneer certainly must have put two and two together and found that lube not only enhanced the solo act, it eased the complaining of whichever wench into whom he was thrusting his gladius that day. There’s also some evidence that the Romans used olive oil as a spermicidal contraceptive, although the whole concept of bathing the penis in spermicide now and having it prevent conception 10 minutes later has never been that effective.
For those of you who haven’t already stepped away from the computer to go dump olive oil all over your junk, you might want to know that doctors urge a bit of caution before busting out the olive oil to impress your natural-living-enthusiast date. The jury’s still out on whether or not it’s safe for females to have olive oil shoved all up in them, and any oil-based lube tends to break down the latex in most condoms.
2.)Stone Age Dildo
Dildos have such a long and well-documented history, we’re considering doing an article about just them, but for the immediate purposes, we’ll just touch on the very oldest one known to us.
Stone age artifacts are often as puzzling for modern archeologists as a graphing calculator would be for cavemen. When all you’ve got is a rock, first you have to determine whether or not it was intentionally shaped by human hands, and if so, what it might have been used for. Usually the answer is to hit, cut, or scrape stuff. No one said the relationship early humans had with technology was very complex.
Sometimes, however, there’s a find for which there’s little doubt about human engineering at work, and the form usually makes it easy to discern the function. So take a gander at this shaped rock found at a cave site in Germany and see if you can figure out what it might have been shoved into 28,000 years ago.
“But wait!” your nearest skeptic is exclaiming. “That looks just like a handy rock baton! They could have just used it for thwacking unruly children, or knapping flints!”
First off, you never even heard of “knapping flints” 60 seconds ago. Secondly, look close at the tip. Someone scratched a penis head into it! Game, set, checkmate.
Now, we’ll concede that we lack any trace biological evidence to suggest that anyone actually applied it to its obvious function, but vaginal secretions aren’t exactly supposed to last 28 millennia. But even a novelty dildo (art) is still a dildo. There are plenty of modern dildos you’re not supposed to actually use, just keep it on your desk, or hang it on your mantle, or hand out to kids at Halloween.
3.)East Asian Beads
We’re saying “east asian” because it’s unclear where and when exactly they actually originated. Some Chinese texts hint at ben wa balls from around 500 to 800 AD, but history’s clearer about their use by medieval proto-geishas called “oiran” in Japan.
For anyone unfamiliar with the concept of ben wa or rin no tama balls, the idea is to have one or two hollow but strong-walled balls attached to a string, and each of these balls contains a smaller ball that can rattle around inside. When you shove ‘em up inside you and do a little booty shake, the smaller ball rattling around in the larger ball causes vibrations to make you feel all weak in the knees and such.
Medieval Asia didn’t need to wait around for plastics for vaginal/anal beads to be invented. Metal is often the material of choice for this species of sex balls for two reasons. First, heftier balls produce more profound vibrations when knocking around inside one of your holes. Secondly, metal is relatively non-porous and so it’s easier to clean off substances and microbes – anyone whose grumbled at always having to give their plastic or otherwise synthetic vibrator or dildo a rigorous clean after every use can appreciate the appeal of an easy-clean surface.
4.)Clockwork vibrator
The history of medicine is jam packed with tragicomedy about leeches and “humours” and all kinds of pseudoscientific witchcraft presented in an academic tone and setting. One of the phenomena lighter on the “tragi-“ and heavier on the “comedy” was the now-famous “female hysteria,” or else known as “The greatest disease ever.”
Inquisitive, supposedly objective-minded doctors of generally sexually reserved European and American polite societies were baffled at the number of female patients they would see who complained of symptoms like “heaviness in the abdomen,” sleeplessness, anxiety, irritability, vaginal lubrication, sexual fantasy and what the fuck? Fantasy was a medical symptom? “Being a teenager” must have been the worst plague they’d ever seen.
Honoring their commitment to medicine, the doctors found that things like horseback riding and bouncing around in swings tended to ease the tension, and so would prescribe such activities to particularly suffering ladies, as well as marrying “vigorous husbands.” Particularly severe cases had to be treated by manually inducing a “hysterical paroxysm” by massaging the patients genitals. Stumped doctors observed that it tended to provide only a temporary alleviation, and the patients would frequently need regular treatments. We’d like to think the 18th century version of House ordered many a risky exploratory surgery in his quest for answers.
The fact that the doctors failed to seize upon the gold mine of booty calls they’d stumbled accidentally into makes us tear our hair out. If it were us, we’d have set up an entire practice devoted to hysteria treatment and used our vast scientific and medical education to convince our patients it was necessary for us to be naked during the procedure. To the doctors of the time, however, the hysterical paroxysm was somewhat of a chore and so they cheered the development of a little handheld gadget to do it for them. The tremoussoir, invented by Frenchman Abbe St. Pierre, was a handheld clockwork gadget that was wound up by a key on one end so that when released, the opposite, tapering end would vibrate.
This streamlined the process for the doctors, but eventually consumers were able to get their hands on the little machines themselves, which saved the doctors the hassle. Satisfied with another medical crisis averted, 18th Century medicine confidently clapped the dust off its hands and turned its attention toward the next problem, without realizing they’d just ruined our chances for competing against lifeless machines for the sexual favor of women…forever.
