After the introduction of electric lights in 1876, home appliances were plugged in, one by one, beginning with the sewing machine and followed by the fan, the teakettle, the toaster and then, the vibrator. (The vacuum cleaner would come ten years later.) Ads for them appeared in Hearst's, Popular Mechanics, Modern Women and Women's Home Companion, among many others. A National Home Journal ad in 1908 for a $5 hand-powered vibrator, declared: "Gentle, soothing, invigorating and refreshing. Invented by a woman who knows a women's needs. All nature pulsates and vibrates with life." Another in American Magazine claimed that the vibrator "will chase away the years like magic...All the keen relish, the pleasures of youth, will throb within you...Your self-respect, even, will be increased a hundredfold." A Sears, Roebuck catalog in 1918 advertised a portable vibrator on a page (with fans and household mixers) of "Aids That Every Woman Appreciates."
Was this language camouflage for an orgasm? Were these vibrators also intended, with a wink, for masturbation? This has become the popular history of the device as written by Rachel Maines, a Cornell researcher, who argued in her 1999 book "The Technology of Orgasm" that electric vibrators replaced the hands of doctors who, from the time of Hippocrates to the 1920s, had been massaging women to orgasm as a treatment for hysteria.Hysteria: The 17th century French physician Lazare Rivière's described it as "a sort of madness, arising from a vehement and unbridled desire of carnal embracement which desire disthrones the Rational Faculties so far, that the Patient utters wanton and lascivious Speeches." Today, this sounds a lot like normal functioning of female sexuality. But men long viewed it as a disorder. During antiquity physicians believed that hysteria was caused by the womb meandering around the body, 
wrecking havoc, yet by the 19th century the term had become "the wastepaper basket of medicine where one throws otherwise unemployed symptoms," as the French physiatrist Charles Lasègue put it. (The American Psychiatric Association finally dropped hysteria altogether from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1952, the same year it added homosexuality.)Virgins, nuns, widows and women with impotent husbands were thought especially prone. Victorian physicians, especially in England and the United States, were wary of female arousal
. They viewed it as a dangerous slope towards uncontrollable desires and ill health, and advised women against tea, coffee, masturbation, feather beds, wearing tight corsets, and reading French novels.Maines argues that relieving women of this pent-up desire was a standard medical practice. She takes us back to the Greek physician Soranus, who in the first century A.D. discussed his treatment: "We...moisten these parts freely with sweet oil, keeping it up for some time," he wrote. Helen King, a historian and leading authority of Classical medicine at England's Open University, told me that a correct translation of this passage has him massaging the abdomen, the typical treatment for yet another female disorder--chronic flowing of female "seed"--for which rose oil was prescribed, along with cold baths and avoiding sexy pictures. Rather, King says, it is with the influential Roman physician Galen where we see the first explicit mention of genital massage to orgasm as a medical treatment. Galen discusses a woman rubbing "the customary remedies" on her genitals--sachets of Artemisia, marjoram and iris oil--and feeling the "pain and at the same time the pleasure" associated with intercourseBut did doctors do the deed? Probably not in antiquity, King said--there was a taboo against such things even back then, and the task was likely assigned to midwives. References in the annals of medicine to genital massage are oblique, leaving a trove of circumstantial evidence, with some exceptions, like the British physician Nathaniel Highmore complaining in the 17th century that massaging the vulva was "not unlike that game of boys in which they try to rub their stomachs with one hand and pat their heads with the other." Maines believes that doctors considered this a tedious task, and not a sexual act, since sexual relations, especially in those pre-Clinton centuries, meant proper intercourse. However, if intercourse failed to relieve the symptoms of desire--only recently have we known that up to seventy percent of women cannot reach orgasm from intercourse alone--doctors prescribed hydrotherapy (the douche sprays in Saratoga Springs, NY were a popular destination for women whose husbands were at the racetrack) or an office visiIn 1869 an American physician, George Taylor, patented a steam-powered contraption called the "Manipulator," in which a patient lay stomach-down on a padded table and received a pelvis massage from a vibrating sphere. The Chattanooga, a 125-pound apparatus that sold in 1904 for $200, was used on both sexes for various treatments including, the company's catalog described, "female troubles." All manner of inventions were marketed to doctors: musical vibrators, vibratory forks, vibrating wire coils called vibratiles, floor-standing models on rollers and portable devices shaped like hair dryers. They were powered by air pressure, water turbines, gas engines, and batteries. We don't really know how common the practice of massaging women with these devices actually was--Maines's book touched off a debate among sex historians, with some arguing that it was probably rare and considered quack medicine--but in any case, after the first electromechanical vibrator was patented in 1880, vibrators marketed for home use flourished. General Electric and Hamilton Beach both made handheld devices that looked like hair dryers, boxed with various attachments. (I recently found a 1902 Hamilton Beach vibrator listed on eBay for $25.99.) Women could now regain the "pleasures of youth" through their own devicesFor reasons that are not entirely clear, vibrator ads gradually disappeared from up-market magazines after the 1920s, and went underground. Fifty years later they would resurface -- Hitachi'sMagic Wand Massager
first appeared in the 1970s and remains one of the top-selling vibrators, even though the company will tell you it doesn't make vibrators -- and feminists in New York City began teaching women self-pleasure. By the 1990s, Bob Dole was talking about erectile dysfunction as the pitchman for Viagra, and the Starr Report described fellatio and a semen-stained dress, pushing the boundaries of acceptable mainstream media conversation.
wrecking havoc, yet by the 19th century the term had become "the wastepaper basket of medicine where one throws otherwise unemployed symptoms," as the French physiatrist Charles Lasègue put it. (The American Psychiatric Association finally dropped hysteria altogether from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1952, the same year it added homosexuality.)Virgins, nuns, widows and women with impotent husbands were thought especially prone. Victorian physicians, especially in England and the United States, were wary of female arousal. They viewed it as a dangerous slope towards uncontrollable desires and ill health, and advised women against tea, coffee, masturbation, feather beds, wearing tight corsets, and reading French novels.Maines argues that relieving women of this pent-up desire was a standard medical practice. She takes us back to the Greek physician Soranus, who in the first century A.D. discussed his treatment: "We...moisten these parts freely with sweet oil, keeping it up for some time," he wrote. Helen King, a historian and leading authority of Classical medicine at England's Open University, told me that a correct translation of this passage has him massaging the abdomen, the typical treatment for yet another female disorder--chronic flowing of female "seed"--for which rose oil was prescribed, along with cold baths and avoiding sexy pictures. Rather, King says, it is with the influential Roman physician Galen where we see the first explicit mention of genital massage to orgasm as a medical treatment. Galen discusses a woman rubbing "the customary remedies" on her genitals--sachets of Artemisia, marjoram and iris oil--and feeling the "pain and at the same time the pleasure" associated with intercourseBut did doctors do the deed? Probably not in antiquity, King said--there was a taboo against such things even back then, and the task was likely assigned to midwives. References in the annals of medicine to genital massage are oblique, leaving a trove of circumstantial evidence, with some exceptions, like the British physician Nathaniel Highmore complaining in the 17th century that massaging the vulva was "not unlike that game of boys in which they try to rub their stomachs with one hand and pat their heads with the other." Maines believes that doctors considered this a tedious task, and not a sexual act, since sexual relations, especially in those pre-Clinton centuries, meant proper intercourse. However, if intercourse failed to relieve the symptoms of desire--only recently have we known that up to seventy percent of women cannot reach orgasm from intercourse alone--doctors prescribed hydrotherapy (the douche sprays in Saratoga Springs, NY were a popular destination for women whose husbands were at the racetrack) or an office visiIn 1869 an American physician, George Taylor, patented a steam-powered contraption called the "Manipulator," in which a patient lay stomach-down on a padded table and received a pelvis massage from a vibrating sphere. The Chattanooga, a 125-pound apparatus that sold in 1904 for $200, was used on both sexes for various treatments including, the company's catalog described, "female troubles." All manner of inventions were marketed to doctors: musical vibrators, vibratory forks, vibrating wire coils called vibratiles, floor-standing models on rollers and portable devices shaped like hair dryers. They were powered by air pressure, water turbines, gas engines, and batteries. We don't really know how common the practice of massaging women with these devices actually was--Maines's book touched off a debate among sex historians, with some arguing that it was probably rare and considered quack medicine--but in any case, after the first electromechanical vibrator was patented in 1880, vibrators marketed for home use flourished. General Electric and Hamilton Beach both made handheld devices that looked like hair dryers, boxed with various attachments. (I recently found a 1902 Hamilton Beach vibrator listed on eBay for $25.99.) Women could now regain the "pleasures of youth" through their own devicesFor reasons that are not entirely clear, vibrator ads gradually disappeared from up-market magazines after the 1920s, and went underground. Fifty years later they would resurface -- Hitachi'sMagic Wand Massager first appeared in the 1970s and remains one of the top-selling vibrators, even though the company will tell you it doesn't make vibrators -- and feminists in New York City began teaching women self-pleasure. By the 1990s, Bob Dole was talking about erectile dysfunction as the pitchman for Viagra, and the Starr Report described fellatio and a semen-stained dress, pushing the boundaries of acceptable mainstream media conversation. And then, Miranda presented Charlotte with the Rabbit Pearl, a pink, phallus-shaped vibrator with rotating beads and animated bunny ears, on prime-time cable television.
***
Everyone in the sex toy business whom I spoke with credits "Sex and the City" with profoundly changing the way Americans now talk about sex toys. The Rabbit Pearl became an overnight sensation -- "Talk about product placement," the vibrator's manufacturer, Dan Martin of Vibratex, told me. With clean, well-lit stores like Good Vibrations and Babeland; the Tupperware-inspired, sex-toy house gatherings for women known as Pleasure Parties ("Where Every Day is Valentine's Day"); and the Internet -- which opened all kinds of new avenues for sexual adventure -- women now had safe and discreet places to buy it. The Rabbit Pearl is still the top-selling sex toy, although the original from Vibratex has been knocked off so many times that "the rabbit" has become generic.
In an episode during the fifth season of "Sex and the City," Samantha walks into a Sharper Image to return her vibrator.
"We don't sell vibrators," the clerk tells her.
"Yes you do, I bought this here six months ago," Samantha replies, holding up the device.
"That's not a vibrator," he says, "that's a neck massager."
Within Sharper Image, that neck massager became known jokingly as "the Sex and the City vibrator," but in 2007, Imboden approached the company with the Form 6. Literally the sixth in a series of vibrator sketches -- Imboden believes in minimalist names -- the Form 6 has a curved, organic shape that is suggestive without being representational. It is wrapped completely in soft, platinum silicone, making it completely water-resistant, and charges on a wall-powered base station through a narrow stainless steel band, a novel cordless recharging system that Imboden patented. For these features, the Form 6 earned an International Design Excellence Award, the first time a sex toy had earned such a distinction. It comes in hot pink, deep plum or slate--non-primary, poppy colors that he believes convey sophistication. It is packaged in a hard plastic case inside a bright white box -- "literally and figuratively bringing these products out of the shadows," Imboden said. And it has a 3-year warranty (this may not seem remarkable, but is for a sex toy).
"It was certainly controversial internally," recalled Adam Ertel, Sharper Image's buyer at the time. Sharper Image decided to try the Form 6 in a few stores -- "a waterproof personal massager" is how they described it -- and, to everyone's surprise, the Form 6 soon became one of the retailer's best selling massage items. They quickly rolled it out nationwide. "It was clear to all of us that we were treading on new ground," said Ertel. "We realized that the people that bought the Form 6 for its intimate nature may be a large group of consumers that people aren't strategically selling to."
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