The history of sex toys, from prehistory to the present day : from the stone dildos of cave dwellers to the connected sex toys of our era, sex toys have evolved over the ages, taking on various forms.
The prehistoric sex toy
The oldest life-size phallic object ever discovered comes from a prehistoric cave and is at least 28,000 years old.
However, nothing guarantees that it is actually a sex toy, rather than an artistic or religious object. I’ve already mentioned this in a quiz about sex toys.
The Greco-Roman dildo
Among the ancient Greeks, the dildo was called olisbos, meaning “sliding”, while the Romans called it rather modestly “scorteun fascinum”, or “leather penis”.
The sex toy in the Land of the Rising Sun
In Japan, it was a monk who supposedly invented the first dildo in 770. Too old to satisfy the sexual desires of his mistress, the empress, he reportedly gave her a wooden dildo, representing his penis.
The vibrator to cure hysteria
The vibrator first appeared around 1880. Invented by English doctor Joseph Mortimer Granville, the “Granville mallet” was initially a hand-held device, then its creator developed an electric version, powered by a battery.
The vibrator’s first use was medical: the device, very bulky in its early days, was supposed to cure hysteria, an exclusively female condition diagnosed left, right and centre.
It wasn’t until the 1920s that the first personal-use vibrators went on sale.
Turning a vacuum cleaner into a sex toy
In the 1960s, the Filter Queen Vibrator was a real hit. And no wonder: the accessory attached to the vacuum cleaner hose to turn it into a… massage device.
The evolution of materials used in sex toys
Latex appeared in the making of sex toys in the 1980s. Silicone, on the other hand, had to wait until the 1990s.
The history of sex toys: an infographic
Here’s a nice infographic dedicated to the history of sex toys, which the Sextoy-Online shop has provided us with.
What will sex toys of the future look like? Only time will tell.
