Birth of the Vibrator | Original Sin: Sex

[Music] From the turn of the 20th century, sex has been literally electrified by technology. One of the first five electric gadgets, besides the sewing machine, fan, toaster, and tea kettle, was a plug-in sexual stimulator. The vibrator was a cure-all for a series of mysterious complaints collectively called hysteria that plagued Victorian era women.

Any woman who was experiencing stress, any woman frankly who was violating Victorian gender norms, who was too uppity, who was too confident, who was dissatisfied with her husband, she would very likely be diagnosed as hysterical. There was a sort of a philosophy of medicine that hysteria emanated from a block in women's sex organs. These physicians would actually manually stimulate the women.

Crazy initially, the procedure called for a doctor to massage the clitoris to the point of orgasm, thereby relieving the built-up pressure thought to cause hysteria. It was not considered fallacious in any way; it was considered completely modern, fine to the Victorian medicine and the treatment of hysteria. If the doctor did that today, he or she should be arrested and escorted away immediately.

It was so impossible for these Victorian physicians to imagine that women were sexual, that they had a sex drive. But the treatment fails if the doctor doesn't have the right touch or stamina. I actually think the doctors probably weren't that good at bringing women to orgasm. When they were helping women come to orgasm, their hands got tired, like a lot of manual tasks that are difficult and possibly onerous.

It was mechanized, and so was born the vibrator. One early version was a tabletop model designed for the doctor's office and powered by a steam engine. Then, in 1902, Hamilton Beach introduced the first personal vibrator, just the fifth domestic appliance to be electrified. [Music]