yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Birth of the Vibrator | Original Sin: Sex


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[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]

More Articles

View All
Galvanic (voltaic) cells | Applications of thermodynamics | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy
Galvanic cells, which are also called voltaic cells, use a thermodynamically favorable reaction to generate an electric current. Before we look at a diagram of a galvanic or voltaic cell, let’s first look at the half reactions that are going to be used in…
Why The First Computers Were Made Out Of Light Bulbs
[Derek] The modern era of electronics began with the light bulb but not in the way you might think. Early light bulbs consisted of a carbon filament sealed inside a glass bulb with a vacuum inside. When a potential difference was applied across the filame…
How to use italics and underlines | Punctuation | Khan Academy
Hello, grammarians! Hello, Paige! Hi, David! So, Paige, have you ever heard of this man Aldus Minucius? I don’t think I have. That’s a pretty cool name, though. His given name was actually Aldo Manuzio. He was a Venetian printer around 1500, and this gu…
Shark Tank Secrets, Smart Money Moves, and My Real Relationship with Mark Cuban l Full Send Podcast
[Music] All right, we got another great episode. We got, uh, Kevin Oer in the house. Shows up in style, what, an hour and a half early, and crushes three happy dads right upon entrance. Two watches. Two watches! You got to have two watches, otherwise you…
Tagging Tiger Sharks | SharkFest | National Geographic
Yeah, we’re just going to keep chumming, I think, and tee it up now. Paige has another chance to tag in a wahoo tiger shark before they gather in. As soon as I jumped in while she’s prepping the camera, I said, “Paige, this is your shot, this is your sha…
What Your Net Worth Should Be By Every Age (Individual)
Everyone wants to be rich, but if you ask anyone how much they’re worth, 99% of them can’t tell you. That’s the thing about building wealth: you can’t grow what you don’t measure. Net worth is how you measure someone’s wealth. Think of it like this: if y…