How Vibrators Kept Women Sane

An illness existed for a long time, since the time of the ancient Greeks, but can no longer be found.  Only women were susceptible to this sickness and it eventually got a very unusual treatment.  This illness was known as Hysteria.  But why did only women suffer from it?  What was the connection between Hysteria and vibrators?  Why are women no longer diagnosed with this disease?

To begin to answer all these questions you should know the origins of the word 'hysteria', it stems from the ancient Greek word 'hystera', meaning uterus.

Unfortunately for the uterus it has had a long, and unhappy history, some in the medical field thought that it would reach out into the rest of the body, causing sickness and disease.  Others thought it made women crazy if over stimulated.

Since the uterus had such a bad reputation it was easy for doctors to blame many unknown illnesses on it, and since Hysteria was caused by the uterus overwhelming the woman it belonged to and making her crazy, it was simple enough to call everything not understood Hysteria.

It all comes back to the uterus and the lack of understanding of how the female reproductive system worked.  But there was a definite trend of who tended to suffer from Hysteria, this included virgins, nuns, widows and the occasional housewife.  But why?  What do these women have in common?

No sex, and no sex led to a severe shortage of "hysterical paroxysm", what we now know as an orgasm.

But because of the fact that masturbation was an unclean and generally horrible act, women had to seek professional help to treat and prevent Hysteria.  Doctors would usually treat women with a manual pelvic massage, thus inducing hysterical paroxysm.

But unfortunately for the doctors this process was often very long, even taking up to a few hours.  Spending that much of a day for just one patient was definitely not profitable.  But to help them, in the mid 1800's some doctors were able to use a water hose to massage the pelvic region.

But thankfully in 1873 a new tool was created and first used in an asylum in France to treat Hysteria.  This tool was called a electromechanical vibrator.  This wondrous tool allowed doctors to help their patients in a matter of minutes, not hours.

Around the early 1900's many people started getting electricity in their houses.  This allowed women to treat themselves in the safety and privacy of their very own homes.  Vibrators started to become much more common around the country.  Sears printed an ad in one of their catalogues in 1918 where the touted their vibrator as being ”Very useful and satisfactory for home service.”

Thus started the great vibrator movement, allowing women a bit of vibrator fun at home, all in the name of keeping them sane.

Unfortunately women can't use that excuse anymore as Hysteria is not a recognized illness, but fortunately they don't have to as sex toys such as bullet vibrators have become so common place.