I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

1869 - the year that the modern vibrator was patented. Why, you ask, should we know such a thing, or care?

Well, its origins might surprise you....

Dildos had been in existence for centuries, but 1869 marks a year when American inventiveness, the industrial age, and feminine repression under Victorianism all collided. It seems women had been having fits of hysteria during this time, and doctors were a bit overwhelmed with how to treat them. Hysteria derives from the Greek histerikos - or, disturbed womb or uterus.

How appropriate - what women are really suffering from is disturbance, or in this case, profound lack of it, in the sexual area of their lives and bodies.

So....what did our good doctors do? Female sexuality = bad, so they couldn't advocate that the woman have some fantastic sex, and of course where would one go to get that and not be damned for it??? But the problem must be treated. So they used good old American ingenuity. It seems that the best possible relief for hysterical fits is a vigorous massage of the patient's vulva until the woman achieves paroxysm, or 'release'. Once she'd achieved that, then she was fine for a while...until she needed release again.

Doctors administered this release manually, but of course, it took too much time, and there wasn't enough money involved in administering orgasms to female patients, so they cast about for a solution.

And found it by inventing a mechanized orgasm deliverer - the mechanical vibrator. George Williams, M.D. created the clunky, oversized labor saving device in 1869, thus freeing physicians to earn more money and take on additional patients, while reducing physician fatigue in the process. Truly a miracle.

So there you have it. The modern vibrator has its origins as a nice, automated way of delivering feminine orgasm so men don't have to be bothered. Our feminine 'disease', literally dis-ease, can be cured by the modern marvel of a machine!

Will wonders never cease???