History of vibrators

Once upon a time, "female hysteria" was a commonly used medical diagnosis. It was diagnosed and treated in Europe for hundreds of years. Symptoms of hysteria included faintness, shortness of breath, insomnia, and "causing trouble." One of the common treatments for this "condition" was pelvic massage, a digital massage of the anterior wall of the vagina. The desired result was known as "hysterical paroxysm". We know it as a G-Spot orgasm. Cases of "hysteria" doubled every week. Treatments were given weekly or more, each session lasting an hour or longer. (anyone ever attempting to digitally effect a g-spot orgasm knows this can be difficult) Hence, the invention of massage devices. The first vibrator was used in a French asylum in 1873, to treat "hysteria". Physicians at the time eluded to the fact that "hysteria" had it’s roots in sexual dissatisfaction, however they would never link the use of electromechanical vibrators to a sexual purpose. … more

Our Rockstar Life: Right To Vibe

EXTREMELY RARE ANTI MASTURBATION DEVICE DATING FROM c1880. THE COPPER SHAPED DEVICE WAS ATTACHED TO A BELT AND WORN BY BOYS AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS. VERY MUCH AN INDICATION OF SOCIETIES VIEWS ON ONANISM IN THE 19TH CENTURY. THIS IS THE FIRST EXAMPLE WE HAVE OFFERED FOR SALE IN 24 YEARS. THE CONDITION IS EXCELLENT 3 ½ INCHES TOP TO BASE.

more at No masturbation for a year!: Anti masturbation device…

Note #8562

Flickr Photo Download: a list of indispensable equipment

 from Rousseau and Masturbation : Philosophical Misadventures

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, champion of the Enlightenment, was on a mission to see that young men were protected from their base instincts: “Whatever we may do, a young man’s worst enemy is himself, and this is an enemy we cannot avoid”, he warned …

Therefore, watch carefully over the young man; he can protect himself from all other foes, but it is for you to protect him against himself. Never leave him night or day, or at least share his room; never let him go to bed till he is sleepy, and let him rise as soon as he wakes. Distrust instinct as soon as you cease to rely altogether upon it. Instinct was good while he acted under its guidance only; now that he is in the midst of human institutions, instinct is not to be trusted. It must not be destroyed, it must be controlled, which is perhaps a more difficult matter. It would be very dangerous if instinct taught your pupil to divert these senses and to supplement the occasions for satisfying them. If once he acquires this dangerous supplement he is lost. From then on, body and soul will be enervated; he will carry to the grave the sad effects of this habit, the most fatal habit which a young man can be subjected to.¹

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I returned from Italy a different person from the one who had gone there … I had preserved my physical but not my moral virginity. The progress of the years had been told upon me, and my restless temperament had at last made itself felt. Its first quite involuntary outbreak indeed had caused me some alarm about my health, a fact which illustrates better than anything else the innocence in which I had lived until then. Soon I was reassured, however, and learnt of that dangerous means of cheating Nature, which leads young men of my temperament to various kinds of excesses, that eventually imperil their health, and sometimes their lives. This vice, which shame and timidity find so convenient, has a particular attraction for lively imaginations. It allows them to dispose, so to speak, of the whole female sex at their will, and to make any beauty who tempts them serve their pleasure without the need of first obtaining her consent. Seduced by this fatal advantage, I set about destroying the sturdy constitution which Nature had restored to me, and which I had allowed sufficient time to ripen.¹

Excerpts from John Harvey Kellogg, 1852-1943.. Plain facts for old and young : embracing the natural history and hygiene of organic life. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library

Plain facts for old and young : embracing the natural history and hygiene of organic life.

From Chpt 9 SOLITARY VICE

If illicit commerce of the sexes is a heinous sin, self-pollution, or masturbation, is a crime doubly abominable. As a sin against nature, it has no parallel except in sodomy (see Gen. 19:5; Judges 19:22). It is the most dangerous of all sexual abuses because the most extensively practiced. The vice consists in an excitement of the genital organs produced otherwise than in the natural way. It is known by the terms, self-pollution, self-abuse, masturbation, onanism, manustupration, voluntary pollution, and solitary or secret vice. The vice is the more extensive because there are almost no bounds to its indulgence. Its frequent repetition fastens it upon the victim with a fascination almost irresistible! It may be begun in earliest infancy, and may continue through life. 

Even though no warning may have been given, the transgressor seems to know, instinctively, that he is committing a great wrong, for he carefully hides his practice from observation. In solitude he pollutes himself, and with his own hand blights all his prospects for both this world and the next. Even after being solemnly warned, he will often continue this worse than beastly practice, deliberately forfeiting his right to health and happiness for a moment’s mad sensuality.

From The Masturbation Connection by Gegory Hunt, MD, a page about Ellen White’s views on masturbation

… Ellen White published An Appeal to Mothers: The Great Cause of the Physical, Mental, and Moral Ruin of Children of Our Time. This was Mrs. White’s first book on health reform. Its intent was to warn the world about the dangers of - MASTURBATION!

Mrs. White, it seems, was dissatisfied with the result of this production and six years later she produced an amplified version entitled “A Solemn Appeal.” This book was edited by her husband and included articles from other writers to back up Mrs. White’s counsel.

This booklet is today unavailable, and any who read it can see why. Let us examine some of its passages.

“I feel alarmed for those children and you who by solitary vice are ruining themselves…you listen to numerous complaints of headache, catarrh, dizziness, nervousness, pain in the shoulders and side, loss of appetite, pain in the back and limbs…and have you not noticed that there was a deficiency in the mental health of your children?” “Secret indulgence [masturbation] is, in many cases, the only real cause of the numerous complaints of the young.” (p. 11, 13)”The state of the world is alarming. Everywhere we look we see imbecility, dwarfed forms, crippled limbs, misshapen heads and deformity of every description… Corrupt habits are wasting their energy, and bringing upon them loathsome and complicated diseases… Children who practice self-indulgence [masturbation]…must pay the penalty.” (p. 14)

More at Self-abuse [masturbation] continued

A historical review of masturbation myths 

… Thomas Laqueur traces the negative attitudes about masturbation to the following text in his book Solitary Sex: Cultural History of Masturbation. In 1712, an anonymous physician published a text called “Onania” or, The Heinous Sin of Self Pollution, and all its Frightful Consequences which warned about the dangers of defiling your own body. He linked masturbation to sodomy and homosexuality and claimed it caused numerous ailments including blindness, insanity and stunted growth.

more at Self-Abuse and the Origin of Masturbation Myths - Vibrator.com

THE PEOPLE’S COMMON SENSE MEDICAL ADVISER (1895) is one of the interesting historical works on the dangers of masturbation. I recommend it to students of society’s views on the subject. This extract is from the Project Gutenberg library. You can get a good flavor for its perspective from this quote:

Untold miseries arise from the pollution of the body. Self-pollution, or onanism, is one of the most prolific sources of evil, since it leads both to the degradation of body and mind. It is practiced more or less by members of both sexes, and the habit once established, is overcome with the greatest difficulty. It is the source of numerous diseases which derange the functional activity of the organs involved, and eventually impair the constitution. This vicious habit is often practiced by those who are ignorant of its dangerous results. Statistics show that insanity is frequently caused by masturbation.

Fig. 2. A Testicle wasted by Masturbation. Masturbation not only occasions loss of semen, but frequently the testicles and other generative organs waste and become reduced in size as a result of the abuse. …Fig. 2 represents one much reduced, as a result of self-abuse. [pg 773]

Note: before proceeding, please be sure you have read the Warning for Satire-Impaired

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from How to stop masturbating

- by Ornella Moscucci / material copied from http://www.cirp.org/library/history/moscucci/

Unease about masturbation began, as is well known, in the early eighteenth century, when a book appeared entitled Onania; or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution (1707-1717) appeared anonymously in Holland and met with great success. By the middle of the century Tissot’s famous treatise, On Onania: or a Treatise upon the Disorders Produced by Masturbation (1760), had given a scientific veneer to the new anxiety about the “solitary vice.” Drawing on ideas about the wastage of bodily energy, Tissot argued that physical illness resulted from loss of semen, leading to general debility, consumption, deterioration of eyesight, disturbance of the nervous system, and so on. From 1800 onwards, the evils of masturbation were widely discussed in medical and moralistic texts; although attitudes to the practice were not monolithic, much was made of its physically and mentally deterious effects (see Hall; Hare; Engelhardt; Comfort). In essence, masturbation was less a vice than an antisocial activity, an egotistic enjoyment of pleasures that were the proper domain of heterosexual intercourse. (Lacqueur, Making Sex 227-30). Polluting and debilitating for the individual, it had a destablizing effect on society, as it prevented healthy sexual desire from fulfilling socially desirable ends–marriage and procreation, which was the foundation of the social order.

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 Fact of the Day: Please Dr. Kellogg, I can’t stop touching myself!!

Sunday, May 07, 2006

OK, this is really bizarre. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes were originally marketed to help prevent chronic masturbation. In 1894, Dr. John Kellogg, a seventh-day Adventist, created the corn flakes recipe as a means to keep children from “self-polluting” themselves. Remember this if your friends ever start a “contest”.
It’s a fact.

Fact of the Day: Please Dr. Kellogg, I can’t stop touching myself!!