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With the news that a supermarket will soon be stocking sex toys, bedroom gadgets have gone completely mainstream. Are we hooked? It is sleek and made from soft-to-the-touch silicone. At 21, Leanne had never had an orgasm.
Sex-positive parenting
S uch was the media excitement inspired by the appearance of a vibrator in a late s episode of Sex And The City , one might have thought the device had only just been invented. Any misapprehension is about to be corrected by a new film, Hysteria , which tells the true story of the vibrator's inception. Described by its producers as a Merchant Ivory film with comedy, Hysteria's humour derives chiefly from the surprise of its subject's origins, which are as little known as they are improbable. The vibrator was, in fact, invented by respectable Victorian doctors, who grew tired of bringing female patients to orgasm using their fingers alone, and so dreamt up a device to do the job for them. Their invention was regarded as a reputable medical instrument — no more improper than a stethoscope — but became wildly popular among Victorian and Edwardian gentlewomen, who soon began buying vibrators for themselves. For its early customers, a vibrator was nothing to be embarrassed about — unlike, it's probably safe to assume, many members of the film's contemporary audience, not to mention some of its stars. It's not something most people say they've got; nobody talks about that, it's still a secret kind of thing. So it's very difficult," she adds, breaking into a laugh, "to imagine that years ago women didn't have the vote, yet they were going to a doctor's office to get masturbated. In 19th-century Britain, the condition known as hysteria — which the vibrator was invented to treat — was not a source of embarrassment at all.
Support local journalism. Join the Orlando Weekly Press Club. Dear Dan: My year-old son is stealing our sex toys. My son took my husband's handheld toy a several months ago. I found it where it shouldn't have been and let my husband know. He talked to our son and told him these are personal items, like a toothbrush, and that he needed to stop taking them. A few weeks ago I noticed my dildo was missing. I thought I had misplaced it.
