Vibrations Wikia



Welcome
This is a wiki focusing on the archaeological and design aspects of female sex toys, originally created for CLASSICS 151: Archaeology of Design at Stanford University.

Our eleventh thing
The 11th thing for our project is vibrator—the female adult toy. Though this object is fairly simple in its usage and, in modern times, not seen in public view, it spans a multitude of cultures and societies across the world, extending from tens of millennia before our Common Era to the present day.

Rationale
We chose the female adult toy, namely dildos and vibrators, because of several reasons. Firstly, we believe that sexuality is disproportionately avoided in our studies of history and anthropology, despite being one of the most defining part of being human and the essential elements of social culture. Secondly, though the vibrator’s uses in contemporary society are considered to be quite obvious, this is surprisingly not the case when viewing them through a historical lens. Interestingly enough, a 28,000-year old dildo found in Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm, Germany, was hypothesized by scientists to have been used to knap flints in addition to its more obvious use as a sex toy. On a much more recent time scale, we know that the vibrator was initially invented by medical doctors to treat the condition of female “hysteria”—a cultural and societal context far from the context of sex toys today. Following its development as a commercial product since the early 20th century, the vibrator has then been marketed in broad daylight through magazines and catalogs with health promises of “health, vigor, and beauty”. Since then, however, topics surrounding the vibrator and dildo have steadily fallen into societal taboo.

Process
As part of our project, we also connect with themes of the class by studying a couple carefully chosen designs of the female sex toy. By reverse engineering the thought and considerations behind the different designs, we not only explore the significance and context of these female sex toys in various cultures and times, but also scrutinize their changing role and situation in relatively recent western society.

We thank the Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum in San Francisco for graciously allowing us to spend several hours researching and taking photos, videos, and notes for this project.

Medium
We chose the less traditional wiki format because we believe it is most conducive to presenting the "story" we have researched and compiled. The wiki medium, with its mesh of interlinking pages and wide choice of templates, infoboxes, and other presentation styles, is excellent for creating a mind map of content beyond raw prose. Enjoy!

Portal
This is a portal to get started exploring this wiki. There are more pages than just these to explore—simply consider this an entry point into our mind map exploration into the world exposed by historical vibrators and their design.
 * Early vibrators
 * Hysteria
 * Vibrators for medical use
 * Academic research on the vibrator
 * Ancient sex toys
 * Vibrators for healthcare
 * Modern vibrators
 * Unconventional vibrators


 * Vibrator-producing companies
 * Vibrators in society
 * Sex-positive movement
 * Sex shops
 * Early image of vibrators
 * Vibrators in the media
 * Vibrator advertisements