The history of butt plugs
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Hey horny readers! This week’s newsletter is about the strange history of butt plugs, which happens to be VERY similar to the history of other toys.
As always, thank you so much for reading. If you’re enjoying it, please share with friends, so they can be hilariously informed.
Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
Ready to plug the holes in your education? Okay, let’s go!
There’s no definitive date in history when people started to have anal sex, but it’s been depicted in art since the beginning of time. Sex toys are also far from new. Archaeologists identified a Paleolithic stone phallus that was from 28,000 BC! That’s some old dick-rock. It’s likely that people started experimenting with toys very early on, and the slang term “back door man” was part of the English language in 1728 (according to Green’s Dictionary of slang).
The earliest butt plugs that look like the ones that exist today were originally designed for “therapeutic” uses, like Dr. Young’s Rectal Dilators. These devices were sold in the United States from the late nineteenth century until at least the 1940s, until the FDA shut down the operation. Dr. Young was a lot like the other problematic medical gurus of the time, publishing articles about rectal dilation in a medical journal that he also owned. He praised rectal dilation as a cure for insanity, claiming that at least "three-fourths of all the howling maniacs of the world" were curable "in a few weeks' time by the application of orificial methods.” Well, no one likes howling maniacs, so Dr. Young’s butt plugs seemed like a great plan!
In 1938, the FDA began to govern medical products and in 1940, a shipment of dilators and lube was seized in NY, banned for false advertising. At that time, the product's labeling claimed it corrected constipation, foul breath, bad taste in the mouth, acne, anemia, headaches, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, flatulence, indigestion, nervousness, and numerous other ailments. The label also claimed that you could never use them too much! Dr. Young received some competition in the 1930s from a man named George Starr While and his “medical” product, the Recto Rotor, banned just a few years later.
It’s safe to assume that people used these quack medical devices for pleasure, too. In the decades that followed, the sex toy industry started to blossom. As for recent toys, butt plugs come in all shapes and sizes. A quick perusal on Etsy shows a “Jesus is Watching” butt plug, a plug called “Adolf Shitler” (I refuse to link to this), and this very convenient taco holder:
It’s not the first historical case of problematic doctors or gurus creating things that end up being useful, or at least fun. I’ve written about John Harvey Kellogg, who invented cornflakes but was an anti-masturbation crusader and huge eugenics fan. There was Lydia Pinkham, the goop of the 1800s, who promoted a bogus elixir but also distributed some real sex ed information. The doctors who promoted implanting an extra set of testicles did nothing great, but are a great example that people can be convinced to do something stupid if they think they’re not good enough.
The history of butt plugs is most similar to the history of the vibrator, re-posted below. Something that started off an insanity cure became oh so much fun. As always, thanks for plugging the holes in your education with me.
RE-POST: THE HISTORY OF THE VIBRATOR (SEPTEMBER 2023)
Sex toys are far from new. Archaeologists identified a Paleolithic stone phallus that was from 28,000 BC! What else was there to do but hunt, gather, and be horny, right? There were dildos in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. In fact, Greeks had at least eight different words to refer to dildos. In Ancient India, there were sex dolls and strap-ons. Butt plugs in Ancient China.
But during Medieval times, the Catholic church branded sex toys as “instruments of diabolical operation,” and female masturbation was the “most horrible sin.” Sex toys didn’t disappear, though future iterations were more discreet. So it makes sense that the first vibrators had a “medical” purpose.
The Invention
The electric vibrator was invented in the late 19th century as a medical instrument to treat various ailments in men and women. The first patented vibrator was invented by Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville, an English physician, who used the device for male aches and pains. In fact, he was really adamant that it should never be used on women, stating in his book, “I have avoided, and shall continue to avoid the treatment of women by percussion, simply because I do not wish to be hoodwinked, and help to mislead others, by the vagaries of the hysterical state.” He sounds as fun as a bloody hemorrhoid.
Cure for Hysteria?
What makes the quote from Granville interesting is that some historians hypothesized that the original vibrators were invented to treat hysteria. As I wrote about in last week’s newsletter, from Ancient Greece until the early 1900s any combination of symptoms could get a woman diagnosed with hysteria, including but not limited to anxiety, irritability, nervousness, having sexual thoughts, and vaginal lubrication.
The cure for hysteria was a doctor or midwife manually massaging the pelvis, providing paroxysms. The definition of paroxysm is any sudden, uncontrollable outburst; a fit of emotion or action. In other words, an orgasm. Historians debate how often doctors actually used vibrators to treat hysteria, but it certainly made pelvic massages more convenient!
Early Models & Marketing
Vibrators were marketed for home use starting in the early 1900s. At that point, there was no doubt that women were using them on themselves. The electric vibrator wasn’t the only style bringing women to orgasm. There were steam powered, foot pedal, and a terrifying hand cranked model that looked like an egg beater, called Dr. Macaura's Pulsocon Blood Circulator.
in 1902, Hamilton Beach (yes, the company that made your stand mixer) patented the first electric vibrator that patients could take home. Vibrators were marketed in magazines, just like other electrical household goods, for their supposed health and beauty benefits. In fact, they were the fifth electrified household item after the sewing machine, the fan, the teakettle and the toaster!
Here’s what some vintage vibrators looked like:
In the 1920s/30s, vibrators appeared in pornographic movies, so it became difficult for manufacturers to advertise them as though they were massagers for other body parts. In 1952, the American Medical Association officially declared that hysteria wasn’t a real ailment. Vibrators couldn’t hide from their true purpose any longer!
1960s-present
In the 1960s, women began to talk more about their own pleasure. Sex educators like Betty Dodson began teaching about masturbation using vibrators, popularizing the now ubiquitous magic wand in the process. Now, there are vibrators in all sizes and shapes that can be purchased discreetly online or worn as necklaces, whatever your preference. No longer as taboo as they once were, vibrators are being marketed as self care by sex experts and celebrities. So, bring the good vibes everywhere you go with a modern toy that doesn’t look like a medieval torture device…unless that’s your kink, of course.
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