A dildo
to rule them all
By Marielle Brie de Lagerac
Art Historian
When women might have run the world with sex toys since ever.
Its history is as old as the hills, and if our society is all about sex, it is not the first! The most serious archaeologists have the proof of it, since several sculpted phalluses have been discovered on prehistoric sites. Were they lucky charms to ensure fertility, or objects of everyday utility? It is hard to say, but later societies were less shy. You might thought Greek tragedies were serious and dramatic. Think again! The play Lysistrata is notorious for recounting a historic sex strike that coincides with an unfortunate shortage of dildos! Thanks to this unmissable classic, we learn that
these ancient sex toys were made from the same leather as sandals. We now know, thanks to very serious studies, that they were stuffed with dried herbs, animal hair or fabric and coated with vegetable oil to lubricate them. Unfortunately, none have survived.
Fortunately, medieval times are more generous with material evidence and sulfurous texts. You might think the Church would not have been keen on this kind of practice, but the clergy preferred (but not encouraged) a woman to have some good time with a sex toy, rather than get laid with the first man she met, breaking the holy sacraments of marriage and giving birth to a bunch of
bastards. Honor first!
​
To satisfy the strong demand from both high society and the working classes, cabinetmakers and goldsmiths bend over backwards for the former, while only the imagination limits the fantasy to satisfy the latter. To aristocrats and bourgeois women are sold extraordinary dildos in Italian glass, silver or ebony. Those who can not afford such luxuries use all sorts of objects, vegetables and even cold meats! Broomsticks, candles, gourds and sausages are recommended in saucy texts of the time.
When Madame Marguerite Gourdan (1727 - 1783) - the famous manageress of a posh brothel in Paris - died, hundreds of letters were discovered in her desk from abbesses and simple nuns asking the dear madam to send them a "consolation", the other name for the dildo. Indeed, the object consoled and even cured many ills, as Western medicine in the 19th and early 20th centuries encouraged women to use it. Indeed, doctors who believed that female orgasm did not exist were prescribing precisely what they feared: that women would enjoy sex. Even at in the late
20th century, dildos were still sold by mail order and featured in catalogs that sold in a jumble clothes, curtains and irons.
Nowadays, these women would not have had such a hard time getting their hands on one, and they would probably have been blown away by the services provided by the object. While the Internet makes it possible to obtain one quickly and discreetly, electricity was the first to revolutionize this age-old object. Batteries, latex, wifi and bluetooth have taken dildos into a whole new dimension, providing users with larger than life services and obediently fulfilling every possible fantasy. From stone and vegetables to silver, precious woods and Murano glass, today's dildo seemed to have reached its apex and became a symbol of women's liberation.
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