Sex Toys

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hidden in bedside tables or proudly displayed on mantelpieces, wherever you keep them (if you do), sex toys have come a long way since the first phallic-shaped object was found around 30,000 years ago.

But before they were arriving through our post boxes in unmarked, tracked packages, what did sex toys look like? What were they made from? And why were doctors using them to treat... back pain?!

Kate is joined Betwixt the Sheets by writer, sex and gender historian Hallie Lieberman to discuss the first dildo, the myth of the vibrator, and more…

Find out more about Hallie's book, Buzz: The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, here.

*WARNING this episode includes fruity language and themes of an adult nature*

Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Seyi Adaobi.

Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.

This episode includes music by Epidemic Sound and an archive clip from public vocational video from 1940.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just to heads up this episode, we will be discussing all manner of sex in a sex toys and general obscenities,
0:06.4	so if that's too much or if that's not your thing, get out while you still can.
0:18.1	The tool is stationary, while the work is moved back and forth.
0:25.6	I want to have a bad kind of love.
0:30.2	Hidden in bedside tables are probably displayed on your mantelpiece. Wherever you keep them,
0:36.6	if you do keep them, sex toys have come a long way since the first phallic-shaped objects were found
0:42.3	around 30,000 years ago. But before arriving through our post in unmarked tracked packages,
0:48.8	where did sex toys start out? Yep, you guessed it. We're obviously going to twist the sheets to find out.
0:55.4	What do you look for in a man? Oh, money of course.
1:00.7	You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
1:03.1	I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs. I just turn him to none and push him to life.
1:15.5	Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.
1:18.0	Goodness, my parents look bad. Goodness, there's nothing to do with it, Derek.
1:26.1	Hello and welcome back to Betwix the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me,
1:30.8	Kate Lister. Did you know that the global sex toy market was worth 27.17 billion US dollars in
1:38.0	2019? And that was before the pandemic. The industry is expected to be worth over 80 billion
1:44.8	dollars by 2030, meaning that there are items of all shapes and sizes made of silicone and rubber,
1:50.6	a bit of leather here and there, littered all around bedrooms and red rooms all across the world.
1:56.3	But what do you think the first sex toy was made of? Charlotte and Sophie were sent out yet again
2:02.2	to ask some unsuspecting strangers what they thought. What was the first sex toy?
2:08.4	It has to be a deal, actually, definitely. That's what it's called.
2:11.7	Cochrane, copper pipe. I potentially think it could be something to go in the bum bum,
	...

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