| Toys
This is a purely non-scientific poll. The more honestly you answer the better the results. Its open for men, women and mike. Your answers are completely anonymous. Please choose all that apply.
From the "You Learn Something New Everyday" files.
According to Cornell University researcher Rachel Maines, the first vibrator was invented in 1883 as a medical device. Doctors used it to give their patients "pelvic massages" to produce "hysterical paroxysm" as a cure for a disease they called hysteria. The device was designed to mechanize a job that doctors had been doing - believe it or not - by hand.
Maines chronicled her findings in the 1999 book The Technology of Orgasm. The real bombshell, she said, was that doctors had been giving women orgasms as a so-called medical treatment since the time of Hippocrates.
By the late 19th century, hysteria was hitting epidemic proportions, with women complaining of paralyzed limbs, sudden inability to speak, and other bizarre symptoms magically relieved by their doctor's touch.
But some doctors complained the technique was difficult to learn. According to one biographer, Sigmund Freud tried to learn it, Maines says, but never got the hang of it.
Vibrators made the job much easier, though some early ones ran on steam, she says, requiring the doctors to shovel in coal. They often had cumbersome but impressive power sources, and the business end looked like a ball or some other non-phallic shape.
Doctors charged about $2 to $3 per treatment, she says.
Vibrators took a whole new turn when homes were electrified. In the early 20th century, advertisements for vibrators started showing up in magazines such as Home Needlecraft and Women's Home Companion, promising a "thrilling" and "invigorating" experience that would "restore the vitality of youth."
It all came crashing down in the 1920s, after somebody realized that vibrators could be sexy and started incorporating them into pornography. Suddenly the medical establishment stopped using vibrators on women and pretended it never happened.
Maines said she couldn't find any trace of women's voices expressing their feelings on vibrator-wielding physicians. But then, perhaps they knew when to keep a secret.
Texas, Georgia and Alabama all have anti-vibrator laws, Maines says, that either make it illegal to sell them or to own more than five. Luckily, she said, state lawmakers only worry about the ones that look distinctly phallic, not, say, the Hitachi Magic Wand, which reportedly resembles an advanced kitchen gadget. Somehow, women demanding their hysterical paroxysms will always find a way.
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Re: Toys 
Welcome to the site.. cortny..
Yes but she has only posted twice.. 
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