Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Buzz
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.hallielieberman.com/
CITY: Atlanta
STATE: GA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2017153405
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2017153405
HEADING: Lieberman, Hallie
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373 __ |a University of Wisconsin–Madison |2 naf
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670 __ |a Buzz, 2017 : |b title page (Hallie Lieberman) ; jacket flap (earned her Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a dissertation on sex toy history. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.)
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:University of Texas at Austin, M.A.; University of Wisconsin—Madison, Ph.D., 2014.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and academic. Smithsonian, fellow, 2012; University of Wisconsin—Whitewater, instructor, 2014-15; Lebanon Valley College, teaching fellow in English, 2015-16; Georgia Institute of Technology, instructor, 2017–. Visiting scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Georgia Institute of Technology communications instructor Hallie Lieberman is the author of the rather unique monograph Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy. “As a graduate student in advertising at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 2000s, Lieberman became a sales rep for a company that threw Tupperware-like parties at customers’ homes,” explained Vicky Hallett in the Washington Post Book World. “Except instead of selling nifty plasticware, they hawked sex toys. But there was one big problem: Selling these items in Texas was illegal. To avoid arrest and fines, Lieberman had to stick with code lingo and say that the products were sold strictly for ‘artistic, educational and scientific purposes.’” In order to try to understand how a sex toy could be artistic or scientific, Lieberman began researching the history of their production. In 2014 she “wrote her dissertation on the history of sex toys—work that informed her new book,” explained Katie Heaney in the Cut website. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the study “a fascinating account of the way sex toys have touched feminists, queer communities, and American perceptions of sexuality.”
Buzz begins its investigation with the earliest known development of sex toys. “Lieberman … [takes] us back some 30,000 years, when our ancestors carved penises out of siltstone; moving on to the ancient Greeks’ creative use of olive oil; the buzzy medical devices of the 19th century … and the impact of early-20th-century obscenity laws,” wrote Peggy Orenstein in the New York Times Book Review, “… before digging deeply into more contemporary influences.” “Buzz,” Heaney declared, “takes readers along for the long, hard journey (sorry, sorry) that led to the creation of the modern sex toy—from early newspaper ads claiming vibrators would help with ‘indigestion,’ to the partnership between a male disability activist and a queer female sex-toy shopowner which resulted in the cuter, purple-er dildos we see so often today.” The author points out that, even in parts of twenty-first century America, sex toys are still considered taboo. “The idea of female sexual pleasure and female sexuality unmoored from the male is still threatening and still freaks people out,” Lieberman told Heaney. “We see stories about women being violated, sexually harassed, raped—we’re okay with talking about women’s sexuality when women are the victims of male sexual predation, because it fits into our idea of women as passive and men as active. But when we think of women as owning their sexuality and having sexual agency and being able to create their own pleasure, that threatens these deeply held beliefs.” “Through its probing exploration,” stated a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “the text … becomes a sharp commentary on contemporary society’s ever changing sexual landscape and how sex is perceived, judged, accepted, and enjoyed with more variations than ever before.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2017, review of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.
New York Times Book Review, February 6, 2018, Peggy Orenstein, “The Sex Toy Shops That Switched On a Feminist Revolution.”
Psychology Today, November 2, 2017, Ellen Airhart, “A Brief History of Good Vibrations.”
Publishers Weekly, October 2, 2017, review of Buzz, p. 128.
Washington Post Book World, February 12, 2018, Vicky Hallett, review of Buzz.
ONLINE
Cut, https://www.thecut.com/ (November 17, 2017), Katie Heaney, “The 30,000-Year History of the Sex Toy.”
Hallie Lieberman Website, https://www.hallielieberman.com (March 28, 2018), author profile.
About the Author
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ABOUT HALLIE LIEBERMAN
Lieberman obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2014, with a dissertation on Sex Toy History. Her writing has been published in Bitch, Bust, Eater, The Forward, and Inside Higher Ed, among others. She is often featured on podcasts such as “In Bed With Susie Bright” and Bitch Magazine’s "Popaganda." She has given talks at many university events and conferences. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
SEXOLOGY
NOVEMBER 17, 2017
6:00 AM
The 30,000-Year History of the Sex Toy
By
Katie Heaney
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Photo-Illustration: Photos: Getty Images
The history of the modern dildo is longer than you think (pun very much intended). As Hallie Lieberman puts it in her new book Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy: “Thirty-thousand years ago, our ancestors had been hunched over carving eight-inch-long penises out of siltstone.” What exactly these phallic stone objects were used for is up for debate among various archaeologists, of course (some argue the earliest versions were used to sharpen tools), but their size and shape seem more than a little coincidental.
Many millenniums later, objects clearly designed as sex toys are still veiled behind euphemistic and tongue-in-cheek marketing. Obscenity laws prevented the straightforward sale of sex toys more recently than you might think — a town in Georgia just overturned such a law earlier this year. Early sex toy distributors got around the law by selling their wares as “novelty items” or, in some cases, “marital aids.” (Fair enough.) Even today, the Japanese brand Hitachi won’t acknowledge what its most famous product — the Magic Wand — is really used for.
Hallie Lieberman earned her Ph.D. in media studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she wrote her dissertation on the history of sex toys — work that informed her new book. Buzz takes readers along for the long, hard journey (sorry, sorry) that led to the creation of the modern sex toy — from early newspaper ads claiming vibrators would help with “indigestion,” to the partnership between a male disability activist and a queer female sex-toy shopowner which resulted in the cuter, purple-er dildos we see so often today.
From the book, I gather that you were surprised by how regressive some of the history of sex toys turned out to be.
I went into the project thinking it’d be a story about the shift from oppression to liberation. It didn’t happen that way. In a way, we were more liberated in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when sex toys were advertised everywhere, like in the New York Times. They were just disguised as other things. When sex toys came out of the closet, or became more openly sold, in the 1960s, they were seen more as dangerous devices — this sort of magic wand that symbolized female liberation. We’re only able to fit them into the culture if they’re representing traditional gender roles. You see that even today. Yes, 50 Shades of Grey was great for publicizing sex toys, but at the end of the day, it’s really a message about a woman submitting to a man, and a man using sex toys on her — not a woman discovering her sexuality independent of a man.
A big part of the problem is the term "sex toy," because it makes women’s sexuality sound frivolous.
In the book, you have examples of sex-toy ads that appeared in newspapers decades ago, but they were marketed as tools for treating massage or indigestion — was that all euphemism? Did their makers know what they were selling?
There are no records about what the sellers really thought. I’ve been trying to find them for a decade. But what you can infer when you compare these ads to other ads in the early 1900s is that [the ones for dildos and vibrators] were so much more sexual. If you look at other newspaper ads, they did not have women in low-cut tops like they did in vibrator ads. They’re definitely distinguishing it for the consumer that there’s something sex-related there. They also knew they were designing phallic devices that were meant to be inserted in women’s vaginas. I think they must have had some idea.
Why do you think that, as we’ve become more transparent about what sex toys are for, it’s become less likely that we see images of them in public? Like, I would keel over dead if I saw a vibrator ad in the New York Times today.
I think the key as to why it’s still scandalizing and why we can’t put them in the paper is that the idea of female sexual pleasure and female sexuality unmoored from the male is still threatening and still freaks people out. What’s interesting is that you see the Harvey Weinstein story all over the paper. We see stories about women being violated, sexually harassed, raped — we’re okay with talking about women’s sexuality when women are the victims of male sexual predation, because it fits into our idea of women as passive and men as active. But when we think of women as owning their sexuality and having sexual agency and being able to create their own pleasure, that threatens these deeply held beliefs.
It seems like a lot of the sex-toy marketing even now is geared toward reassuring men that they won’t be replaced.
That’s a theme that runs through 500 years of sex-toy history — longer than that, because you see it in Lysistrata. There are two ways that this works: One is that they’re sold as couples’ toys, so you have this big dildo or vibrator and it’s sold as something to enhance partnered relationships. But it kind of strains credulity that that’s why most people buy those things. And then you also have the marketing that says, “This isn’t going to replace him!”
I can’t believe how far back dildos appear in art. I almost expect to read you’d found proof of them on caveman walls.
What’s kind of amazing is that we have evidence of a dildo-like object that’s 28,000–30,000 years old. We think of these things as new, but you see dildos on Greek vases and in Japanese art. This has been a topic we’ve been thinking about for hundreds and thousands of years. I think it’s important to recognize the history because it gives a more nuanced view — this isn’t a sign of the decline of civilization. Dildos have been a part of human culture since the beginning of human culture. They are a tool we humans have used for a very long time, and they need to be taken seriously.
It seems though like there’s this struggle between between taking it seriously but also making it fun and nonthreatening for consumers, but also not infantilizing them either.
There are so many infantilizing toys that look like woodland creatures or cupcakes. There are ones that look like Popsicles and radishes. I’m all for fun in sex toys, but it’s a hard balance to strike. A big part of the problem is the term “sex toy,” because it makes women’s sexuality sound frivolous. A lot of people have been trying to find another term to replace it, but it’s hard. One of the ones we talked about was “pleasure product.”
Watch: An Illustrated 30,000 Year Evolution of the Sex Toy, based on Hallie Lieberman's 'Buzz.'
That seems maybe more embarrassing to say out loud to me. But that’s probably my problem. How does the average person get over their embarrassment over talking about sex toys — or pleasure products — with one another?
Half of Americans say they’ve used vibrators. Knowing that it’s normal should help people get over the embarrassment. But I think the best thing is realizing that we’re okay with talking about Viagra and four-hour erections on national TV. That, to me, is more embarrassing than talking about a sex toy. If we’re willing to talk about male sexuality this way, we should be willing to talk about female sexuality this way. But it’s hard. If you have a hangup about it, it’s hard, or if you were raised to believe masturbation was wrong, it’s difficult to talk about.
Speaking of Viagra — in the book you make the comparison between vibrators and Viagra, wherein both are tools to improve the experience of sex, and you argue that both should be covered by health insurance.
If we’re subsidizing something intended to enhance male sexuality, why shouldn’t we do the same for women? The reason I think we have that double standard is because of the idea that sex should be penetrative between a couple. I think women have the same right to sexual pleasure, and having a health sexuality as men, and that’s what Viagra does for men. Even if you’re making the argument that health insurance should only go toward enhancing coupled sex, which I think is a stupid argument, but even if you are making that argument, vibrators are so commonly used during coupled sex also.
Is there data as to the gender breakdown as to who buys sex toys and who uses them?
There isn’t good data on who the consumers are, but anecdotally, and from visiting a bunch of sex shops, it depends on which kind of sex toy you’re talking about. If you’re talking about ones sold at porn stores, those have naked women on the packages and they have more violent names, like “Anal Intruder” or “Hammer Dick” or whatever. Those are more often bought by men. In the more female-friendly stores like Shag in Brooklyn, or Please in Brooklyn, those are all about women. So I think there’s a mix. I think the male sex-toy industry has a long way to go, and I hope it becomes less of a stigma for men, too.
It was interesting (if not that surprising) to learn that some of the men who got into the dildo-making business were shocked that women didn’t just want dildos that looked like their dicks but longer.
Of course men would assume that women just want a bigger version of their penis. When you have women designing sex toys, they focus on the clitoris much more, and they’re not concerned about length. Women know they don’t want something hitting their cervix. Women care about girth more than length. In my research I saw multiple letters from people talking to [early dildo designers] about this, and saying, “Stop worrying about length.” Many men are obsessed with penis length.
You wrote that “For Dodson [a feminist activist], masturbation was the key to women’s liberation because masturbation was the first stepping stone to sexual freedom.” How does that work? How can such an individual act be political?
Betty Dodson and other feminists argued that women’s sexuality was entwined with economics — the idea was, you got married, and you gave over your sexuality to your husband exclusively in exchange for food and housing and being taken care of. It was an economic exchange. And it’s political because you’re supposed to get all your sexual pleasure from this man. So if you said you didn’t want to get married, you wouldn’t get that sexual pleasure. But if you had a vibrator, you could give yourself sexual pleasure.
The other thing Dodson argued was that masturbation was the way women learned about their bodies and their sexuality, that the state was suppressing women’s knowledge of their sexuality. This was before Roe v. Wade, before birth control was legal if you weren’t married. This idea that women could have sexual pleasure without fear of babies and without being in a relationship — that was very political at the time, and it still is among a lot of people.
I was both frustrated by and sympathetic to the feminist in-fighting around this issue because it strikes me as something that still happens today — men profit while women argue about which goal is the top priority. But Dodson’s position somewhat reminded me of today’s self-care movement, which is on the very individualistic side of things.
That debate — is the personal political? — has been going on in the feminist movement forever. Does change happen in the bedroom or the boardroom? If you’re just sitting at home masturbating, and everyone else is at the Women’s March, what difference are you going to make? I think the two don’t have to necessarily be diametrically opposed. I think what Dell Williams and Betty Dodson were arguing was that once you learn you don’t have to depend on men for your sexual pleasure, you are free to act on your political beliefs.
All too often we say, “Now’s not the time to talk about women’s sexual pleasure. Once we get all the political stuff taken care of, then we can talk about that.” And it’s always pushed back. Even now, you see we can talk about sexual harassment and sexual assault. But women’s sexual pleasure, well, that’s not as important. We can push that back and talk about that later. I think the right to sexual pleasure is a human right. The right to have an orgasm is a human right.
With the rise of Amazon and other stores selling sex toys online, more and more people can buy these products from their own homes. Is that a good thing or a bad one?
I think it’s a mix. I think the good thing about being able to buy sex toys in total privacy is that people may be willing to buy stuff they wouldn’t otherwise, because they’re not afraid of someone witnessing them. But on the other hand, in a sex-toy store, someone might encourage you to try something new, and also give you education and information on it. A lot of times that can’t happen if you’re just doing it online. That said, there are so many customer reviews online. I think the Hitachi Magic Wand has over a thousand reviews on Amazon.
But there’s so much crap on Amazon. A lot of sex toys are cheaply made and even dangerous. If you look at reports from different federal agencies about injuries with consumer products, thousands of people are injured every year from sex toys. A big part of this is a lack of education. Curated sex-toy stores like Good Vibes online and SheVibe are still really important. We still need gatekeepers to make sure consumers are getting the right stuff.
TAGS: SEXOLOGY SCIENCE OF US SEX TOYS BOOKS
Hallie Lieberman
Instructor at Georgia Institute of Technology
Visiting Scholar at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science University of Wisconsin-Madison
Berlin, Berlin, Germany 98 98 connections
Connect Connect with Hallie Lieberman More actions
I'm a historian of sex and a writer. My book Buzz: A Stimulating History of Sex Toys will be published by Pegasus Books later this year.
Experience
Visiting Scholar at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Visiting Scholar
Company NameVisiting Scholar at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Georgia Institute of Technology
Instructor
Company NameGeorgia Institute of Technology
Dates Employed2017 – Present Employment Duration1 yr
LocationAtlanta, Georgia
Lebanon Valley College
Teaching Fellow in English
Company NameLebanon Valley College
Dates EmployedAug 2015 – May 2016 Employment Duration10 mos
University of Wisconsin - Whitewater
Instructor
Company NameUniversity of Wisconsin - Whitewater
Dates EmployedAug 2014 – May 2015 Employment Duration10 mos
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Teaching Assistant
Company NameUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison
Dates EmployedSep 2009 – Dec 2013 Employment Duration4 yrs 4 mos
Smithsonian
Fellow
Company NameSmithsonian
Dates Employed2012 – 2012 Employment Durationless than a year
Show less
Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Degree NameDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Field Of StudyMass Communication/Media Studies
Dates attended or expected graduation 2008 – 2014
The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin
Degree NameMaster of Arts (M.A.) Field Of StudyAdvertising
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Print Marked Items
Lieberman, Hallie: BUZZ
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lieberman, Hallie BUZZ Pegasus (Adult Nonfiction) $26.95 11, 7 ISBN: 978-1-68177-543-2
The unexpected and underappreciated history of sex toys.Years before sex expert Lieberman earned her
doctorate in "Sex Toy History," she invested in her first vibrator, and it became "love at first buzz." She
went on to participate in adult novelty parties while living in Texas, where the sale or promotion of sexual
stimulators was considered legally obscene (things have changed since). The historically regressive nature
of the availability and use of sex toys forms the thrust of the book, and the author's vast knowledge of sex,
eroticism, and the art of self-pleasure is on vibrant display. Lieberman describes ancient "phallic batons" in
use as far back as 40,000 B.C.E. Though the information is readily available, she notes, there remains no
definitive answers on the true origins and usages of sex toys, primarily because their history is shrouded in
"male fear," patriarchal regulation of women's bodies, and shame. While Japanese societies celebrate the
sex toy, the author encountered difficulty in tracing the tabooed subject matter within American culture
until, tucked away in the archives of museums, libraries, and vintage catalogs, she discovered dilators,
ticklers, and vibrators and their assorted histories as sexual apparatuses disguised as medical devices.
Lieberman introduces us to a colorful cast of creators and purveyors who have played a role in
destigmatizing masturbation and revolutionizing the sex industry. Among others, these include an
enterprising paraplegic who embarked on a handcrafted dildo manufacturing business, which helped usher
innovative variations on sex toys into the mainstream consumer market. Lieberman also profiles the two
creative entrepreneurs behind the Pleasure Chest adult novelty chain and American artists and sex educators
Betty Dodson and Joani Blank, and she updates readers on more contemporary advancements within the sex
toy arena. On a deeper level, through its probing exploration, the text also becomes a sharp commentary on
contemporary society's ever changing sexual landscape and how sex is perceived, judged, accepted, and
enjoyed with more variations than ever before. Provocative, illuminating, and consistently entertaining.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Lieberman, Hallie: BUZZ." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502192246/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=19d9a02f.
Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A502192246
3/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex
Toy
Publishers Weekly.
264.40 (Oct. 2, 2017): p128.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy
Hallie Lieberman. Pegasus, $26.95 (352p)
ISBN 978-1-68177-543-2
Focusing on American cultural history from the 1950s to the present, Lieberman, who wrote her Ph.D.
dissertation on the history of sex toys, traces the commodification of the sex toy and its path into American
mainstream culture. She populates the book with the colorful stories of many of the sex-toy industry's most
influential activists, inventors, and entrepreneurs, among them Reuben Sturman, who built a vast, sleazy
empire on including masturbation booths in his adult stores, and Betty Dodson, a feminist activist who
argued for the importance of the female orgasm and women's sexual liberation. Lieberman writes that "sex
toys soaked up the meanings of whoever was promoting them" and that they "were always political, but the
politics they embodied were up for grabs." The dildo, for example, threatened many straight men who
feared it was a replacement for them, a reaction Lieberman contrasts with the perception among some
lesbians that the dildo was a reinforcement of heterosexual, penetrative sex. Lieberman's history is a
fascinating account of the way sex toys have touched feminists, queer communities, and American
perceptions of sexuality. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy." Publishers Weekly, 2 Oct. 2017, p. 128. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509728469/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f576344e.
Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509728469
Books Review
One woman’s bold case for breaking the sex-toy taboo
By Vicky Hallett February 12
Powerful men have done a lot of vile things in the workplace. But of all the stories that have recently emerged, the one that really irritates Hallie Lieberman is the accusation that former “Today” show host Matt Lauer once gave his colleague a sex toy with a note about wanting to use it on her.
“Buzz,” by Hallie Lieberman (Pegasus )
Lieberman has devoted her career to the study of sex toys and their positive impact on people’s lives. It’s a subject she discusses at length in her recently published book, “Buzz.”
Vibrators and other sex toys can help people get more comfortable with their bodies and achieve pleasure, Lieberman says, and that’s a wonderful thing — in one’s personal life. “I’m a big fan of sending sex toys as gifts,” she said in a phone interview from her home in Atlanta. “But don’t send them to your employee.”
[What does passion sound like? How 5 audiobook actors talk sexy.]
The same advice probably holds for Lieberman’s book, which is based on her doctoral dissertation for the University of Wisconsin and picks up the subject a very, very long time ago.
“Before humans invented writing or the wheel, we had invented dildos,” notes Lieberman, who explains that archaeologists have discovered phallic-shaped objects dating back to the Ice Age. In a chapter surveying about 30,000 years, Lieberman points out that dildos appear in paintings in ancient Egypt, in several works by Greek dramatist Aristophanes and in the advice-packed pages of the Kama Sutra. In the 17th century, they appeared in British poetry and Japanese woodblock prints. Among the archives of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where Lieberman was a fellow several years ago, she found an early 20th-century device for inducing male pleasure.
Despite this lengthy heritage, sex toys have managed to stay relatively under cover(s). This taboo is what first attracted Lieberman to the subject. The preface of “Buzz” recounts a family vacation when she was 10 years old and discovered an odd zippered pouch in the hotel dresser. She showed off the “pencil sharpener” to her parents, who immediately took it away and demanded she wash her hands.
The memory lingered with Lieberman during her formative years in the 1990s in Florida. One day, the then-16-year-old Lieberman took a peek inside a store called Adult Fun, which beckoned with its blacked-out windows from a seedy strip mall. Inside, she gaped at a wall of erotic merchandise, shelves of publications with unprintable titles — and an employee from her school district.
The author Hallie Lieberman (Eric Schatzberg)
Lieberman was baffled as much as she was intrigued. “Wasn’t sex supposed to just work?” she wondered. Why would anyone need to spend money on extra stuff? Nevertheless, Lieberman decided not to walk out empty-handed.
Her fascination lingered, less a prurient interest than an academic one. As a graduate student in advertising at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 2000s, Lieberman became a sales rep for a company that threw Tupperware-like parties at customers’ homes. Except instead of selling nifty plasticware, they hawked sex toys. But there was one big problem: Selling these items in Texas was illegal. To avoid arrest and fines, Lieberman had to stick with code lingo and say that the products were sold strictly for “artistic, educational and scientific purposes.”
The situation struck Lieberman as bizarre, which is why she started digging into how that law ended up on the books. Before long, she was researching the rise of vice crusaders and the government’s role in regulating sex toys, as well as the development of key sex-toy technologies, including rubber vulcanization and electricity.
Initially, her plan for “Buzz” was to offer an in-depth examination of objects, not people, Lieberman says. But readers will find that the majority of her book is dedicated to a colorful cast of characters who have shaped the sex-toy industry in America since the 1950s.
One of Lieberman’s favorites is Ted Marche, a ventriloquist who, as she puts it, “went from a dummy to dildos.” Marche was also an engineer, and in the mid-’60s, wanted to build a device that would help impotent men. It was a risky venture in pre-sexual revolution times, but Marche found that demand for his“marital-aid” device was high. By 1976, Marche had sold nearly 5 million of them; he also donated artificial penises to children’s hospitals, where they were used to treat young boys with abnormal genitals.
If Marche was the angel of the sex-toy scene, the devil was Reuben Sturman, whose rise to dominance in the industry involved shady Swiss bank accounts, extortion and even a plot to scare rivals with bombs.
[The most pleasant novel about pornography you’ll ever read]
Most of Lieberman’s attention, however, is on people who embrace these devices as part of larger cultural movements. “These people wanted to change the world and used sex toys to do it,” she says.
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There’s Gosnell Duncan, a paraplegic who began crafting sex toys to cater to other people with disabilities. (He also pioneered the use of body-safe silicone rubber.) Duane Colglazier, the co-founder of the Pleasure Chest chain of stores, launched a gay-oriented business during a time when homosexuality was a crime.
And Betty Dodson, a personal hero to Lieberman, tirelessly advocated for masturbation — and vibrators — among feminists. It wasn’t always a popular idea with the group’s leaders, who worried about the optics of prioritizing pleasure. The idea that women can take control of their sexuality, “it was radical,” Lieberman says. “It still is radical.”
Vicky Hallett, a former Washington Post columnist, is a freelance writer in Florence, Italy.
BUZZ
The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy
By Hallie Lieberman
Pegasus. 384 pp. $26.95
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
BOOK REVIEW | NONFICTION
The Sex Toy Shops That Switched On a Feminist Revolution
By PEGGY ORENSTEINFEB. 6, 2018
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Photo
The “White Cross Electric Vibrator Girl” as pictured in a 1911 Health and Beauty catalog. Credit Courtesy American Medical Association Archives
BUZZ
The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy
By Hallie Lieberman
Illustrated. 359 pp. Pegasus Books. $26.95.
VIBRATOR NATION
How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure
By Lynn Comella
278 pp. Duke University Press. $25.95.
Think back, for a moment, to the year 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Beatles released the “White Album.” North Vietnam launched the Tet offensive. And American women discovered the clitoris. O.K., that last one may be a bit of an overreach, but 1968 was when “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm,” a short essay by Anne Koedt, went that era’s version of viral. Jumping off of the Masters and Johnson bombshell that women who didn’t climax during intercourse could have multiple orgasms with a vibrator, Koedt called for replacing Freud’s fantasy of “mature” orgasm with women’s lived truth: It was all about the clitoris. That assertion single-handedly, as it were, made female self-love a political act, and claimed orgasm as a serious step to women’s overall emancipation. It also threatened many men, who feared obsolescence, or at the very least, loss of primacy. Norman Mailer, that famed phallocentrist, raged in his book “The Prisoner of Sex” against the emasculating “plenitude of orgasms” created by “that laboratory dildo, that vibrator!” (yet another reason, beyond the whole stabbing incident, to pity the man’s poor wives).
To be fair, Mailer & Co. had cause to quake. The quest for sexual self-knowledge, as two new books on the history and politics of sex toys reveal, would become a driver of feminist social change, striking a blow against men’s overweening insecurity and the attempt (still with us today) to control women’s bodies. As Lynn Comella writes in “Vibrator Nation,” retailers like Good Vibrations in San Francisco created an erotic consumer landscape different from anything that previously existed for women, one that was safe, attractive, welcoming and ultimately subversive, presenting female sexual fulfillment as “unattached to reproduction, motherhood, monogamy — even heterosexuality.”
As you can imagine, both books (which contain a great deal of overlap) are chockablock with colorful characters, starting with Betty Dodson, the Pied Piper of female onanism, who would often personally demonstrate — in the nude — how to use a vibrator to orgasm during her early sexual consciousness-raising workshops in New York. I am woman, hear me roar indeed.
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Back in the day, though, attaining a Vibrator of One’s Own was tricky. The leering male gaze of the typical “adult” store was, at best, off-putting to most women. Amazon, where sex toys, like fresh produce, are just a mouse click away, was still a glimmer in Jeff Bezos’ eye. Enter Dell Williams, who after being shamed by a Macy’s salesclerk while checking out a Hitachi Magic Wand, founded in 1974 the mail order company Eve’s Garden. That was quickly followed by Good Vibrations, the first feminist sex toy storefront; it’s great fun to read the back story of Good Vibes’ late founder, Joani Blank, along with radical “sexperts” like Susie Bright and Carol Queen.
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The authors of “Vibrator Nation” and “Buzz” each put in time observing how sex toys are sold, so have firsthand insight into the industry. Whose take will hold more appeal depends on the reader’s interests: In “Buzz,” Hallie Lieberman offers a broader view, taking us back some 30,000 years, when our ancestors carved penises out of siltstone; moving on to the ancient Greeks’ creative use of olive oil; the buzzy medical devices of the 19th century (disappointingly, doctors’ notorious in-office use of vibrators as treatment for female “hysteria” is urban legend); and the impact of early-20th-century obscenity laws — incredibly, sex toys remain illegal in Alabama — before digging deeply into more contemporary influences. In addition to feminist retailers, Lieberman braids in stories of men like Ted Marche, whose family business — employing his wife and teenage children — began by making prosthetic strap-ons for impotent men; Gosnell Duncan, who made sex aids for the disabled and was the first to expand dildo production beyond the Caucasian pink once called “flesh colored”; the Malorrus brothers, who were gag gift manufacturers (think penis pencil toppers); and the hard-core porn distribution mogul Reuben Sturman, who repeatedly, and eventually disastrously, ran afoul of the law. Although their X-rated wares would supposedly give women orgasms, unlike the feminist-championed toys they were sold primarily as devices that would benefit men. Much like the era’s sexual revolution, in other words, they maintained and even perpetuated a sexist status quo.
“Vibrator Nation” focuses more narrowly on women-owned vendors, wrestling with how their activist mission bumped up against the demands and constraints of the marketplace. Those early entrepreneurs, Comella writes, believed nothing less than that “women who had orgasms could change the world.” As with other utopian feminist visions, however, this one quickly splintered. Controversy broke out over what constituted “sex positivity,” what constituted “woman-friendly,” what constituted “woman.” Was it politically correct to stock, or even produce, feminist porn? Were BDSM lesbians invited to the party? Would the stores serve transwomen? Did the “respectable” aesthetic of the white, middle-class founders translate across lines of class and race? If the goal was self-exploration through a kind of cliteracy, what about customers (of any gender or sexual orientation) who wanted toys for partnered play or who enjoyed penetrative sex? Could a sex store that sold nine-inch, veined dildos retain its feminist bona fides? Dell Williams solved that particular problem by commissioning nonrepresentational silicone devices with names like “Venus Rising” from Gosnell Duncan, the man who made prosthetics for the disabled. Others followed suit.
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Even so, Comella writes, the retailers struggled to stay afloat: Feminist stores refused, as a matter of principle, to trade on customers’ anxiety — there were none of the “tightening creams,” “numbing creams,” penis enlargers or anal bleaches that boosted profits at typical sex stores. Employees were considered “educators,” and sales were secondary to providing information and support. What’s more, Good Vibrations in particular was noncompetitive; Blank freely shared her business model with any woman interested in spreading the love.
Consumer culture and feminism have always been strange bedfellows, with the former tending to overpower the latter. Just as Virginia Slims co-opted the message of ’70s liberation, as the Spice Girls cannibalized ’90s grrrl power, so feminist sex stores exerted their influence on the mainstream, yet were ultimately absorbed and diluted by it. In 2007, Good Vibrations was sold to GVA-TWN, the very type of sleazy mega-sex-store company it was founded to disrupt. Though no physical changes have been made in the store, Good Vibrations is no longer woman-owned. Although the aesthetics haven’t changed, Lieberman writes, the idea of feminist sex toys as a source of women’s liberation has faded, all but disappeared. An infamous episode of “Sex and the City” that made the Rabbit the hottest vibrator in the nation also portrayed female masturbation as addictive and isolating, potentially leading to permanent loneliness. The sex toys in “Fifty Shades of Grey” were wielded solely in service of traditional sex and gender roles: A man is in charge of Anastasia Steele’s sexual awakening, and climax is properly experienced through partnered intercourse. Meanwhile, the orgasm gap between genders has proved more stubborn than the pay gap. Women still experience one orgasm for every three experienced by men in partnered sex. And fewer than half of teenage girls between 14 and 17 have ever masturbated.
At the end of “Buzz,” Lieberman makes a provocative point: Viagra is covered by insurance but vibrators aren’t, presumably because while erections are seen as medically necessary for sexual functioning the same is not true of female orgasm. Like our feminist foremothers, she envisions a new utopia, one in which the F.D.A. regulates sex toys to ensure their safety, in which they are covered by insurance, where children are taught about them in sex education courses and they are seen and even subsidized worldwide as a way to promote women’s sexual health.
In other words: We’ve come a long way, baby, but as “Vibrator Nation” and “Buzz” make clear, we still may not be coming enough.
Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Girls & Sex” and a new book of essays, “Don’t Call Me Princess.”
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A version of this review appears in print on February 11, 2018, on Page BR12 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: All by Myself. Today's Paper|Subscribe
A Brief History of Good Vibrations
By Ellen Airhart, published on November 2, 2017 - last reviewed on January 13, 2018
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Sex toys are as old as sin, but in America, they have gone from the underground to the mainstream in a matter of decades. In her new book Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, historian Hallie Lieberman recounts how disparate forces, including feminism, entrepreneurship, and entrenched conservatism, converged to shape the modern dildos and vibrators that many proudly use today. Here are a few highlights.
1960s
In the late '60s, the Supreme Court revised obscenity rules, making it easier to buy porn. Yet sex toys remained controversial—and manufacturers still risked prosecution—so they were widely branded as novelties or medical devices. Even as experts like pioneering psychologist Albert Ellis protested that masturbation was benign, Lieberman explains, "dildos were sold as 'impotence devices,' as opposed to things that allowed women to have orgasms."
1970s
Before Duane Colglazier and Bill Rifkin opened the first Pleasure Chest in Manhattan in 1971, sex toys were mostly sold in seamy adult stores and through mail-order catalogues. The duo aimed for a more upscale shopping environment and, along with other new sellers, tried to normalize the experience. Many customers were gay men, but women, too, were drawn to the shops that emerged in more reputable parts of town and eschewed peep-show booths.
1990s-2010s
Sex and the City prominently featured a sex toy on TV for the first time in American history when Charlotte bought a vibrator and became infatuated with it. "The moral of the story," Lieberman says, "was that, yes, you can use a vibrator, but in the end sexual satisfaction comes from a man." Yet the episode paved the way for others. Today, shows like Unreal and Broad City, which recently inspired a line of themed sex toys, treat their use as ordinary.
Facebook image: Jaroslav Monchak/Shutterstock