Sex Toys And Sex Divorce Rates?

Douglas, Ann Wood. “”The Fashionable Diseases”: Women 's Complaints and Their Treatment in Nineteenth-Century America.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 4, no. 1 (1973): 25-52.

Sex life is full of complete mysteries. We know there is a lot of unfounded gossips, myths, and taboos floating in the air about sex toys that hold back people wanting to explore the kinky side of sex, keeping them from discovering their own pleasure power. Thanks to Sex in the City’s infamous episode “Rabbit Pearl” vibrator because it brought sex toys more into the open for the American public. For those who have broken those chains, another problem arises “cheap/fake and substandard products!!” The sex toy industry is exceptionally unregulated, and many toys are made out of chemicals that can be dangerous to your body. Research was carried out and about 60% of loyal sex toy customers were being sold

In the twentieth century, there was much debate on women’s public sexual relationship versus her private sexual relationship. The American society only believed in pure sex, and premarital sex was viewed as a sin. From a feminist’s point of view, there should be no pressure on the woman to reproduce according to the husband’s wishes. The feminists at the time “... were assured that they were sexual beings, but their sexuality was defined by male standards” (341-342). Also, certain situations did not provide the atmosphere necessary to raise a baby.

It was thought “that reproductivity was central to a women’s biological life” and a woman must “concentrate their physical energy internally, toward the womb” (Ehrenreich and English p44). Many women’s disorders were termed hysteria derived from the Greek word hystera, meaning womb. It was thought these disorders originated from the womb since this was the main aspect of a woman’s life. These types of treatments were not necessarily a need for medical attention to women’s disorders but instead a simple way to maintain the women’s role in the 1800’s: the domestic stay- at- home care-giver. Women needed to remain at home caring for man and their offspring.

Starting in November of 1912, “What Every Girl Should Know” by Sanger was being published every Sunday in The Call, a commonly read socialist newspaper. Within her articles, Sanger covered puberty and the changes that occurred as a result, the functions of the reproductive system, and the causes and ways to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. At the time, the Comstock laws were in place which defined contraceptives obscene and made it illegal for information regarding contraceptives to be sent through the U.S Postal Service. For this reason, “What Every Girl Should Know” was no longer allowed to be published, the last article published was blank except for the words “What Every Girl Should Know. NOTHING! By order of the Post Office Department” (qtd. in Lader 37). Refusing to give up, Sanger prepared herself to fight the Comstock Laws and provide the women and girls of New York with information about contraceptives and their bodies. From 1913 to 1914, Sanger travelled to Paris. At this time in Europe, contraceptives were much more accepted and information was plentiful. Sanger spent her days researching and gathered a collection of information on the best and latest douches, sponges, suppositories, and pessaries. She also bought some of the devices to bring back with her to the United States. Having gathered enough research, Sanger headed back to the United States. In

“Sir James Clarke’s Female Pills” and other similar products were part of a class of patent medicines targeted at women and advertised as a cure to a universe of “painful and dangerous diseases incident to the female constitution” (Fig. 5The Daily Globe 1856). They offered hope for women in search of relief from monthly discomforts. In actuality, patent medicine manufacturers were capitalizing on the increased demand for abortifacients by advertising products that restored the regularity of the monthly period. To avoid prosecution, veiled language was used to advertise their nature, which compelled women to consider them for the purpose of removing what was described as “irregularities,” “suppressions,” and “obstructions” of the menses and to deal with all causes of the cessation of menstrual flow (Fig. 5; The Daily Globe 1856; The Star of the North 1855).

Around 3000BC condoms were made using intestines and fish bladders, which lead to the first spermicides in 1500 which consisted of linen cloth, soaked in chemicals and dried (A Brief History). However, the modern push towards birth control started in Great Britain when overpopulation began to be an issue. According to Birth Control (2013) many forms of contraception were already being used, such as rubber condoms, diaphragms, chemical suppositories, vaginal sponges and medicated tampons. According to Brodie (1998) women wanted to control fertility so badly that they believed that they had an infertile or sterile time of the month where it was physically impossible for them to become pregnant. This was called the “Rhythm Method” and was very often ineffective. It was Margaret’s dream that women would be able to practice sexual freedom in the same way that men have always been able to (Witherbee,

In using Griswold’s cultural diamond, we must identify the agents, the creators of the vibrator, to fully understand its place in the social world. In 1869, George Taylor designed and patented the first steam-powered vibrator. Unfortunately, though the device did assist in “curing” these women of their Hysteria, it was costly, inefficient, and labor intensive to manufacture. Luckily, along came Joseph Mortimer Granville, designer of the first battery-operated, portable vibrator (manufactured by the Weiss Company). It was after this breakthrough that vibrators were created at tremendously fast rates; by 1900, “more than a dozen manufacturers began producing both battery-powered vibrators and models that operated from line electricity”. These initial creators of the vibrator provided a fast, efficient method of treatment, but who benefited more, the doctors or the patients?

Another information that I learned is having pornography online for easy access statistics says that it lowers sexual assault crimes. It outlined in the book in pg. 142, that pornography helps lower sexual assault, divorces, suicide and child sexual exploitation. Sexual assault is a major crime and if research are saying that pornography helps reduce cases, then it should be pursued not abolished. In addition, divorces have been on the rise in American families because financial problems, or just lack of passion. Using pornography, the book says that it is helping to rekindle most of the lost passion married couples suffer from on regular basis. Moreover, the decline of suicide

During this time period, women were still expected to be the ideal wife: produce children, care for those children, and keep up the household. They were also the “target of advertisers in the early twentieth century.” In 1896, the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company advertised an ailment that would cure infertility. Not only did this promote women’s main concern was to bear children, but that it was completely the women’s fault if a child was not able to be conceived and in no way the fathers. Both the Squibb Corporation and the T.T. Pond Company marketed medicine cabinets. Squibb refers to a medicine cabinet as an apothecary shop. The T.T. Pond Company promotes that it is the women’s job to have a medicine cabinet on hand for her family. Both agree that it is the women’s undertaking to make sure her family is well-cared for and healthy. In 1918, the Lever Brothers advertised for Lux

The idea of childbirth has been viewed in three peculiar ways: a social natural occurrence, as a passage to an early death, and in present times a medical procedure needed when having children. In the seventieth and eighteenth century childbirth was seen as a social celebration conducted by midwives, while in the nineteenth century fear of death arose due to an increase of maternal mortality rates. This time period also served as a transition time between the elimination of the midwife and the emergence of the physician. The transition was due to attitude changes and knowledge understanding. During the twentieth century, medical knowledge expanded and thus the idea of childbirth was medicalized into a medical procedure needed to have healthy children. Childbirth once seen as a natural phenomenon was now an event that needed medical attention by health facilitators at institutions of health. The ideas around childbirth developed based on the knowledge, cultural setting, mortality rates, and professionals available at the time. Based on these ideas it is easy to see how social and behavioral aspects influenced childbirth throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, ninetieth and twentieth centuries. In addition, the communities’ views on childbirth were influenced by the development of public health infrastructure, public health policy advancement and how well public officials were able to disseminate information.

"Just tell me how you feel after the treatment." reminded the physician as his patient nodded silently, well aware of how he was being used as guinea pig. The physician, an aged and weathered man of around sixty years, fetched two metal rods, both the size of toothpicks, one comprised of brass and the other of steel. "So you said that it hurt, here?" he questioned as he tapped on the patient's temple. "Yes, thats where it hurts, sir." The man answered, although slightly nervous, he had hear of these famous "Perkin's Tractors" and also of the physician standing beside him, "John Haygarth." Although the patient was not much of a scholar, he had heard of the physician, "One of the best of his time," he was called. While the client was thinking this, Haygarth slowly applied the point of the rod

“Brought to Bed”, by Judith Walzer Leavitt, is the story of childbirth in America from 1750 to 1970, and details how women in America dealt with childbirth or being “brought to bed”, the fears they had and how they coped with those fears, as well as the shift from using midwives who came to your home and having a large, female support network surround you, to using doctors and moving from the home setting into a hospital. The book is divided up into several sections, and used the diaries, letters, and notes from both women who were patients and the doctors who tended to them. These chapters deal with the transition from home to hospital by outlining different reasons for why this shift may have occurred, and who the driving force behind this was. The author poses a thesis, “By examining closely the ways childbirth has changed, I hope to illuminate some basic aspects of women’s lives in the past while at the same time analyzing the evolution of medical and

The Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, collected and put into text by Chinese scholar Pu Songling, is a collection of tales of mostly alchemic, supernatural, and paranormal nature. One of the common threads that runs through the collection is that of the sexual encounters and sexual relations between people, people and creatures, and people and supernatural beings. These stories deal with the subject of sexual indulgence, and clearly connote sex as a negative and dangerous aspect of human desires. Stir-Fry, the last story in Strange Tales, however, forcefully deviates from that trend of the perception of sexual desire. In Stir-Fry, Pu glides over the topic of the dildo and treats it as if it were just any normal other object that would be ridiculous to cook and serve guests at dinner. A scholar’s sexual desires are no less strange than the tales of sex in stories such as “The Fornicating Dog,” “The Painted Skin,” “Snake Island,” and especially “Lotus Fragrance.” The sexual nature of the toy Pu ignores completely, and he enforces the idea that sexual desires or encounters are not as strange or taboo as Pu himself makes them out to be in his earlier stories in the Strange Tales collection.

The pleasures and rights of a woman’s sexual freedom, and doing it safely was my activism project main objective. I endeavored to educate woman concerning these issue in a fun and comfortable atmosphere. This topic can be simultaneously controversial and exciting.