Ancient Sexual Devices: Tools of Pleasure, Power, and Ritual in History

When you think of ancient sexual devices, physical objects used for sexual stimulation or ritual in pre-modern societies. Also known as historical sex toys, they were never just about pleasure—they were wrapped in spirituality, medicine, and social control. These weren’t secret inventions hidden in dusty drawers. In ancient Egypt, phallic amulets were worn for protection and fertility. In Greece and Rome, dildo-like objects made of leather, wood, or stone showed up in art, tombs, and even homes—sometimes as symbols of female autonomy, sometimes as tools to treat "hysteria."

Fast forward to the 1800s, and the same devices reappeared—but now they were sold as medical equipment. steam vibrators, mechanical devices powered by steam or clockwork, marketed to doctors for treating "female hysteria" weren’t designed for fun. They were clinical tools, quietly giving women relief from chronic pelvic tension while society pretended it was all about nerves and health. Meanwhile, in Etruria, Etruscan funerary art, explicit sexual scenes carved into tomb walls to guide souls through the afterlife revealed a culture where sex and death weren’t opposites—they were part of the same sacred cycle. These aren’t isolated curiosities. They’re clues. Clues to how power, gender, and belief shaped what people did in private—and how they hid it in public.

What you’ll find below isn’t a list of weird old gadgets. It’s a collection of real stories—how women used early vibrators to reclaim control, how erotic poetry got banned for being too honest, how medical myths turned pleasure into pathology, and how ancient cultures saw sex not as sin, but as sacred. These posts don’t just show you what they used. They show you why they used it—and who got to decide.