Vibrators Medical Use: How Pleasure Was Hidden as Therapy

When you think of a vibrator, a device originally designed as a medical tool to treat hysteria, later repurposed for personal pleasure. Also known as electrical stimulator, it was once prescribed by doctors as a legitimate treatment—not for sex, but for sanity. In the late 1800s, if a woman complained of anxiety, irritability, or low energy, her doctor didn’t ask about stress, sleep, or work. He diagnosed female hysteria, a catch-all medical label for women’s emotional and physical distress, often tied to sexuality. The cure? Manual stimulation—until machines made it faster, cleaner, and more profitable.

Before electricity, steam vibrators, mechanical devices powered by steam or clockwork, used in medical offices to relieve pelvic tension were common. These weren’t toys. They were heavy, noisy, and expensive—bought by clinics, not homes. Doctors spent hours massaging patients by hand, which was exhausting. So they turned to gadgets. By the 1880s, companies like The Percussionist and The Manistee Manufacturing Co. were selling vibrators as medical equipment. They didn’t advertise orgasm. They advertised relief—from nervous exhaustion, from "hysterical paroxysms," from the supposed dangers of repressed desire. The truth? Women were getting pleasure, but the language of sex was forbidden. So the machines were sold as therapy, and the pleasure? That stayed silent.

This wasn’t just about machines. It was about control. Doctors claimed they were helping women, but they were enforcing norms: women shouldn’t want sex, shouldn’t enjoy it, shouldn’t seek it alone. The vibrator’s medical use lasted into the 1920s. Even after electric models appeared, the story stayed the same: it was for nerves, not pleasure. Only decades later did people realize the device was never meant to cure hysteria—it was meant to quiet it. And in doing so, it gave women something no doctor ever acknowledged: autonomy over their own bodies.

What you’ll find here are the real stories behind those machines—the forgotten patients, the shady ads, the doctors who knew more than they said, and how a tool meant to suppress desire ended up becoming one of the first symbols of female sexual freedom.