QUIKIE: The History of Sex Toys

On this quickie

In this episode of What’s Your Position?, we take a playful, evidence-based tour through the history of sex toys — from sacred ancient objects and carved stone dildos to “respectable” medical massagers, all the way to the Bluetooth-enabled, app-controlled toys in your nightstand today. We unpack the persistent (but largely debunked) myth that Victorian doctors used vibrators to treat “hysteria,” dig into censorship like the Comstock Act and modern laws that still try to police pleasure, and highlight how feminist, queer, and disability communities have reshaped sex toys into tools of autonomy and joy rather than shame.

Along the way, we talk about how big this world really is: the global sex toy market is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, and research suggests that well over half of women — and around half of men — have used a sex toy at least once. From ancient temples to Texas courtrooms to your group chat, this episode shows how the story of sex toys is really the story of who gets to feel good, and who’s been trying to stop them.