In this episode of the podcast “ Wait a minute ! », which you find in particular on Apple Podcast And Spotify, we offer you an interview on sex toys, whose history is longer than your arm. If it is said that Cleopatra, the last queen of ancient Egypt, invented the first vibrator, these toys remained confidential until the 20th century, a source of fantasies.
The democratization of dildos and other vibrators has only taken place over the past twenty years. In 1992, 7% of French women had already used one during their life, while in 2012, more than a third of them had experimented with this type of object. In 2020, more than 50% of French women had already used a sex toy, according to the statistics organization Statista.
Objects as old as humanity?
We buy these sex toys today online or in chic stores. There is something for all tastes and budgets. The sex toy market is juicy: 31 billion dollars in turnover in 2020, a figure which is expected to continue to increase over the decade.
When did the first sex toys start? How did pop culture take up these objects? In the age of connected objects and artificial intelligence, what are the cybersecurity challenges for these sexual objects equipped with multiple sensors? To respond in this episode, Amandine Jonniaux, journalist at Geek Journalauthor of Oh my dildo, A vibrant investigation into the underside of sex toys, to La Musardine editions.
A vast subject, at the crossroads of historical, scientific and sociological research. “I found it interesting that, when talking about sex toys, it talks about humanity, history, taboos, it doesn’t just talk about sexuality,” underlines Amandine Jonniaux in this exchange. The first erotic toys date back to prehistory, 28,000 years before our era. In 2005, a stone phallus was discovered in Germany which had all the characteristics of a dildo (…) Is this proof that prehistoric ancestors used sex toys for recreational sexuality? », asks the author.
New issues linked to sex toys, including cybersecurity
There remain questions about the sex toys of the future, such as the question of cybersecurity, the recyclable nature of materials, but also the issue of artificial intelligence.
“Ten years after the Womanizer revolution [objet stimulant le clitoris au moyen d’air], we know how to create sex toys that make us cum very quickly, very well, continues Amandine Jonniaux. So the challenge of “sextech” is twofold: securing the uses we have of it, and [découvrir N.D.L.R.] the whole experience around the use of sex toys,” adds the author. In particular, she mentions “connection platforms” to create synchronized sex toys, for example with a pornographic film, a live online sex platform, or an erotic piece of writing…
For the rest of this interview, it’s in the audio player above and on your favorite listening app. Good listening !