While physicians of the period acknowledged that the disorder stemmed from sexual dissatisfaction, they seemed unaware of or unwilling to admit the sexual purposes of the devices used to treat it.


In fact, the introduction of the speculum was far more controversial than that of the vibrator. By the turn of the century, the spread of home electricity brought the vibrator to the consumer market. The appeal of cheaper treatment in the privacy of one’s own home understandably made the vibrator a popular early home appliance.

In fact, the electric home vibrator was on the market before many other home appliance ’essentials’: nine years before the electric vacuum cleaner and 10 years before the electric iron. A page from a Sears catalog of home electrical appliances from 1918 includes a portable vibrator with attachments, billed as ”Very useful and satisfactory for home service.

Erotic massages are typically performed in a person's erogenous zones to achieve or enhance sexual arousal. In the case of women, the two focal areas are the breasts and pubis. In case of men, the focal area is the genitals.

Erotic massage may be utilized as a sex therapy, that is, as a means of stimulating the libido, or increasing the ability of a person to respond positively to sensual stimulus.

In some cases, erotic massage can be a form of foreplay without sexual gratification, intended to heighten the sensitivity of an individual prior to another engagement where sexual arousal and fulfillment is intended.

In other cases, erotic massage may be used professionally to help men address issues of premature ejaculation. Methods employed may teach the recipient to relax the musculature of his pelvis and thus prolong arousal and increase pleasure.

Erotic massage or sensuous massage is the use of massage techniques to achieve or enhance sexual arousal. Massages have been used for medical purposes for a very long time. Its use for erotic purposes also has a long history.


Today it is used by some couples on occasions as part of lovemaking, either as foreplay or as the final sex act. Erotic massages typically feature massages in erogenous zones of the body to increase sexual arousal.

In the Western medical tradition genital massage of a woman to orgasm by a physician or midwife was a standard treatment for female hysteria, an ailment considered common and chronic in women.

In 1653, Pieter van Foreest advised the technique of genital massage for a disease called "womb disease" to bring the woman into "hysterical paroxysm". Such cases were quite profitable for physicians, since the patients were at no risk of death, but needed constant treatment.

However, the vaginal massage procedure (generally referred to as 'pelvic massage') was tedious and time consuming for physicians. The technique was difficult for a physician to master and could take hours to achieve "hysterical paroxysm."

Referral to midwives, which had been common practice, meant a loss of business for the physician, and at times husbands were asked to assist.

A solution was the invention of massage devices, which shortened treatment from hours to minutes, removing the need for midwives and increasing a physician’s treatment capacity.

Already at the turn of the century, hydrotherapy devices were available at Bath, and by the mid-19th century, they were popular at many high-profile bathing resorts across Europe and in America.

By 1870, a clockwork-driven vibrator was available for physicians. In 1873, the first electromechanical vibrator was used at an asylum in France for the treatment of hysteria.

Non-penetrative sex (also known as outercourse, dry sex, and dry humping) is sexual activity without vaginal, anal, or oral penetration, as opposed to intercourse, anal sex, or oral sex (which may or may not be penetrative).


The terms mutual masturbation and frottage are also used, but with slightly different emphases. NPS and outercourse are rather new terms, which is why such practices are sometimes still called "intercourse".

The term "outercourse" is something of a misnomer, as it contrasts "outer" with "inter" but the "inter" in "intercourse" means "between two people". It does not describe being inside or outside of the body.

It is less likely that bodily fluids will be exchanged, and so outercourse is often considered a practice of safer sex, as well as of birth control . Outercourse in preparation for intercourse can form part of foreplay.

• Axillary intercourse (slang: bagpiping, in reference to the underarm manner in which bagpipes are played; "directing traffic", or "pit-wank", a variant of the term "tit-wank") is a sexual variant where the penis is inserted in the other person's armpit.

• Erotic massage, rubbing all over, with or without oil. May be intensified when combined with deep breathing.

• Handjob, stimulating the penis with the hand.

• Footjob, stimulating genitals with the feet.Frot, penile rubbing.

• Intercrural sex, also known as interfemoral intercourse, which is a type of irrumation, where one partner places a phallic object or penis between the other partner's thighs.

• Intergluteal sex, which is a type of irrumation, where one partner places a phallic object or penis into the other partner's buttock cleavage or gluteal cleft.

• Mammary intercourse, when one partner rubs a phallic object or penis between the partner's breasts.

• Oral stimulation of nipples.

• Sumata, type of stimulation of male genitals popular in Japanese brothels.

• Tribadism, vulval-vulval rubbing, also known as "scissoring.

• Virtual sex, mutual masturbation at a distance with the aid of technology.