Although you may have seen vibrators and dildos in exciting neon or see-through colors, they actually have far less flashy roots. Victorian-era doctors, tired of massaging females' genitals in attempts at curing "hysteria," created the mechanical answer: a "portable vibrator," which was first advertised in a Sears catalog from 1918.
Dildos date even further back, but they were called olisbos by the ancient Greeks who fashioned them out of wood, leather and stone. 15th century Italians dubbed the toy diletto (translation: delight), which is where the term "dildo" evolved from.
