Sex toys and vibrators are a godsend for many women in 2019. Back in the 1970s, however, they were a new thing and many women didn’t know what they did - or how amazing they had the power to make them feel! It took one woman to cause women everywhere to start going crazy for them.
In 1973, Betty Dodson was a speaker at a NOW conference. She got up to speak about women’s sexuality and spoke openly about her love for her vibrator and other sex toys.
In 1973, such a speech was pretty damn groundbreaking. True, the conference was centred around all things related to female sexuality, but no woman before Betty Dodson had really spoken with such abandon about vibrators and sex toys on a public forum before.
Betty Dodson wanted women to love their bodies more. She also wanted them to learn more about their bodies. And she claimed that the key to learning and loving was via masturbation …
… that the clitoris was basically the pleasure factory … and that vibrators were the new way to heaven.
The Masturbation Demonstrations
1973 followed hot on the heels of the swinging sixties, a decade that was synonymous with free love, polyamorous relationships, drugs, rock ’n’ roll - and sex. Lots of sex.
Betty Dodson emerged out of this era as a sexual woman who wanted to raise the sexual consciousness of America. Operating out of her Manhattan apartment, she held groups where women got together to discuss sex toys, vibrators and sexuality.
Betty Dodson didn’t just talk sex. She also acted it out, holding actual masturbation demonstrations for women in her own apartment. On the one hand, she argued that visual representations of the female orgasm didn’t really exist - not good ones, at least - and on the other hand, well, what better way to learn about having an orgasm via sex toys and vibrators than by watching a live demonstration?
Vibrators and Sex Toys Selling Like Hot Cakes
At the NOW conference, Betty Dodson’s name hadn’t exactly hit the mainstream but sexually aware women all over the U.S. knew about her and what she did. They wanted to know more and they were definitely curious to try the sex toys and vibrators she’d been banging on about.
She took a caseload of vibrators along to the conference with her. Within a few hours, they had all sold out. You can see the pics for yourself by doing a quick google. Women were mad for the sex toys and vibrators and the rest - as they say - is history. Nowadays, we have stuff like the infamous rabbit, anal beads, and sites like pleasure-seeker doing reviews of them … literally nothing is off limits.
God bless, Betty Dodson!
