Inventions against Bad Habits: A Chapter from Technological History of Sexuality

Abstract

Devices intended for control of the practices regarded as «bad habits» that during certain periods were associated with culturally pathologized forms of sexuality are considered as illustrative of a number of discourses dated from XIX and XX centuries that emphasize both medical and moral perspectives over these phenomena. Orthopaedia in a broad sense comprised means for the treatment of bodily imperfections and pathologies alike. Similarly, the dividing line between autoerotic bodily practices that are culturally accepted, morally condemned and taken for pathological, varies across history of the last two centuries and cultural contexts. As result, anti-masturbational devices of the bygone epoch are found these days among sex toys.