At the beginning of the 20th century, the sexologist Stanisław Kurkiewicz complained that it was difficult to find effective means “lifting sexual strength, or maybe only lifting a sag.” The fight against impotence was in its infancy, and the effort was put primarily into the development of mechanical means of enhancing erection. it's hard to be sure what they were really used for ...
“Toboggan type devices (…) capture the penis only from the lower surface of its base and allow it to slip flaccidly into the vagina, as if on skids. Current advances in the construction of devices of this type consist in the fact that the skids are as narrow and light as possible and are combined with a special "reinforcement" for the glans, so that with the help of a system of small levers they can extend, allowing the appearance of an erection in the penis " . In this complex way, Stanisław Higer, author of the scientific dissertation Sexual Impotence and Infertility in Men described in 1934 one of the various erection enhancement mechanisms.
Five hundred versions of artificial scabbards?
There were countless similar devices, now completely forgotten, in pre-war Europe and Poland. Higier reported that they appeared on the market forty years ago, i.e. around 1890. At the time when he was preparing his book, several hundred different versions had already been patented in Western countries.
Stanisław Higer himself (source:public domain).
The toboggan devices did not bother Higier too much. At most, he feared injury from inept use of such complex machinery.
Pumps "blood flow causing"
Other measures were, from a technical point of view, much simpler. First of all, Higier wrote about "an apparatus that boils down to a suction pump":
Proper pumping of the air from the cylinder hermetically applied to the penis causes negative pressure, which causes blood to flow into the penis and causes passive stasis.
The doctor was not particularly convinced of this measure. He warned that although after using the pump “the penis significantly increases in volume, it can rarely be completely stiffened. On the other hand, venous blood causes the obtained stiffening to disappear after removing the braces much faster than in the case of active hyperemia.
Interwar advertisement for a device for treating potency problems (source:public domain).
Rigid and flexible rolls
For example, mechanisms were sold, which "consisted in placing a stiff, cylindrical (...) sheath on the penis." Only in such equipment, hard as steel (or even made of steel), the man was to start intercourse with his partner.
"It is understandable that when using such an apparatus, the penis does not come into contact with the vaginal walls at all, and the frictional movements are actually carried out by the cylinder" - he explained. And he was somewhat reluctant to say that this was actually no different from a woman using a dildos for masturbation purposes (read more on this in our other article).
The article is based on the book by Kamil Janicki entitled "The age of hypocrisy. Sex and erotica in pre-war Poland ” . Click and buy with a discount on empik.com ,
Prohibited tools?
In summing up the topic, the author stated that each of these braces may have certain "healing effects", although mainly due to a sense of self-confidence and self-suggestion. The problem, according to Higier, was that artificial scabbards (especially "rollers" in the "flexible" and "spiral" versions) and pumps could be used without any involvement of a partner, simply as male sex toys.
The doctor emphasized that you have to take into account:"the masturbation element that attaches to the proper operation of the apparatus". And accepting that state of affairs was just beyond his head.
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The above article is just a brief outline of the fascinating topic of pre-war contraception. In the first decades of the 20th century, resourcefulness went hand in hand with desperation or even madness. Pregnancy has been prevented using x-rays, radium placed in the uterus, and even bull's-eye injections. At the same time, it was then that the prototype of the first effective contraceptive pill was created! You can read about all this and not only in detail in the latest book by Kamil Janicki: “The epoch of hypocrisy. Sex and erotica in pre-war Poland ” .
Bibliography:
The article was based on the literature and materials collected by the author during the work on the book The age of hypocrisy. Sex and erotica in pre-war Poland . This book was published as the first book under the brand of "Curiosities of history". Buy with a discount on empik.com.