Olisbos

I just finished reading British author Jonathan Margolis's interesting book O: The Intimate History of the Orgasm when I came upon this titillating tidbit. It seems that sex toys were a huge deal in ancient times - particularly the dildo, also known as diletto in Italian, which means "delight".

Among the earliest dildos, was the Ancient Greek olisbos. Margolis asserts that Greek women were champion wankers and apparently wore the damn things out with stunning regularity.

Olisbos have been found decorating Greek pottery and have been described in salacious detail in Ancient Greek literature. Aristophanes mentions their use in Lysistrata.

And so, girls, when fucking time comes… not the faintest whiff of it anywhere, right? From the time those Milesians betrayed us, we can’t even find our eight-fingered leather dildos. At least they’d serve as a sort of flesh-replacement for our poor cunts… So, then! Would you like me to find some mechanism by which we could end this war?

Around 500 BC one particular city, Miletus in Ionia, perfected the art of dildo making to a degree that would make Tantus envious. Most of their dildos consisted of wood and carefully sewn kid leather and were painstakingly made not to hurt delicate vaginal tissue. The lubricant of choice? Olive oil.

Stone Age Phallus

Recently, a presumed prehistoric dildo was unearthed in Germany. The 8 inch lovingly polished siltstone phallus must have provided a lot of amusement for our prehistoric ancestors. To paraphrase the old song,  "sisters [and probably brothers] having been doing it for themselves" apparently, for a really long time".

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