Vibrator definitions part II [elanya]

USS Texas trip was cancelled because of stormy weather. of course now it is all sunny out. Jutland is delayed.... Boo! but more time to write my paper is good.

Alas, I don't really have the time to give you inks to exampled for all of these, but if you ask i can set you up.

INTERNAL
Bulbous head: Straight shaft with a head that is wider than the shaft.
Curved: Shaft with one or more gentle curves.
Curved tip: Extreme angled curve at end of shaft.
Double headed: Multiple insertable shafts.
Flexible: Shaft made of flexible material.
Phallus: Single shaft in the form of penis, with or without scrotum.
Rod: Straight shaft, may come to a rounded point.

EXTERNAL
Anatomical: Resembles human anatomy.
Bullet: Small, short shaft, may come to a rounded point.
Camouflaged: Resemble items not intended for sexual use.
Contour: Rounded to fit to contours of male or female body.
Extended reach: Vibrating head on a handle.
Flexible head: Bulbous head pivots on stem inset into handle. (Hitachi and its ilk)
Wearable: Attaches to body with clips and/or straps.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
Contour: Fits to the natural interior and exterior curves of the human body.
U-Shaped: U-Shaped.
Mountable: Designed to be sat or lain upon rather than inserted or held. (Cone, Sybian)
Polyp: Main shaft with one or more smaller protruding shafts. (The Rabbit and similar)
Wearable: Attaches to the body with straps.

INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL
Bulbous head – thin shaft: Thin shaft with a head of larger diameter.
Attachments: Motor with variety of attachments for internal or external stimulation.
Egg: Egg shaped attached to controller with cord.

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Length/width: Are you making any attempt to quantify these in terms of which category a device would go into, or is there too much variability? (I now have this mental image of you, wearing a lab coat - cause hey, why not? - with a pair of calipers, taking measurements ...)

Are you making any distinctions in terms of intended sex of user? I mean, internal, external, whatever, that's fine, but it would seem like an 'internal male' and 'internal female' might be quite different.

"male penis, with or without scrotum." ... This is redundant, yes? Although it does raise the question of whether it is a *human* penis, I would presume that all penes are gendered male? It is just odd because you then say under External: "Anatomical: Resembles human anatomy." without any gendered specification.

There are some other questions I would have, I'm sure, but let's start with these.

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No quantification because I don't have access to materials to measure (also I'm lazy :V)

No differentiation between sex of users. Come on Steve, do't be silly. A boy can stick a vibrator up his butt just as well as a lady! And a lady can stick a bibrating but plug up her butt just as well as a man. There aren't really any major distinctions, save that there are some that are specifically designed to hit the prostate. And by some I mean 'one' and it is just lumped into the 'curved tip' category.

You're right, male penis is redundant. I don't have any non-human penises, but I don't want to exclude them necessarily ;) Likewise, in the 'anatomical' one, it is a tongue, which isn't really gendered. *lick*

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An interesting side project would be to compare the attested size of the things (come on, you know they all say something like '9 inch monster unit' on the front of them) to the actual measured size ...

With respect to sex of users, I guess I figured there would be a wider range of prostate-oriented and G-spot oriented varieties. I also wonder whether in terms of colouring or even the name of the thing, there might be some gendered distinction not related to biology.

Interestingly, a fair amount of the g-spot ones are marketed as such for men *and* women...

There is certainly some bias in marketing, especially on packaging and such as far as I can tell. There have been some interesting articles written on some trends in sex toys - the ifluence of the feminist movement in creating toys that are less phallic and more directed to the female body and such... I think there is a lot of potential for interesting research though :D

I guess the idea might be that the prostate is considered the 'male G-spot'? Again, I think some ethnoarchaeological research would be needed to test the efficiency of some of these ideas. But I am NOT volunteering. :)

Also, thanks :D

I'm not an expert here but don't they make vibrators for men to use, as in, vibrating pussies? How do these fit into your definitions or are they not classed as vibrators? (Not being a man, I've never had cause to investigate how they work..)

I didn't turn up any, but I didn't think to look for them specificaly. I suspect they would get their own type within the External category. I'd probably call it 'socket' :)

They would be vibrators under my definition as long as they actually vibrate.

I don't know whether they do, as I said - but it might be worth looking into.

Oh, they do - of *course* they do ;) And I found them :D Thanks!

Glad to be of service!

Now, what would be really interesting from all of this:

Rather than have a different set of traits for each of the four categories, have one set of traits, and see whether you can define the four categories using some combination of those traits. I suspect not, but it gets you past the necessity for a text-aided or 'ethnographic' approach and closer to what you would do with an actual archaeological vibrator 'industry' - i.e., defining types based on presence/absence of traits.

I suspect that if you actually had functioning vibrators to work with, you could probably come up with the same categories. You can't do it purely from pictures though, which is my problem and why I decided I could use the descriptions. Some of the types would be more ambiguous, for certain.

So what we would need is:
a) a major research grant from the Kinsey Institute or similar;
b) get some major feminist arch-theorists on board;
c) several hundred products to be purchased, measured and tested;
d) ideally, to account for the diachronic aspect, a historical collection also to be measured and tested;
e) of course, several dozen volunteer testers.

That would be awesome :D

Screw this Bahamas archaeology thing ;D

I forgot to mention to you that in my seminar a few weeks ago, I was mentioning that you did pirate arrrrchaeology (I forget exactly what the context was) and my students all thought that was really awesome, and one of them asked how she could go about getting into that field of study. However, she is a bit dim, so I think you will not really have any competition (plus the fact that you are several years ahead of her, of course).

I think it might be better to define Flexible without using the word flexible.

Double headed: Multiple insertable shafts.
I'd say two, instead of multiple. Unless something I'm unaware of is going on, being more specific seems like a good idea.

U-Shaped: U-Shaped.
Circular definition.

The first is easily fixed. The second is more tricky. I really don't know how else to describe it. It is essentially just shaped like a U :V

... actually that looks more like a "J" to me. And it amuses me to think of putting "U-Shaped: shaped like a J". XD

I guess it's really a double headed one which is flexible enough so that the same person can use both ends.

Only one is insertable though - it isn't really double headed - the main bit goes inside a lady, and then the handle bit sort of rests against the pubis or comes up over the crotch, however you want to think of it.

Oh. Huh. Misread that then.

My suspicion is that these aren't actually definitions, but are descriptions for an attribute that goes by the name before the colon. So for instance you could have the attribute "Purple" and I suppose if one needed to, append the description 'purple', but it's basically self-explanatory, like 'U-shaped'.

The names are based on the attributes that define the types. Or at least that is the intent.

Right, so it doesn't particularly matter if there is an apparent self-reference; the type is defined by the attributes and then the name you give it is essentially irrelevant ... right? Otherwise you have to come up with goofy synonyms for things, which doesn't really solve the problem anyway.

Right - that was what I was thinking, at least.

I should probably explain that explicitly somewhere though. Of course I haven't written anything on this since like 3 - I've been up since 6am but am unable to nap :p

elanya

Vibrator definitions part II

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