Good vibrations

Many bold attempts at mechanical intervention, such as vibrating chairs, were trialed before physician Joseph Mortimer Granville designed a battery powered vibrator on the early 1880s.

Advances were swift – by 1900 a wide range of vibratory apparatus was available to physicians, from low-priced foot-powered models to the Cadillac of vibrators, the Chattanooga.

Amazingly the "social camouflage" of this – well, sex industry of sorts – remained under cover and in the advertisements of textile magazines until the 1920s. Then the pornography industry discovered the vibrator and put it centre stage in movies. Once the spotlight was on the real reason the machines were so popular with women, the vibrator disappeared from women's magazines – and history, until Maines's research.

By the time the vibrator reemerged in the 1960s and 1970s, with Women's Liberation, it was openly marketed as a sex aid for women. Maines points out in her book, wide knowledge of and availability of the vibrator finally "put into the hands of women themselves the job that nobody else wanted."

Not only is the "cure" within women's grasp, they have also seized the method of production. What does a woman want from her sex aid? According to two savvy mothers from Wollongong, who have launched their own vibrator, The Be Be, women want a vibrator that looks great, feels great, and isn't gimmicky or embarrassing to buy.

Their website proclaims "because every woman wants a bit of pleasure". To prove their point, every purchase comes with free batteries, to get you started straight away. The glossy women's magazines have declared the glam vibrator hits the spot.

The Be Be follows on the high heels of the Goldfrau, a ceramic dildo designed by Judith Glover, a lecturer in industrial design and product engineering at Swinburne University, Melbourne. Glover specialises in sex toys, and promises her product "will last longer than any relationship". Glover says she put a lot of effort into the design, with an emphasis on ergonomic and functional considerations.

For men who fear a woman's ownership of a vibrator implies criticism or will usher in an age of women not needing men, Maines has the last word. "If orgasm is the only issue, men don't need women either."