From Stone Phalluses to Silicone: A Cultural History of the Dildo

The dildo is one of humanity’s oldest known sexual technologies. Across millennia, cultures have carved, moulded, and mythologised phallic objects - not merely as tools of pleasure, but as symbols of fertility, power, and even the sacred. Far from being a modern novelty, the dildo carries a surprisingly deep historical legacy.

Prehistoric Stone and Bone

Archaeological evidence suggests that phallic objects were crafted as early in human history as 30,000 years ago.

Excavations in Germany’s Swabian Jura region uncovered smooth, stone phalluses dating to the Upper Paleolithic. Some show signs of wear consistent with use as sexual implements, while others may have been ritual objects. The duality - sacred fertility symbol and intimate pleasure tool - would persist through later civilisations.

Ancient Egypt and Greece: Between Ritual and Satire

In ancient Egypt, phallic amulets were worn as talismans to invoke fertility and ward off evil. Erotic papyri depict sexual activity involving artificial phalluses, suggesting both sacred and recreational uses.

The Greeks took a more theatrical approach. In Aristophanes’ comedies, characters often brandish olisbos - leather or wooden dildos - onstage for laughs.

Yet these were not just props: Greek vase paintings and literary references confirm their use by women (especially in periods when male partners were absent, such as during long wars). They were often lubricated with olive oil, showing how practical and normalised the objects were in daily life.

Rome and Beyond: Morality Meets Desire

Roman culture absorbed the olisbos, but with more ambivalence. While sex was openly depicted in art and graffiti, moral philosophers like Seneca and Juvenal condemned the use of artificial phalluses as signs of decadence.

Still, evidence of terracotta and bronze dildos has been found across the empire. Here again we see the tension: an object both widely used and socially policed.

Middle Ages: Hidden but Not Forgotten

Christian Europe brought a long period of suppression. Explicit sexual devices were condemned as sinful, and few survive from this period, likely because they were destroyed. Yet they persisted underground.

Court records occasionally reference “instrumenta virilia” in accusations of witchcraft or moral corruption. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, erotic art and texts - such as Japan’s shunga prints or India’s Kama Sutra - depict artificial phalluses without the same moral panic.

Renaissance and Enlightenment: From Satire to Scandal

By the Renaissance, phallic imagery re-emerged in bawdy literature and art. In 16th-century Italy, satirical poems described women sharing wooden dildos imported from the East. In France, Catherine de’ Medici was rumoured (likely falsely) to have supplied her ladies-in-waiting with them. These stories reflect both fascination and scandal: the dildo was imagined as a symbol of female independence and transgression.

Victorian Era: Medical Devices and Moral Anxiety

The 19th century added another twist. While dildos themselves were stigmatised, phallic devices were sold under medical pretenses.

Physicians prescribed “pelvic massage” for hysteria, and mechanical vibrators were marketed as medical instruments rather than sex toys. The boundary between treatment and pleasure blurred, revealing how cultural discomfort redirected the narrative, rather than eliminating the technology.

The 20th Century: From Obscenity to Liberation

In the early 20th century, obscenity laws in the U.S. and Europe criminalised the sale of dildos. Yet they remained available through clandestine catalogs.

The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s changed everything. Feminist activists reframed the dildo as a symbol of sexual autonomy, advocating for women’s right to pleasure on their own terms.

By the 1980s, mainstream sex shops marketed them openly, while lesbian communities in particular reclaimed the object as a tool of intimacy outside heterosexual frameworks.

Today: Technology, Identity, and Play

Modern dildos span every material and design imaginable: medical-grade silicone, glass, 3D-printed forms, gender-affirming prosthetics, even internet-connected AI-driven devices. They no longer carry just one cultural meaning. For some, they’re a playful enhancement to partnered sex; for others, a tool of solo exploration; for still others, a crucial technology in queer and trans intimacy.

Beyond Object, Toward Symbol

The history of the dildo is not simply about an object - it’s about the way societies interpret sexuality, morality, and power.

From fertility rituals to feminist manifestos, dildos have been imagined as sacred, scandalous, or liberating, depending on the era. What endures is the recognition that pleasure, far from being trivial, is woven into the deepest layers of culture and history.