Informative, well researched and readable account, although focusing on the American experience. Social, cultural, business, political and educational dimensions interwoven through the experiences of company founders, artists, feminists, disabled persons and other relevant social groups. The chapters consequently may seem to stray from readers' expectations of a book about devices, but the book justifies its wider context. Includes notes and extensive bibliography. ( )

One quibble right off the bat: I think that the book is erroneously subtitled, as it very clearly should have been The Stimulating History of the AMERICAN Sex Toy as other countries are only mentioned briefly when needed for background. It makes sense, as the vast bulk of this book clearly came from Hallie Lieberman's PhD research, as almost all of her primary sources come from American archives and interviews with American sex pioneers but it's a bit of a misnomer.

Lieberman is open, frank, and quite often wry, which balances out the occasional slip into more academic prose. She doesn't shy away from pointing out double standards and misogyny inherent in the sex industry, rather highlighting the steps forwards and backwards that every decade seemed to take.

Really, really interesting. I particularly liked the parts on Gosnell Duncan, a dark-skinned paraplegic who revolutionized the industry by creating dildoes in flesh shades other than white, using body-safe silicone, and working in tandem with a feminist sex toy shop to cater specifically to underrepresented markets. And his dildos were all bespoke! He made them to order for years and years. He also created his own disabled sexuality network, by corresponding with his disabled clients via mail and phone, passing on tips he'd learned from others decades before the internet. I could read a whole biography just on him. ( )

Informative and mildly interesting, this study of the history of sex toys remains humorless and self-conscious.

In her attempt to be taken seriously, Lieberman has stuck to a strictly pedestrian approach to the subject, and spends a great deal of time putting the industry that provides the devices into the context of the changing political and sexual mores of the 20th century. Only the illustrations -- especially the early 20th-century advertising ones -- are particularly interesting.

Historic, yes. Stimulating, not particularly. ( )