vibrator

Last night, Maggie Gyllenhaal went on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart to talk about her latest project, Hysteria, a movie about the invention of the vibrator. Maggie isn't ashamed to talk openly about vibrators, female sexuality, and orgasms — and neither is the film's director, Tanya Wexler, who we interviewed last month — but Jon Stewart isn't quite as cool and collected. Jon clearly gets more awkward as the interview goes on, which is pretty funny to watch, but he does throw in a good point about this "period piece" hitting a little close to home during this election season's war on women. In reference to the actual history of doctors in Victorian England treating women with hysteria (a catchall diagnosis for unhappy women of the time) by giving them orgasms, Jon said, "That was a time when men made the decisions about women's health care without having the knowledge or the emotional ability to understand." Watch Jon get squirmy discussing vibrators now!

Don't be shy . . . It's time to talk sex toys! And Hysteria director Tanya Wexler is writing us a prescription for pleasure. Tanya's film — what she calls "the vibrator movie you can bring your mom to" — is in limited release and stars Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Rupert Everett. When working on a romantic comedy that centers around the invention of the vibrator, you end up with some entertaining and embarrassing situations along the way, and lucky for us, Tanya spilled all the hilariously dirty details. From teaming up with the film's partner Jimmyjane for a drive-by vibrator drop-off to a certain female Oscar-winner to trying unsuccessfully to get ducks to shag on command, Tanya was bursting with great stories from working on this very unconventional film. And while Tanya isn't ashamed to discuss the sexy subject matter of her latest film with us, the mother of four and her partner of 21 years did have a tricky challenge telling her preteen kids what her movie was about. (She eventually gave them the script and let them figure it out themselves!) Check out our interview with the fun-loving director now, and we dare you not to have a girl crush on her by the end!

TrèsSugar: What were some of the challenges to getting a movie made about vibrators?
Tanya Wexler: Getting the script right was tricky because if you just make a movie about the invention of the vibrator, it's actually a really short movie: you go "bzz" and it's done. And we had a kind of light romantic comedy. I say I made the vibrator movie you can bring your mom to. But some people wanted it to be raunchy or some people wanted it to be more serious and about feminism. People project a lot onto this movie of what they want, because there isn't a lot out there about vibrators and women's pleasure, and we still don't really deal with that topic very well, or we're overly antsy around it. And as a result, people have a lot of ideas of what the movie could and should be, and you can't please everyone. [laughs]

TS: Ha, good one.
TW: It's nonstop!

TS: Do you find sex toys inherently funny or something to be seriously celebrated?
TW: Yes!

TS: Both?
TW: Yes! Yes. I think they make me laugh, and I think that the inner kind of Beavis and Butt-head in all of us goes "[laugh]." You know, that inner 13-year-old, like, "Hahaha vibrator . . . " and yet they're awesome and fun.

TS: What shocked you the most when researching the movie?
TW: That ducks are the rapists of the bird world, and you'll see when you see the movie, because there's a little bit of questionable duck behavior — or awesome duck behavior — in the movie. It's totally a sidebar, but you cannot make ducks shag on command. I'm just saying.

TS: What about the whole history of hysteria being a medical condition?
TW: When I first heard the idea, I was like, "What do you mean it was invented in Victorian times?" I knew about hysteria, but the idea that the treatment was manual [British accent] massage deparaxism — which is what they called it — and, of course, the denial. The most shocking thing is the denial, that they didn't think it was sexual.

TS: Do you think they were really in denial?
TW: No, I don't think that some people were. My college roommate was with her high school boyfriend for two years and she had never had an orgasm. I think there's all kinds of denial, especially with women's sexuality. So the fact that there are young women today who haven't had an orgasm, whether self-induced — which is insane — or with a partner, then why wouldn't we think back then that women wouldn't know what orgasms were?

They would get a massage, and the doctor's saying, "Without a penis, this isn't sex, because sex is about procreation," so what is this? The best physical therapy you've ever had. So once you don't think of it as something other than what the doctor's supposed to do to cure your uncontrollable crying or uncontrollable laughter or whatever, then it's just an awesome muscle spasm. If you don't think women have their own inherent sexuality, then you're not thinking about it like that.

Keep reading for Tanya's thoughts on Fifty Shades and more!

Blogger Jill Filipovic discovered a sexual note from a TSA agent in her luggage after the agent came across a vibrator in her bag. She tweeted the image of the note that said "get your freak on girl," saying, "Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA. Guess they discovered a 'personal item' in my bag. Wow."

While at first Jill thought the note was funny, she still calls it "wildly inappropriate" and plans on filing a complaint with the TSA. She said, "I hope they do see the complaint, they'll look into it and remind their staff that going through people's personal belongings is a responsibility that should be treated with some modicum of professionalism."

Best case scenario it was a fellow female agent reassuring the passenger to not be embarrassed about traveling with a sex toy, but more likely it's something much more ick-inducing. What would you do if that happened to you? Do you think it's funny or a serious violation of privacy? Read the note below.

Hysteria, the upcoming Victorian-era rom-com staring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and Rupert Everett, takes on the creation of the first vibrator. The trailer is out today, and it look likes Hugh Dancy, who plays the inventor-doctor, doesn't hold back in his pursuit of female pleasure.

By failing to acknowledge women as sexual, our prudish Victorian-era ancestors took part in something we would find shocking today: doctors essentially having sex with their patients. The medical community considered female sexual arousal a disorder that needed treatment. Symptoms of so-called "female hysteria" included anxiety, sexual fantasies, pelvic heaviness, and vaginal lubrication. They had the same remedy for such symptoms as we do today, an orgasm, but back then physicians administered them.

Doctors would rub a "hysterical" woman's vulva until she experienced dramatic relief through "paroxysm," aka orgasm. After treating various hysterical women, a doctor's hands and wrists would get tired. So in 1870, one doctor created a steam-powered machine that would administer orgasms and become the ancestor of today's vibrators. Soon even the Princess of Wales would order "Horse-Action Saddles" (seen in this ad) proven to treat hysteria.

Watch the Hysteria trailer below.

Quality aside, everything about sex toys errs on the side of raunchy except, say, the colors. Those are more befitting of a 10-year-old girl's room than a bedroom ready for hot, or even totally mediocre, sex. Made For Pleasure, though, is bringing luxury and quality to sex toys by not only ditching hot pink for silver, gold, and clear acrylic, but also designing sex toys to your — very specific — specifications.

Less is plenty when talking sex toys, so I'll just tell you this. You can choose the shape and size, and if you're unclear what seven inches looks like, it lets you compare your design to a hairbrush, toothbrush, or banana (and now I've said too much). Your order will arrive in a sleek-looking box that would be totally disguised if Made For Pleasure wasn't printed across the front.

This should at least save some Alabamians a trip to their local drive-through sex shop!

This vintage vibrator will stimulate your, um, gums? You have to admit it takes disguising sex toys as health products to a whole new disgusting level.

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This $4.95 vibrator promised to help your complexion! Uh huh, sure.