{"id":23234,"date":"2019-04-17T00:51:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T00:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/?p=23234"},"modified":"2024-08-10T06:46:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T04:46:01","slug":"interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Sex Toy Historian Hallie Lieberman"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Even as a teenager I tried to make female masturbation socially acceptable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It comes as no surprise our cave dwelling ancestors tried to satisfy their sexual curiosity by sticking objects in their genitals and vice versa. Science has actually dated objects believed to be sex toys to very ancient history of over 30 thousand years ago. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The comprehensive narrative of how the ancient stone cock came to be a hi-tech vibrator, told through stories of the giants on whose shoulders we stand today, is a subject of a very special book called <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/pegasusbooks.com\/books\/buzz-9781681775432-hardcover\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Buzz<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> written by a historian Hallie Lieberman. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hallie is a renowned expert who obtained her PhD with a dissertation on sex toy history, but also a real trooper for our cause &#8211; with some hard-core field experience in selling sex toys in Texas while it was still illegal. We felt a person of such enthusiasm deserved her message to be spread here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>It took some real enthusiasm to sell sex toys while they were contraband; how did you get around the prohibition?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mostly by not using the word \u201cvibrator\u201d (except when I slipped up) and using \u201cmassager\u201d instead. I also initially used the words they taught us to use to desexualize sex toys and not mention masturbation directly: things like \u201cman in the boat\u201d for clitoris and \u201cthat special place\u201d for genitals. For masturbation I would say things like \u201calone time\u201d or \u201csolo fun.\u201d It was so ridiculous and draining to find ways to not talk about sex while talking about sex. I wasn\u2019t able to keep up the charade for very long.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>I love the preface to your book with the \u201cfirst encounter&#8221; episode describing how you found a vibrator in a hotel room. How much of your lifelong love affair with sex toys has been programmed in you by your parents telling you that you \u201cdon&#8217;t need to know\u201d what it was?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to admit that a lot of my interest was initially spurred by my parents\u2019 response to that sex toy. Any object that would cause my parents to freak out that much made me sit up and think that it must have a kind of power. It was immediately a forbidden, magical object that had the power to cause my parents to become undone. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I grew older, I started sneaking into sex toy stores once I got a car. I was about 16; they didn\u2019t ID. It was a whole world of the forbidden; of the things my parents hadn\u2019t wanted me to see. But it wasn\u2019t just my parents that forbid sex toys; they were also legally restricted to people under 18 which made them more appealing. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By this time I was masturbating which I quickly realized was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/sex-taboos-around-world\/\">taboo<\/a>. I tried to talk to my friends about it and they either said they didn\u2019t do it cause they had boyfriends or said it was a sign of my loneliness. Yet I figured that there must be a lot of lonely people because there were these sex toy stores all over Florida. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time I vaguely remember <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/the-masturbation-gap-what-women-can-learn-from-mens-masturbation-habits\/\">men talking about masturbation more than women<\/a>, discussing circle jerks, things like that. It seemed to be more socially acceptable for guys to talk about. But I leaned into the weirdness. Even as a teenager I tried to make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/polishing-youre-masturbation\/\">masturbation for women<\/a> more socially acceptable. I didn\u2019t know that I was part of a line of women who\u2019d tried to do this earlier, like Betty Dodson and Dell Williams who basically changed the view of female masturbation among some in the feminist movement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I bought a t-shirt that said \u201cmasturbation is not a crime.\u201d I wore a Pee Wee shirt in honor of Pee Wee Herman\u2019s arrest for masturbating in a movie theater. Then I started making shirts with my friends. We made one for Team Masturbate; it had an acronym:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Motivation<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ability<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Strength<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Teamwork<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Understanding<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Responsibility<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Banana<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Athleticism<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Team Management<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enthusiasm<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Stone penises are very old, some go back as far as 30 thousand years, and there is circumstantial evidence they might have been used as dildos, but the story gets more complicated from here &#8211; instead of pure pleasure seeking they were often used in ceremonial settings, like the worshipping of Shiva Lingam in India or the Greek cult of Dionysus. How prevalent was the ceremonial dildo and what are some of its oldest examples?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s hard to know how prevalent the ceremonial dildo was, but it\u2019s clear that many cultures and religions worshiped the phallus. In Ancient Egypt women wore phallic symbols around the waist to worship Osiris, a sun god, who was also sometimes depicted with an erection.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of the oldest examples are Dionysian rituals where penis bearers would march through the streets hoisting wooden phalluses into the air.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During Roman times in Pompeii, phalluses were everywhere. They were on bakery signs, phalluses with wings were outside of temples, there were statues of an erect Priapus with an overly large phallus in gardens to symbolize fertility and protect the gardens from thieves. They were thought to ward off the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/enjoying-the-view-experimenting-with-voyeurism-in-a-relationship\/\">evil eye<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the 6th century BC followers of the Orphic cult worshiped with Likhnon; a basket that had a phallic symbol coming out of the middle of it and was filled with fruit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dildo-like objects were used in 4000 BCE and may have been used to worship Shiva.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historian George Ryley Scott argued that Sioux Indians in North America used phallic symbols in their rituals. Scott also says that Aztec fertility gods were represented with a phallic pillar. Phallic artifacts associated with religious rituals have been found in numerous places, such as Nicaragua and Costa Rica.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Let&#8217;s jump a few eons and discuss more recent history &#8211; what would be the beginning of modern sex toys?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dildos made of rubber have existed since the late 19th century; that\u2019s probably the closest to today\u2019s sex toys in recent time. We don\u2019t know who used or bought sex toys at the time because nobody openly talked about it. We can tell who they were advertised to. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dildos were advertised openly in the men\u2019s sporting press, publications that sold other items for men like playing cards, billiard balls, sometimes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/6-reasons-to-enjoy-using-condoms\/\">condoms<\/a>. But the ads said that they were for women. Sometimes a dildo was called an \u201cold maid\u2019s friend.\u201d I just love that term. I mean it\u2019s derogatory now but it\u2019s so evocative of how people thought about sex toys in the turn of the 20th century. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mostly, thoughm phallic devices were sold as health aids: they were sold in medical catalogs as vaginal dilators for conditions like vaginismus, a tightening of the vagina that prevented intercourse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the early 1900s, ads for \u201crectal dilators\u201d (aka \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/butts-up-with-what-plugs\/\">butt plugs<\/a>\u201d) appeared in American medical journals and popular health magazines. They supposedly treated constipation, asthma, eczema, and hemorrhoids. Some dilators were made of metal and had a plunger at the bottom to squirt liquid into the rectum.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As far as vibrators go: electric vibrators date from the late 19th century as well. What really happened is that vibrators had existed before the late 19th century, just in hand-cranked, steam-powered, water-powered and other forms. They were used by physicians to treat all sorts of diseases, but never taken too seriously as effective treatments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the late 19th century, the electric vibrator was invented by J. Mortimer Granville to treat nerve problems in men and women. He believed that the body\u2019s nerves had natural, healthy levels of vibration, and that when these levels got out of balance, disease resulted. Therefore, he created a device to cure off-key vibrations and restore \u201cthe normal harmony of rhythm\u201d of the body\u2019s nerves. Granville\u2019s writings reveal that he knew that the device might have sexual uses. For example, Granville instructed doctors to use vibrators to increase sexual power in their male patients by vibrating the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/hot-spots-erogenous-zones-men\/\">perineum<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So electric vibrators began to be sold to consumers started around 1899 as beauty devices for removing wrinkles and health devices for curing headaches. By the early 1900s there were dozens of companies selling electric vibrators to consumers for health uses and as beauty devices. They supposedly treated everything from constipation (with a dildo-like rectal attachment) \u00a0to sciatica, breast massage, and malaria. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We don\u2019t know who used or bought vibrators at the time because nobody openly talked about it. We can tell who they were advertised to. The electric vibrator was created for men and women to use, with the rectal attachments sold for male impotence (mentioned above) and vaginal attachments sold for women\u2019s uterine problems. Advertisements in the early 20th century marketed vibrators to grandfathers and grandmothers and young men and women.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>I&#8217;ve repeatedly read on the Internet about vibrators being used by physicians in Victorian times to treat hysteria, a concept which is basically a way to pathologize being female. Is there any truth to this story; were Victorian doctors really distributing orgasms to their patients?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, it is a myth. Eric Schatzberg and I co-authored an article in<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/journalofpositivesexuality.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Failure-of-Academic-Quality-Control-Technology-of-Orgasm-Lieberman-Schatzberg.pdf\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Journal of Positive Sexuality<\/span><\/i><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">dismantling the myth. It was a battle to even get a peer-reviewed journal to acknowledge that the idea is false. It\u2019s such an ingrained myth that I spent over three years to get a journal to accept a critique of the myth and nobody wants the idea to be challenged in the literature.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is no evidence that doctors ever used vibrators to masturbate women\/manually massage them to orgasm. I\u2019ve looked through archives across the U.S. and England, studied old medical textbooks, etc., and I\u2019ve never found evidence that a doctor used a vibrator to stimulate a woman\u2019s clitoris to orgasm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such treatments would\u2019ve been considered sexual and doctors would\u2019ve gotten in trouble for them. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>When you described the history of sex toys, it feels like a chapter in the history of feminism and sexual liberation in general. How much did the sexual liberties co-evolve with sex toys and what were the shared struggles?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sex toys and cultural sexual evolution co-evolved together. Sex toys reflect cultural fears and beliefs about female sexuality (and male sexuality as well). There\u2019s always been a fear that a woman would be so satisfied with a sex toy that she wouldn\u2019t need a man. That\u2019s still there, although the fear has lessened a bit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ironically, even though there was this fear, sex toys were designed to look like penises because the assumption was women wanted penis replacements, so when sex toys were openly marketed as sex toys beginning in the late 19th century, dildos were heralded for their similarities to penises. It wasn\u2019t until the 1970s that designs changed, in part because women began to influence design. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Struggles over the dildo within feminism during this time were really proxies for what role men could play in feminism. Did a real feminist have to shun male sexuality entirely, was that what it meant by fighting the patriarchy?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Are there typical users of sex toys or is it a society-wide phenomenon?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s basically society wide. Today about half of women and men in the U.S. have used sex toys, accord to Dr. Debby Herbenick\u2019s research. 78.5 percent of gay and bisexual men have used sex toys and about three-quarters of lesbian and bisexual men and women.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Which do you think is more prevalent &#8211; solitary use or with partner?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think solitary sex. From Herbenick\u2019s (and co-authors) research 46 percent had used sex toys for solo use and 40 percent with a partner over the course of a lifetime. But it was more common for lesbian (69 percent) and bisexual (65 percent) women to have used <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/sex-toys-can-enhance-couple-play\/\">sex toys with partners<\/a>. 89 percent Gay and bisexual men in another survey had used dildos and butt plugs for solo sex and 66-69 percent with a partner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Which are the wackiest sex toys you encountered in your research?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh wow &#8211; well the first thing that comes to mind is a solar-powered sex toy. That went off the market pretty quickly. It was around 2011 and it had this solar-powered energy source with a solar panel on it. As far as weirdest design goes: there are the ice-cream cone shaped butt plugs made by the same company that makes wine bottle shaped dildos and carrot-shaped ones. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s also the Baby Jesus buttplug that wins an award for most offensive. Oh, and there are all the pop-culture themed sex toys, like the Game of Thrones, the Cthulhu, the oviparous egg laying ones. There\u2019s the Donald Trump butt plug an artist made as a political statement. Another interesting one was the one million dollar diamond encrusted vibrator.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>I would expect someone of your professional interests to have a personal collection. Would I be wrong to assume that?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nope! I have five vibrators from the early 20th century displayed proudly in a glass case in my living room. Some of them even have old attachments &#8211; no phallic attachments yet. I also have a violet ray device. A lot of the vibrators still work when plugged in. I try to get the newest sex toys for my own personal use as well. My boyfriend usually buys them for me for birthdays and holidays. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have a clitoral suction device (it\u2019s not my favorite but it\u2019s an interesting sensation), too many purple dildos to count (why they are all purple boggles me, although that seems to be a common dildo color), three \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/touch-magic-5-ways-use-smart-wand\/\">magic wands<\/a>\u201d (two plug in, one rechargeable), probably about three butt plugs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/ora-review\/\">oral sex simulator<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/less-slap-tickle-whip-teaser-comparison\/\">whips<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/basics-bondage-beginners\/\">bondage tape<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/video-flickering-touch-massage-candles\/\">massage oils<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/video-lelo-personal-moisturizer\/\">lubes<\/a>, a liberator heart wedge, multiple strap on harnesses. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I need to find a better way to organize the more recent sex toys. Most are in our workout room which also has a kickboxing bag in there, but when I punch or kick too hard they fall off the shelves. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Not sure if this is the right question for a historian, but how do you see the future of sex toys?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I see two trajectories: one towards handmade low-tech toys, the kind of hipster toys like Hole Punch and the wooden and porcelain ones; and a trajectory towards the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/introducing-f1s-get-into-pole-position-with-lelos-new-male-pleasure-device\/\">super high-tech<\/a>, sex robots, VR teledildonics. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that more women and transgender men and women will design sex toys. There might be more male sex dolls for women and not just for gay men. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think companies are trying to get away from gender binaries when designing toys. It does seem like sex toys are more accessible than ever. It\u2019s so easy to hop on Amazon and order a vibrator. But it\u2019s hard to tell the quality. That\u2019s why curated stores are now more important than ever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Check this out:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/spotlight-award-winning-designs-lelo\/\">A Spotlight on the Award-Winning Designs of LELO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even as a teenager I tried to make female masturbation socially acceptable. It comes as no surprise our cave dwelling ancestors tried to satisfy their sexual curiosity by sticking objects in their genitals and vice versa. Science has actually dated objects believed to be sex toys to very ancient history of over 30 thousand years ago. The comprehensive narrative of how the ancient stone cock came to be a hi-tech vibrator, told through stories of the giants on whose shoulders [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":23243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[313,391,737],"coauthors":[953],"class_list":["post-23234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sexual-health","tag-history","tag-accessories","tag-sex-information"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Historical Sex Toys: Interview with Sex Toy Historian Hallie Lieberman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Historical Sex Toys: Interview with Sex Toy Historian Hallie Lieberman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Even as a teenager I tried to make female masturbation socially acceptable. It comes as no surprise our cave dwelling ancestors tried to satisfy their sexual curiosity by sticking objects in their genitals and vice versa. Science has actually dated objects believed to be sex toys to very ancient history of over 30 thousand years ago. The comprehensive narrative of how the ancient stone cock came to be a hi-tech vibrator, told through stories of the giants on whose shoulders [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Volont\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LELO.Official\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-17T00:51:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-10T04:46:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/historical-sex-toys.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"330\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Miroslav Zec\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@M1r04\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Lelo_Official\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Miroslav Zec\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"12 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/\",\"name\":\"Historical Sex Toys: Interview with Sex Toy Historian Hallie Lieberman\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/historical-sex-toys.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-17T00:51:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-10T04:46:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8e716aa6b9c205d1d45aaa084740a7ee\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/historical-sex-toys.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/historical-sex-toys.jpg\",\"width\":660,\"height\":330,\"caption\":\"Historical Sex Toys\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/interview-with-sex-toy-historian-hallie-lieberman\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Volonte\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Health\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/sexual-health\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Interview with Sex Toy Historian Hallie Lieberman\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Volont\u00e9\",\"description\":\"A Pleasure Project by LELO\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8e716aa6b9c205d1d45aaa084740a7ee\",\"name\":\"Miroslav Zec\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/b867bdfd0bffe0ad254ad72c98bf7a57\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/23d0ecd0a8e82741b4a8956d967d5743?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/23d0ecd0a8e82741b4a8956d967d5743?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Miroslav Zec\"},\"description\":\"Miroslav is a freelance writer, journalist and a yoga teacher based in Zagreb, Croatia. 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