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41 Cleopatra Invented the First Vibrator which was either a papyrus tube, the rind of a calabash, or a hollowed-out stone, any of which was filled with buzzing bees. I look back to my childhood projects, the ants and spiders I’d hoped to cultivate in jars, and wonder how she did it. Even with crackers for food and air holes punched into the lid, the insects always died within a few hours of capture. If the bees in Cleopatra’s bottle gourd vibrator got inside, couldn’t they also get out? And if they were sealed in without ventilation, wouldn’t they have perished, the equivalent of dead Duracells? Some conjecture Cleopatra coaxed the workers directly to her vulva, stimulated by the stinging. But I think not—her tears would have turned the kohl around her eyes to mud. More accurately recorded was her beauty routine— everyone agrees she kept her skin supple with honey. ...

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