Dildo

[1] Conventionally, many dildos are shaped like a human penis with varying degrees of detail, while others are made to resemble the phallus of animals.

In Japan, many dildos are created to resemble animals or cartoon characters, such as Hello Kitty, so that they may be sold as conventional toys, thus avoiding obscenity laws.

Some dildos have textured surfaces to enhance sexual pleasure, and others have macrophallic dimensions including over 12 inches (30.5 cm) long.

Anal dildos and butt plugs generally have a large base to avoid accidental complete insertion into the rectum, which may require medical removal.

The etymology of the word dildo was long considered unclear,[9] but the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary concluded in 2018 that the word originates in nonsense syllables common in early-modern popular ballads (not dissimilar to the still-familiar nursery rhyme phrase "hey diddle diddle"), which came to be used as a coy euphemism for dildos.

[12] Other theories that have previously circulated include that the word dildo originally referred to the phallus-shaped peg used to lock an oar in position on a dory (small boat).

[13][14] According to the OED, one of the word's first appearances in English was in Thomas Nashe's The Choise of Valentines or the Merie Ballad of Nash his Dildo (c. 1593), in the sentence "Curse Eunuke dilldo, senceless, counterfet, | Who sooth maie fill, but neuer can begett" ('curse dildo, that eunuch, lacking feelings, and counterfeit, who can certainly fill [a vagina], but can never beget [children]').

[citation needed] In some modern languages, the names for dildo can be more descriptive, creative or subtle—note, for instance, Bengali dalda (ডাল্ডা), Hindi darśildō (दर्शिल्दो), Russian falloimitator (фаллоимитатор, literally "phallic imitator"), Spanish consolador ("consoler"),[16] and Welsh cala goeg ("fake penis").

"[18][19] The first dildos were made of stone, tar, wood, bone, ivory, limestone, teeth,[20] and other materials that could be shaped as penises and that were firm enough to be used as penetrative sex toys.

Scientists believe that a 20-centimeter siltstone phallus from the Upper Palaeolithic period 30,000 years ago, found in Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm, Germany, may have been used as a dildo.

In the Middle Ages, a plant called the "cantonese groin" was soaked in hot water to enlarge and harden for women to use as dildos.

Herodas' short comic play, Mime VI, written in the 3rd century BCE, is about a woman called Metro, anxious to discover from a friend where she recently acquired a dildo.

She eventually discovers the maker to be a man called Kerdon, who hides his trade by the front of being a cobbler, and leaves to seek him out.

[28] Greek dildos were often made out of leather stuffed with wool in order to give it varying degrees of thickness and firmness.

[20] The Talmud's Avodah Zarah Tractate[32] records the interpretation which Rav Yosef bar Hiyya gave to the Biblical reference of King Asa of Judah having "(...) deposed his grandmother Maakah from her position as Queen Mother, because she had made a repulsive image for the worship of Asherah.

[33] According to Rav Yosef, Maakah had installed "a kind of male organ" on her Asherah image "in order to fulfill her desire", and was "mating with it every day".

Whether or not Rav Yosef was right in attributing this practice to the Biblical Queen, his speaking of it indicates that Jews in 3rd Century Mesopotamia were familiar with such devices.

[25] The poem describes a visit to a brothel by a man called Tomalin; he is searching for his sweetheart, Francis, who has become a prostitute.

During the Parliamentary session of that year, objections were raised to the proposed marriage of James, Duke of York, brother of the King and heir to the throne, to Mary of Modena, an Italian Catholic princess.

An address was presented to King Charles on 3 November, foreseeing the dangerous consequences of marriage to a Catholic, and urging him to put a stop to any planned wedding '...to the unspeakable Joy and Comfort of all Your loyal Subjects."

[36] In the epilogue to The Mistaken Husband (1674), by John Dryden, an actress complains: Signor Dildo was set to music by Michael Nyman for the 2004 biopic, The Libertine.

Dildoides: A Burlesque Poem (London, 1706), attributed to Samuel Butler, is a mock lament to a collection of dildos that had been seized and publicly burnt by the authorities.

[37] In 1746, Henry Fielding wrote The Female Husband: or the surprising history of Mrs Mary, alias Mr. George Hamilton, in which a woman poses as a man and uses a dildo.

[43] Dildos are obliquely referred to in Saul Bellow's novel The Adventures of Augie March (1953): "....he had brought me along to a bachelor's stag where two naked acrobatic girls did stunts with false tools".

[44] A dildo called Steely Dan III from Yokohama appears in the William S. Burroughs novel The Naked Lunch (1959).

The Southern Baptist preacher Dan Ireland has been an outspoken critic of such devices and has fought to ban them on religious and ethical grounds.