Let's talk about sex, Victorian sex

"We have a large archive collection of artefacts but we have a very large collection of these," giggles Science Museum worker Sian. What could she be talking about? Why sex toys of course. Those science geeks know how to let their boffin hair down.

The theme at last night's monthly Lates evening at the Science Museum was sex. Cue, snaking queues twice as long as usual around three blocks. Well ok, I've only been to Lates once before but let me tell you, going on numbers, twice as many Londoners are interested in sex than climate change...scandalous.

There was salsa dancing, speed dating and a "lurve" pub quiz. I didn't see any of that. Instead I queued (for an hour, after queuing for an hour to get in - I was obviously determined) to hear a talk on the history of sex aids. Hundreds were turned away. It was a tiny room when I finally got in there - madness given its popularity.

Hosted by two Ann Summers' representatives (Ann Summers in the Science Museum? Apparently the company has just donated some of its more popular gadgets over the years to the museum's collection), the talk was unfortunately less informative than I anticipated. That might have had something to do with the - by now inebriated - blokes at the back who couldn't resist guffawing, interrupting and hollering like naughty schoolboys while I took notes diligently near the front...it really was like school all over again.

I learnt, however, that there is evidence of the existence of sex aids from the prehistoric ages, through the Roman and Egyptian periods, to China's invention of the cock ring in the 1600s. The French had a penchant for exquisitely carved ivory, like the 18th century object d'art above.

While those outwardly reserved but secretly frisky Victorians preferred their bedroom toys to be rather more clinical in appearance.

This one, as Sian explained to me after the talk, was a serious implement which worked like an egg beater to be pressed against the body. It was used by doctors on female patients to cure hysteria. I imagine doctors must have been working eighteen hour days in Victorian times then. If these instruments weren't available doctors would, we were told, use manual methods of relieving hysterical women. Blimey.

And then by the time the roaring twenties rolled round, sex toys were a little more sexualised. Not much though if this hairdryer-like contraption is anything to go by.

Such objects went underground until Playboy brought sex out into the open again in the fifties. Very gradually, sex toys became more acceptable. Once the Rampant Rabbit made an appearance on Sex and the City, it gained Jimmy Choo-like must-have status and the rest is history.