Anal plugs originated as a treatment for acne and halitosis. It was only later that they were found to be good for something else
Dr. Young's Patent Kit
American physician F. E. Young marketed anal dilators as a miracle method in 1893. He sold them in a set of four, because it was good to gradually use a larger size. Dr. Young considered dilating the anal area to be beneficial to health. He thought it worked well for constipation and insanity. However, he admitted that many patients were shocked at the first sight of the advanced medical device.
With all the uses for Young's patent anal pins, it's a wonder no one thought of the obvious: using them for sexual stimulation. On the other hand, perhaps no one publicly admitted it, and patients enthusiastically had them prescribed under the pretext of curing their acne... A similar fate befell, for example, Viagra, which was originally tested as a cure for angina. It didn't work for that, but test patients were still enthusiastically prescribing the pill. It took doctors a while to figure out why.
Just ten minutes will do wonders
The anal plug of the late Victorian era was made of hard rubber. It was supposed to be heated first in warm water and then lubricated with Dr. Young's cream, which we can imagine as a product from the "Bierhanzl's ointment, for the lysine trap" line. In the worst-case scenario, of course, you could use ordinary petroleum jelly. The pin was inserted in a squatting position or lying on the side with the knees drawn up to the chest. That's the relaxing part.
Young's proven dilator should have been left in place for at least half an hour for proper effect, an hour is better though. But even just ten minutes promised miracles. The package insert urged people to apply Young's pins even as a precaution. The frequency or duration of use could not be overstated. A doctor (and apparently a shrewd salesman) would prefer that his clients just keep them in all the time. Only children under eight were advised to be under medical supervision when using the aids.
The rise and fall of the medical method
Like any new medical method, the anal plug set soon gained great popularity with the public. It was said to help not only against constipation itself, but also against all its concomitants, which were said to be insomnia, pallor, acne, anaemia, fatigue, eating problems, diarrhoea, haemorrhoids, flatulence, prolapses and fistulas, irritability or nervousness. While it was certainly not a panacea, Dr. Young was not entirely wrong on all counts. Strengthening and tensing the muscles controlling defecation could indeed help his patients. The others, however, were delusional.
It wasn't until 1940 that the crash came. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration took Young's dilators (by then already made of plastic) and lubricant to court, which revoked his license. The reason? The amount of use the package insert urged would cause harm to health. And the famous cream? It was ordinary petroleum petroleum jelly with negligible additions of phenol and extracts of medicines including belladonna (roly poly).
From the pharmacy to the sex shops
No one gave you an anal plug for acne after World War II, but the gadget caught on in both the medical and sex toy worlds. Doctors still use anal dilators today, which dilate the anal sphincter and rectum for relief from constipation or hemorrhoids, for example, or to perform a medical examination.
But the real fun begins in the bedroom. The public boom in anal plugs first required getting sex aids out of the classified ads in banned magazines and into the sex shop on the high street. The first such shop was opened in Germany in 1962 by a former Luftwaffe pilot. The item on offer at the time was, of course, officially intended to stimulate married life.
The development of sexual aids was also very much related to the development of materials. Hard plastic was replaced by pleasant silicone in the 1990s and models of all shapes, colours and sizes began to appear, at very affordable prices. So you can choose from water-filled models, which squirt a stream when squeezed, or fetish models, where the plug is topped with an animal tail. However, the rise of online porn has also played its part in the anal plug's journey from the doctor's office to the bedroom, making the previously despised anal sex a common practice.
