Women who ride bikes turn into lesbians! Even this crazy notion was held by doctors in the 19th century

The vehicle that corrupts virtuous women

The reason men did not want to allow women to ride bicycles was not because of the fear of skinned knees. It was the small saddle and the speed of movement that was the terror. And then there was the fact that using the new invention would put women out of line, which was simply not suitable for a lady of the time. The rider was tilted slightly forward when riding and the weight of her body was thus resting on the perineal area - that is, the area on the underside of the pelvis between the anus and the sexual organ. The perineum is the area where the clitoris rubs against the underwear. The innocent woman begins to feel strange, arousing sensations that are quite undesirable.

Cycling leads to lesbianism

The idea that women riding bicycles could masturbate throughout the ride was horrifying. After all, only men had the right to sexual gratification at that time. And now an innocent girl could have her first sexual experience with a bicycle? There were plenty of opponents of female riding. They argued that it endangered women's sexual health, taught them to masturbate uncontrollably, and confused them as to what gender they actually belonged to.

It's always good to have experts on your side. So the opponents of women's cycling were supported by doctors. Capacities of contemporary medicine claimed that the vibration of the saddle while riding was a source of sexual stimulation that could lead to lesbianism in women. How did they reach this wild conclusion? Well, because female cyclists stop needing penetration to achieve orgasm!

For 19th-century men, the idea that a woman could simultaneously satisfy herself by riding a bicycle was a very frightening
Photo: Adobe Stock

Better saddles against sin

Of course, the Church has come around. It saw the bicycle as a sinful tool that leads to prostitution and infidelity (only for women, of course). No one explained why a woman sexually satisfied by riding to the store to get eggs would still seek out lovers or paid sex, but so be it. Bicycle manufacturers have responded to these serious allegations by producing better quality saddles.

Yet the only thing women cyclists wanted was not sexual gratification but freedom of movement. But the fact that a woman would break the chain that tied her to the stove (or embroidery room) at home and use the bicycle to get away from home in a short time was perhaps the greatest sin. With the bicycle came freedom of choice and the possibility of a woman simply getting away from it all.

From the skeleton car to the comfort of rubber tires.

But let's take a look at what kind of bikes were being ridden at the time. In 1817, a German nobleman named Karl von Drais built a treadmill that was a cross between a bicycle and a coster. With its wooden construction and wooden wheels, its user enjoyed every bump in the road, and got a good run in the process. Even so, the invention made its way to France and Britain. In London, the novelty was popular with members of aristocratic families before it was banned a few years later because it endangered pedestrians.

The pedal bicycle appeared in the 1860s and there are arguments about who invented it first. Ten years later, the bicycle had a metal frame instead of a wooden one and the ride was comfortable thanks to rubber tyres. The front wheel got bigger as manufacturers realised that the bigger the girth, the further you could go on a single pedal stroke. But the problem was with braking - if a cyclist "stomped" it too fast, he would throw a dart from the saddle above the tall front wheel straight down on the ground. Hence the invention of the "safe bicycle", built by British inventor John Kemp Starley, was a godsend. The saddle shifted on the frame, no longer sitting over the big front wheel, and the ride was much more comfortable. In 1885, Starley introduces his Rover model, which has front and rear wheels almost the same size.

Male infertility is a worse problem than female masturbation

While in the early days the bicycle was an expensive affair for aristocrats, it soon became a practical two-track vehicle that workers used to get to factories for their shifts. Its proliferation, however, also affected the way workers spent their leisure time, because with the rise of unions, workers began to have some leisure time. Similarly, women getting on the bicycle had a number of other impacts - for example, a change in women's fashion. Hose and corsets were not suitable for riding, yet it was still necessary to keep the whole of the legs covered when pedalling. And here we are in the new century, with many bicycle manufacturers moving to the car committee, which soon eclipsed the bicycle.

The bicycle has been enjoying a new era in the US since the 1960s, when people rediscovered it as an environmentally friendly means of transport that doesn't cause congestion. Today, the role of the bicycle varies from country to country. While in the Netherlands and Denmark, for example, the majority of the population rides a bicycle, in countries like the Czech Republic, the car still reigns supreme, and the bicycle is a tool for active leisure rather than a daily means of transport. Bike shops have a plethora of frames, wheels, brakes, gears, forks and saddles. It is the saddle that is now much more often discussed in connection with men than with women. It has been shown that a much bigger problem than female orgasm during riding is the heating of the testicles and the resulting risk of infertility.