Abstract
This article draws on the findings of qualitative research on the ways in which the domestication of sexual objects, such as vibrators, is central to relationships amongst (non)household members and social interaction within the home. Interviews with a purposive sample of 32 female participants were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. In analyzing experiences and complex senses of belonging, the paper identified different circumstances and issues of public presentation and private realization that lie behind the meaning and use of vibrators. I suggest that objects, such as vibrators, come to be experienced as offering emotional, spatial, relational, and moral structures of both social integration and social distancing. All objects, even sex toys, contain culture, and by examining the domestication of such objects we can enrich knowledge of the affordances that constitute the materiality of sex.
Highlights
This article draws on the findings of qualitative research on the ways in which the domestication of sexual objects, such as vibrators, is central to relationships amongsthousehold members and social interaction within the home
The vibrator became a more overt sexual object from the beginning of the 1960s when pioneers in feminist movements shaped their meaning in public as well as in private, followed by discourses of sexual politics and a rise in consumer materialism (Lieberman, 2017; Mayr, 2020b)
Given the diversity of domesticating vibrators discussed in this research, the identified object relations build a phenomenological structure filled with the lived experiences of people. These dynamics exist within two dimensions of vibrator ownership and use in which the participants in this study necessarily had to negotiate: public representation and private realization
Summary
This article draws on the findings of qualitative research on the ways in which the domestication of sexual objects, such as vibrators, is central to relationships amongst (non)household members and social interaction within the home. One respondent (age 34) explained this in detail, making explicit the sense of moral belonging involved in concealing sex toys, because “you aren’t used to seeing things like a sex toy” within the home. As long as objects, such as sex toys, are kept where they belong, social order within the home is sustained.
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