toys of terror

We’ve talked about anti-masturbation devices before at the gimcrack.

Frank Orth came up with this device, as bulky as a major kitchen appliance, which spoke directly to prevalent belief that as the body heated up under covers it became more sexually responsive.

The motor drove a fan that forced cooling air down a tube into rubber drawers fitted with circulation bladders.”

Orth also held a patent on a water-based cooling system. “Each of these thermal harness systems was installed permanently in the bedroom, like a piece of furniture. At night, the user would fit his body into the device and then, along with the trailing straps, wires and flexible pipes, slide under the covers.”



Mr. Joseph Lee engineered this beauty, a harness you wore to bed that sensed an erection, which activated an electrical circuit that could be hooked up to your choice of a phonograph, gramophone or graphophone and thus awaken the endangered sleeper with music or an inspirational talk.



Harnessing your family jewels to a gramophone might sound like a strange idea but at least it wouldn’t be as painful as some of the anti-rape devices mentioned in this article. Ever mindful of my readers delicate sensibilities, I will only include a quote about the least terrifying.

The tamest, created by Joel D Rumph and Lynda K Warren, would inject the penis with a fast-working sedative. What you then do with the comatose attacker lying on top of you, the patent does not say. Indeed, all the designs display very basic problems, explaining why none seems to have been produced.



James H Bowen of Philadelphia came up with this bright idea in 1889

In the aesthetic design of his device, he appears to have drawn inspiration from the restraining mechanisms of horse bridles. A little metal hat was placed over the head of the penis, with small chains on either side dropping down to the end of spring-loaded clips. The clips were then securely clasped to tufts of pubic hair at the base of the penis.



When a nocturnal erection began, and the penis enlarged beyond the length of the chains, the pubic hair was pulled, causing the kind of pain guaranteed to wake the naughty dreaming sleeper who was, according to Bowen, “thereby enabled to prevent or check the discharge.”