18th-Century Sex Toy Found In Ancient Latrine

[Desert Fox]

This is one of these things just so funny I needed to post it
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/18th-century-sex-toy-found-in-ancient-latrine-150415.htm

Polish archaeologists digging an ancient latrine in the Baltic city of Gdańsk have stumbled upon a 250-year-old sex toy.

The phallic object is "large, thick, made of leather filled with bristles, and has a wooden tip," the Regional Office for the Protection of Monuments in Gdansk said in a press release.

Dating from the second half of the 1700s, the artificial penis was found "preserved in excellent condition."

Picture might not be considered work safe.

(click to show/hide)

[Johnny Slick]

I can accept that the second half of the 1700s is old, but "ancient"? Here I was thinking this was something from like Pompeii or something (which wouldn't actually be all that weird; the Romans wrote all kinds of sexualized graffiti and made porn-y mosaics) and it's just from the Baltic circa 350 years ago? WEAK. SAUCE.

[Harry Black]

I love that they gave it balls.

[Desert Fox]

I can accept that the second half of the 1700s is old, but "ancient"? Here I was thinking this was something from like Pompeii or something (which wouldn't actually be all that weird; the Romans wrote all kinds of sexualized graffiti and made porn-y mosaics) and it's just from the Baltic circa 350 years ago? WEAK. SAUCE.

Hyperbole 

Besides, to many people something from the 1970s is ancient 

[scmutzer]

Haha. So funny. Looks like a mold or smth like that.
Yeah, I managed to measure the pixels from the image an transform them to inches, and i think that this toy has almost 6.5 inches. Damn, these people are kinky!

[Sordid]

I can accept that the second half of the 1700s is old, but "ancient"? Here I was thinking this was something from like Pompeii or something (which wouldn't actually be all that weird; the Romans wrote all kinds of sexualized graffiti and made porn-y mosaics) and it's just from the Baltic circa 350 years ago? WEAK. SAUCE.

Here you go: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4713323.stm

[Harry Black]

How do we know its a sex toy?
Lots of traditions use phallic art as a type of appeal for fertility from on high. I guess the materials point toward it being more likely used in that manner?
And I suppose the fact that someone was obviously using it in the bathroom but are there more definite indications than this?

[Ah.hell]

I agree with Harry and Johny S.  Its not ancient and could be just a statue of a dick.   Might even be the work of some adolescent twit with too much time on their hands. 

[Redamare]

I understood it to mean the latrine was ancient, not necessarily the dildo.

[Desert Fox]

I agree with Harry and Johny S.  Its not ancient and could be just a statue of a dick.   Might even be the work of some adolescent twit with too much time on their hands.

And an adolescent twit would likely use it in creative manners as well   

[Harry Black]

Well it was stitched out of leather so Im guessing this was more than kids secret boredom art project.

[Beleth]

Discovery.com really needs to change the story when the reader changes the picture:

(click to show/hide)

[The Latinist]

The material makes the use for which it was intended fairly obvious. Stuffed leather has been a material for dildos since ancient times.  Aristophanes uses them as a joke in ways that make it clear they were if not commonplace at least common knowledge .

[SnarlPatrick]

seems like a fairly obvious 2+2 equation before the age of silicone.