Abstract
This chapter summarizes the main ideas of this book on machines used in sex research, a history which began in the late nineteenth century in Berlin and continued through the late twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. It outlines some new machines developed in the early twenty-first century, including the arousometer and a hands-off clitoral vibrator. Sex research using machines in the present continues to face challenges, including the need for more accurate and specific machines to measure women’s sexual arousal, a lack of standardization in practices among subsets of sex researchers, the ongoing popularity of aversion therapy for homosexuality despite a near-total failure rate, and the need to raise funding for basic as well as applied physiological sex research. The history of machines used in sex research illustrates the lack of linearity in scientists’ pursuit of high-quality and useful measurements over the past century, and their continued determination to develop a unified theory of human sexuality.
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“Immerhin wirkte das Milieu im Sinne der Dämpfung” (Klumbies and Kleinsorge 1950, p. 958).
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Drucker, D.J. (2014). Conclusion: The Future of Human Sex Research Technologies. In: The Machines of Sex Research. SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7064-5_5
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