The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) (Hardcover)

by Rachel P. Maines (Author) "In 1653 Pieter van Foreest, called Alemarianus Petrus Forestus, published a medical compendium titled Observationem et Carationem Medicinalium ac Chirurgicarum opera Omnia, with chapter on..." (more)
Key Phrases: orgasmic mutuality, hysteroneurasthenic disorders, electromechanical vibrator, New York, Mortimer Granville, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
For centuries, women diagnosed with "hysteria"--a "disease paradigm," in Rachel P. Maines's felicitous phrase, thought to result from a lack of sexual intercourse or gratification--were treated by massaging their genitals in order to induce "paroxysm." Male physicians, however, considered the practice drudgery, and sought various ways of avoiding the task, often foisting it off on midwives or, starting in the late 19th century, employing mechanical devices. Eventually, these devices became available for purchase and home use; one such "portable vibrator" is advertised in the 1918 Sears, Roebuck catalog as an "aid that every woman appreciates." The Technology of Orgasm is an impeccably researched history that combines a discussion of hysteria in the Western medical tradition with a detailed examination (including several illustrations) of the devices used to "treat" the "condition." (Maines is somewhat dismissive of the contemporary, phallus-shaped models, which she describes as "underpowered battery-operated toys," insisting that "it is the AC-powered vibrator with at least one working surface at a right angle to the handle that is best designed for application to the clitoral area.") Don't expect any cheap thrills, though; the titillation Maines offers is strictly intellectual. --Ron Hogan

From Publishers Weekly
It will surprise most readers to learn that the vibrator was invented in the late 1880s as a time-saving device for physicians, who had been treating women's "hysteria" for years with clitoral massage. Denying the sexual nature of the treatments, doctors instead saw the technique as a burdensome chore and welcomed electric devices that would shorten patients' visits. Maines, an independent scholar in the history of technology, presents a straightforward account of the mechanism from its beginning through the 1920s, when it came into disrepute as a medical instrument. Going far beyond a mere summary of therapeutic advances, however, she wryly chronicles the attitude toward women's sexuality in the medical and psychological professions and shows, with searing insight, how some ancient biases are still prevalent in our society. Maines's writing is lively and entertaining, and her research is exhaustive, drawing on texts from Hippocrates to the present day. Proving her point about how women's sexuality is still perceived as an unapproachable subject in some quarters, Maines describes her travails in vibrator historiography, including the loss of her teaching position at Clarkson University. A pioneering and important book, this window into social and technological history also provides a marvelously clear view of contemporary ideas about women's sexuality.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (December 18, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801859417
• ISBN-13: 978-0801859410
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #834,607 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read: sophisticated, learned, and funny., January 29, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Suburban Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

"The Technology of Orgasm" is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. Maines' ostensible purpose is an examination of the history of vibrators and other mechanical means to induce female orgasms. This subject is covered in depth and apparent thoroughness, but her real focus is "androcentric" definitions of female sexuality and their cultural and technological repercussions.

In witty and humorous language, demonstrating that Maines has mastered post-modernism and even found a use for it, she lampoons men's refusal to recognize that for most women, insertion of a male penis into the vagina followed by a male orgasm is not necessarily a complete sexual experience. In droll tones, Maines discusses the long-held male claim, supported by what was called science, that if a woman did not achieve an orgasm from sexual penetration by a male, she was not "normal," although some 80% or more of women were thus "abnormal." And never mind that 80% of a population cannot, by definition, be abnormal.

Maines is a good historian, and she recounts the historical medicalization of female orgasm, terming its inducement "the job nobody wanted." For hundreds of years, physicians or midwives were paid to stimulate manually the clitoris of women suffering from "hysteria" and thereby to bring about a therapeutic paroxism. Since this was a time-consuming task, doctors turned to hydrotherapy and then to electric powered vibrators to shorten the time necessary to induce such relief on each patient. HMOs would be proud.

This is a book on a serious topic in western cultural history that could have been androphobic or, worse, terribly dull. Instead,it charms and educates with wit and erudition. I hated to see it end.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars hysteric paroxysm, August 1, 2002

By	Jessica Lee Jernigan (Mt. Pleasant, Mi.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) (Paperback)

for centuries, troubled -- or troubling -- women were diagnosed with "hysteria." the classic treatment for this vague malady was inducement of the "hysteric paroxysm" -- known to us contemporary types as the orgasm. according to rachel maines's wryly hilarious history, the first mechanical vibrators were labor-saving devices for doctors tired of inducing orgasm in their patients manually. who knew? this book is clearly her dissertation & primarily intended for academics, but i found it mind-blowing & frequently quite amusing. i frequently recommend it to friends & colleagues looking for a quick, smart, engaging read.

42 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Vibrations: The Doctor Is In., June 2, 1999

By	[e-mail] (San Francisco, USA) - See all my reviews

* *

The dustjacket of Rachel P. Maines's new book, THE TECHNOLOGY OF ORGASM: "HYSTERIA", THE VIBRATOR & SEXUAL SATISFACTION, reads as follows:

-*-*- From the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, massaging "hysterical" female patients to orgasm was a staple of medical practice among Western physicians. Hysteria...was thought to be the consequence of sexual deprivation. Doctors performed the "routine chore" of relieving hysterical patients' symptoms with manual genital massage until the woman reached orgasm, or as it was known under clinical conditions, the "hysterical paroxysm". The vibrator first emerged as an electromechanical medical instrument in direct response to demand from physicians who, far from enjoying the implementation of pelvic massage, sought every opportunity to substitute the services of midwives and, later, the efficiency of mechanical devices... Invented in the late 1880s by a British physician, the vibrator was popular with turn-of-the-century doctors as a quick, efficient cure for hysteria which neither fatigued the therapist nor demanded skills which were difficult to acquire... Hysterical women presented a large and lucratve clientele for doctors, and vibrators reduced, from about one hour to ten minutes, the time required for a physician to produce results, significantly increasing the number of patients he could treat in the course of a single workday. These women were ideal patients in that they never recovered nor died from their condition but continued to require regular medical "treatment". -*-*-

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That male doctors were freely encouraged to perform sexual acts upon female patients is startling when compared to today's more regulated climate, and it inspires these observations:

* The vibrator was not an amorous invention - no Cupid's dart - but a labour-saving clinical instrument to substitute for undesirable professional tedium the more desirable swellings of the wallet. Improved productivity is good for business.

* Doctors were well-rewarded, respectable gigolos, weary as whores of the endless daily parade of hungry genitals and their distressed owners. Today, they would go to jail.

* Activities that otherwise would be considered odd, transgressive, or exciting are permitted when they can be defined as, or safely packaged within, "medicine" or "science", controlled and validated by bourgeois professionals. This can be liberating as well as oppressive: clinical authority can licence the forbidden while defending the status quo, such as relations between the sexes. The clinic is where we pay strangers to intrude intimately into all our velvet cavities - wearing latex - bringing fresh meaning to the phrase, "the doctor is in". Quickly nurse, the proctoscope!

* The doctor-patient relationship oppressed both parties yet remains charged with voyeuristic eroticism for the reader, paradoxically and perversely enhanced by references to the austere boredom of the clinician. The erotic relationship is toned by the pornographic whiff produced through the opposing tensions of: dominance and submission; demand and supply; buying and selling; need and numbness; control and abandon; restraint and convulsion; energy and fatigue; humiliation and relief; shame and paroxysm; tender, desiring flesh, and the subtly-perverse coupling of mechanical insult and pleasure. The clinical drama delivers a secret misogyny to be savoured as a thrilling, guilty vice by both sexes - a stolen cream bun for the soul. Spanking cures this sort of thing.

* All of this occurred under conditions in which the only female orgasm recognised as "true" was the sometimes elusive one produced vaginally through intercourse with a male. The more independent and easily achieved clitoral orgasm was belittled as secondary and "immature" [see Freud]. This attitude supported male sexual necessity, authority, and privilege: only a cock can make a real woman of you - it's a magic wand. Today, women buy their own magic wands and connect them to the power station, harnessing those giant turbines and nuclear rods to their appetites.

* It is widely recognised that some mental conditions are treated by electric shock but less broadly advertised is that others were alleviated by electric cock.