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Rachel P. Maines

Rachel Maines

The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) Paperback – June 15, 2001

by Rachel P. Maines (Author)

4.2 83 ratings

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Winner of the Herbert Feis Prize from the American Historical Association Winner of the AFGAGMAS Biennial Book AwardWinner of the Science Award from the American Foundation for Gender and Genital Medicine

From the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, massaging female patients to orgasm was a staple of medical practice among Western physicians in the treatment of "hysteria," an ailment once considered both common and chronic in women. Doctors loathed this time-consuming procedure and for centuries relied on midwives. Later, they substituted the efficiency of mechanical devices, including the electric vibrator, invented in the 1880s. In The Technology of Orgasm, Rachel Maines offers readers a stimulating, surprising, and often humorous account of hysteria and its treatment throughout the ages, focusing on the development, use, and fall into disrepute of the vibrator as a legitimate medical device.

Print length

208 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date

June 15, 2001
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.47 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0801866464
ISBN-13

978-0801866463
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Thorough, original, and surprising.
―Sarah Boxer, New York Times Book Review

Full of wonderful descriptions of the 'job nobody wanted,' including photographs of early vibrators and vaginal electrodes.
―Jeanette Winterson, Times (London)

Feminist scholarship exactly as it should be: a work that not only illuminates an astonishing bit of herstory, but does so with a neat balance of anger, wit and humor . . . A wonderful book.
―Carol Lynn Mithers, L.A. Weekly

Exhaustively researched . . . decidedly offbeat.
―Natalie Angier, New York Times

Here's a provocative history with a chip on its shoulder and a buzz under its skirt . . . Exhumes startling facts from the underground sexual history of the early twentieth century.
―Will Blythe, Mirabella

Maines has produced an exhaustive and deliciously savage history of the vibrator-as-sex-aid . . . This fascinating and exquisitely referenced true story reads like twisted science fiction.
―Library Journal

A titillating and often hilarious account of the rise and fall (as it were) of the vibrator as a medical tool for the treatment of hysteria . . . A book that can delight as well as enlighten.
―Journal of the American Medical Association

Rachel Maines offers readers a stimulating, surprising, and often humorous account of hysteria and its treatment throughout the ages.
―Birdbooker Report

About the Author

Rachel P. Maines is a visiting scholar in the Department of Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University and author of The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction, also published by Johns Hopkins.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Johns Hopkins University Press; Revised ed. edition (June 15, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801866464
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801866463
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.47 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,396,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 83 ratings

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Rachel P. Maines
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Rachel Maines is a Visiting Scientist in the Cornell University School of Electrical and Computer Science. She holds a doctoral degree in Applied History from Carnegie-Mellon University (1983) and a baccalaureate in Classics (summa cum laude, 1971) from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Maines is an historian of technology with interests in technology and the body, including sexuality, injury epidemiology, engineering safety codes, and hobby technologies.
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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

83 global ratings

5 star		62%
4 star		12%
3 star		14%
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books4parents

Misses an important point

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 15, 2011

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This fascinating work reveals how orgasm was previously considered healthy and even necessary to mental well-being. Doctors since ancient times recommended marriage to relieve the symptoms of hysteria, as well as massage of the female genital area (usually by a midwife or nurse). Various devices were developed to ease the task - water pressure, mechanical and eventually electrical vibrators. Consumers eventually bought their own, and the use of electrical vibrators for openly sexual purposes led to a decline in professional use.

The author focuses on the quantity of orgasms, as if that were the only important thing, ignoring that individual orgasms may vary greatly in intensity, duration and a difficult to define quality we might call "sweetness." She also criticizes what she calls the "androcentric" idea that a healthy woman should experience orgasm during genital intercourse with a man. Some surveys indicate that most women don't; but many do experience orgasm through masturbation of the clitoris. Hence, intercourse is simply the wrong way for a woman to achieve an orgasm.

The author acknowledges the peculiarity of her conclusion in evolutionary terms, but doesn't consider a possible alternative explanation. She doesn't mention that little girls today aren't usually provided with adequate sex education, and in many cases are mentally castrated. It's well known that if any organ isn't stimulated during early development, atrophy of the relative part of the brain and dysfunction of the organ are the result. Isn't it possible that lack of stimulation of the sexual organs during early development leads to reduced sensitivity and hence a need for direct stimulation of the clitoris to achieve orgasm?

Surveys that rely on self-report aren't necessarily reliable, but some women report that they do experience orgasm during genital intercourse (without direct stimulation of the clitoris), so I think what is needed is research to see if such women had an uninhibited childhood, while vibrator-dependent women were mentally castrated in youth by their well-meaning parents and other misguided teachers.

7 people found this helpful

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Allan Mazur

Making a Myth

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 6, 2014

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Chapter 1 opens with a physician’s advised treatment of a woman suffering from hysteria: “[M]assage the genitalia with one finger inside… And in this way the afflicted woman can be aroused to the paroxysm.” One could hardly be more explicit about therapeutic stimulation to orgasm. The physician, Pieter van Foreest, was writing in 1653.
We have no idea how common this therapy was in the 17th century, but a more interesting question is, did it persist as orthodox treatment into the modern era? According to Rachel Maines it did: “Massage to orgasm of female patients was a staple of medical practice among some (but certainly not all) Western physicians …until the 1920s, and mechanizing this task significantly increased the number of patients a doctor could treat in a working day” (p. 3). In Maines’s telling, the invention of an electrical vibrator by British physician Joseph Mortimer Granville, patented in the 1880s, was a labor saving device allowing doctors to bring their female patients to orgasm quicker and easier than by hand. It is a good story, perhaps the basis for the 2011 feature film Hysteria.
But is it true? Granville himself opposed using his device for treating women (p. 15). Maines presents nothing from orthodox medical sources of the past two hundred years that is comparable to Pieter van Foreest’s explicit advice. In the 19th century there was abundant use of massage, hydrotherapy, mechanical vibration and electrotherapy on many parts of the bodies of both sexes. The base of the spine was an especially favored target for massage, electrical stimulation, and vibration. But there is scant evidence that respectable British or American physicians of that time commonly stimulated their female patients to orgasm, whether manually or mechanically.
Maines is a trained historian and writes well with abundant footnotes. But the footnoted sources, often century-old gynecological tracts, do not sustain the most audacious claims of her narrative. For example, in her introductory pages she writes, "In effect, doctors inherited the task of producing orgasm in women because it was a job nobody else wanted…There is no evidence that male physicians enjoyed providing pelvic massage treatments. On the contrary, this male elite sought every opportunity to substitute other devices for their fingers, such as the attention of a husband, the hands of a midwife, or the business end of some tireless and impersonal mechanism. [Here there is a footnote to several 17th century texts on midwifery.] The last, the capital-labor substitution option, reduced the time it took physicians to produce results from up to an hour to about ten minutes. [Here there is a footnote listing six medical references from 1892 to 1917, not one of which discusses on the cited pages anything about vulvar massage or stimulation to orgasm.] Like many husbands, doctors were reluctant to inconvenience themselves in performing what was, after all, a routine chore..." (pp. 3-4).
Many of the late 19th and early 20th century texts that Maines footnotes are available online. Readers may easily check cited pages in pertinent sources, as I did, to see for themselves if there is convincing evidence for physician induced orgasms.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

C. Robinson

Androcentric sexuality is inefficent

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 7, 2013

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The main theme of Rachel Maines' _The Technology of Orgasm_ is that throughout history people have adopted an androcentric perspective on sex, even though the penis is not the most effective or most efficient means of producing orgasms in women. Although nearly three-fourths of women regularly do not orgasm during intercourse, this overwhelming majority is considered to be somehow defective. Having taught human sexuality for over a decade I can say that that is often how female sexual dysfunctions are defined: unable to enjoy or orgasm during heterosexual intercourse. Even more, most men seem to think that a woman's request for clitoral stimulation is unreasonable and burdensome. Indeed, for most men, foreplay is simply whatever is required to get a woman ready for heterosexual penetrative intercourse. For many, sex is defined as this and ends when the man does. As a consequence, most of women throughout history has put up with unsatisfying sex. Suffice it to say, the failure to regularly orgasm during intercourse can make either partner begin to avoid sex and any activity that might potentially lead to it. Throughout history, women have been accused of suffering from a disease (i.e., hysteria) whose main symptoms seem to be those of someone who is sexually frustrated. On any account, the vibrator was one invention that put more control into the hands of women. For that reason, Maines argues, many men see it as a threat to their masculinity.

If you ask me, and I am glad that you did, I often find that if one works to ensure that the woman is satisfied, most women are more than willing to reciprocate. Basically, try to have the orgasm count in her favor.

19 people found this helpful

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Jenny

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 22, 2017

Verified Purchase

Fascinating book - really informative and well-written.

The Cat Mom

A bit dull

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

Although this book touched on some aspects of the journey to the female orgasm, I found it lacking in depth.

JIain

Boor Review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

Move over Hawkins, this is the coffee table box of choice, men pick it up and laugh at the Victorian pictures and women look at it on the table from the corners of there eye's.

Francisco Wandemberg Rodrigues dos Santos

Um livro que deve ser lido

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on September 2, 2015

Verified Purchase

Muito bem escrito, e com cuidado histórico e científico, quando NEJM recomendou a leitura foi uma dica acertada, vale a pena.

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N. Woods

Sadly boring...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 29, 2016

Verified Purchase

Factual to the point of dryness, one almost gets the impression that the author has never experienced the subject of the title. I read it all but never found the supposed humour and style that others mentioned. Doubtless the content is valid and the endless account of the ridiculous treatment of female sexuality in the past is enlightening, but try 'Bonk' by Mary Roach if you want to actually enjoy a read about a fascinating subject.

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