Fred's Reviews > The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction

I really like the idea of the microhistory genre, where someone grasps that there is a history of *everything* and seeks to tell that tale. I know its been a trend for a few years, but since this book was published in 1999 and Maines's research goes way back to the 80s, I consider her an early adopter, if not a pioneer. I liked her description of poring through ads in 100 year old periodicals, because I do the same thing.

The book is a history of hysteria, which no one quite knew what that was, vibrators and orgasms, all interesting. She spent a lot of time reiterating the fact that penises don't actually usually produce orgasms by penetration which was a little hard to take but harder to argue with. Not her original argument, but not one I was accustomed to in the halls of literature I usually frequent.

As for hysteria, physicians for centuries apparently subscribed to the "she just needs to get laid" approach, for they would literally prescribe marriage or, barring that, manual stimulation to orgasm (which, amusingly, they decided was to be called the "hysterical paroxysm").

Sometimes this was the task of a midwife, sometimes a physician - never was a girl or woman instructed to take matters into their own hand. After all, one of the leading causes of hysteria was masturbation itself. Duh. So everyone pretended the cure was not masturbation, and then everything made sense. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, they invented vibrators and every kind of electronic stimulator imaginable. To save time and money at the doctor's office.

One thing which interested me was her revelation that Abraham Zacuto, mostly known to my kind as the author of a learned Renaissance-era Hebrew history called Sefer Yuhasin, actually came down on the side of the debate that manually produced orgasms on the part of physicians for hysterical women was ethically sketchy. Yet, into the 20th century, women suffering a vague or no illness could go to their doctor and be vibrated to hysterical paroxysm. I don't know if they offered cigarettes or cuddling afterwards.