About book The Technology Of Orgasm: "Hysteria," The Vibrator, And Women's Sexual Satisfaction (2001)
I wish I could give this book a star for each aspect of it that delighted me. Unfortunately, this site caps me out at five stars, much less the 10 or so stars that this book deserves.This book is exhaustively researched, in a way most other books dealing with the broad subject matter of human sexuality are not. Better, it is superbly organized -- starting out with a clear idea of what topics it is going to cover, and managing to tackle that subject matter in only a scanty 124 pages (with at least another 25 pages citing sources). But while other historical texts stop at well researched and an expertly organized discussion of their subject matter (if they even get that far), this text keeps running uphill towards academic and narrative excellence. The author intelligently conveys the social and technological history leading to the invention of the vibrator with a concise and, at times, humorous approach. It takes a bit of skill to get me emotionally engaged in a non-fiction book; and this author was skilled and then some. And even though I found myself being emotionally drawn towards each point she made, I was very reassured by how well-supported many of her points were. Nothing but empirical evidence and the bizarre nature of human history were employed to provoke responses from the audience of this book. I was even more impressed by the authors ability to identify questions raised by her text, and to easily assess whether they lay within the realm of her ability to answer and the scope of her book. Biological questions, moral questions, and several other realms of inquiry are noted -- but no further attempt to address them is made than noting that they exist and noting what historical evidence implies. While I could say that I was left unsatisfied on one count, it's not a very fair complaint: I wish there was more. I wish she had tackled other technologies besides the vibrator, or had researched other societies and their treatment of female sexuality. As it is, I am very satisfied with what was written and am deeply happy to own this book.
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.
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WERE YOU AWARE: That hysteria means "womb disease?" That"Susan B Anthony is said to have regarded male behavior at sports events as evidence that men were too emotional to be allowed to vote?" Or perhaps that "What is really remarkable about Western history in this context is that the medical norm of penetration to male orgasm as the ultimate sexual thrill for both men and women has survived an indefinite number of individual and collective observations suggesting that for most women this pattern is simply not the case?"WERE YOU AWARE? With The Technology of Orgasm, you will be.
—lola
I actually didn't even finish this before I had to return it to the library. The subject matter (that doctors used to masturbate women as part of treatment for what was essentially a made-up ailment) is of course fascinating, yet the writing, being part of the Johns Hopkins series in the History of Technology, I suppose, was so, ahem, dry. I was also distracted by the pencil comments of some previous reader, whom I imagined to be a naive undergrad learning for the first time women's place in sexual history. Which is unfair of me! I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that this book told me little I found surprising, which was what I wanted it to do. (Sorry to Edan for failing to find new, juicy facts - but I think you've got it covered.)
—Katie
This is a scholarly work about the medical practice of treating hysterical women with vulvular massage - something doctors routinely did in the Western world from the time of the Greeks up through the 1920's. It focuses on the early 20th Century, and addresses the telling question, "why didn't anyone notice that this was sexual?"Interesting and helpful for researching for my book, "The Secret Life of Anna Blanc," an homage to old Los Angeles inspired by Alice Stebin Wells, an LAPD police matron, who in 1910, became the first woman in the Western world to be granted police powers.
—Jennifer Kincheloe
