ORGASM ADDICT ------------------------->>>

Technological Chaos: The Electric Vibrator, Film and the Death of Hysteria

J.M Griffiths FIG. 1: still from an early ‘stag’ film showing a woman using an electric vibrator

The technological development of electricity, as well as the development of film, can be seen to be the overlooked catalyst for a drastic shift in notions of female sexuality. Shifts that occurred as the manual vibrator (manually powered machines, or the use of the hands), which had been used in medicine for millennia, were replaced with the electric vibrator in the late 1880’s . The electric vibrator, then, became so cheap, wide-spread and successful; that it moved from the doctors’ office, to the home; eventually finding its way into the ‘stag’ or pornographic films of the early 1920s ; a change in the media of the vibrator, from medicinal to personal, which led to a change in the technique of female sexuality, from hysteria to sexual arousal and orgasm.

To provide the initial framework for understanding the development and ‘medical-isation’ of female sexuality, we can turn to Michel Foucault and his work History of Sexuality where he details how the female body was defined as hysterical by Western culture; detailing;

“A threefold process whereby the feminine body was analysed – qualified and disqualified – as being thoroughly saturated with sexuality; whereby it was integrated into the sphere of medical practise, by reason of a pathology intrinsic to it; whereby, finally, it was placed in organic communication with the social body, the family space, and the life of children.”

The female body, Foucault states, was made problematic in society because it was the creator, and bearer of life; and thus the bearer of property, and inheritance. In this regard paternity, which is of utmost importance for inheritance, must be safe-guarded. As penetration and eventual ejaculation inside the vagina/womb led to pregnancy, sexuality, for women was located in the interior of their bodies, in their internal womb. The ‘cult’ of the virgin; and the creation of the Madonna/whore dichotomy; came into play; with penetration the only legitimate sexual act for women.

The ‘androcentric’, male centred, bias of female sexuality – as argued by Rachel Maines in The Technology of Orgasm - came into being. The ‘androcentric’ bias has existed since antiquity and the medical writings of Hippocrates , until 1952 , when the American Psychiatric Association dropped the clinical term hysteria completely. The ‘androcentric’ bias, Maines states, existed because of;

“The failure of traditional medical theory to understand the difference between male and female orgasmic experience… All healthy women, according to the traditional medical view, desire penetration by males and are sexually incomplete and unsatisfied unless so penetrated… Women who desire or express sexuality outside this context have been perceived as flawed, sinful or sick, and men consider themselves justified in imposing social, and medical sanctions to get compliance with the normative model of female pleasure during heterosexual intercourse.”

Female sexuality thus came to be not only moralised, but most importantly, clinical-ised. It was regarded as sacred. Usually their was no sense in women actually enjoying sex with their partner; only in whether or not it was ‘successful’; that is, lead to ejaculation in the male. Maines provides,

“a not uncommon resolution of the conflict of medical philosophies over women’s sexuality was the compromise position that women ardently desired maternity, not orgasm. This pro-natal hypothesis not only preserved the illusion of women’s spiritual superiority while explaining their observed sexual behaviour but also reinforced the ethic of coitus in the female-supine position as a divinely ordained norm”

The term for female sexuality outside this penetrative, androcentric model; was hysteria.

Hysteria is a medical term linked with the notion of the wandering womb. It was not until the 19th century that the vagina, womb, uterus, labia and clitoris were regarded as separate; prior to that period; all existed as a singular whole: the female reproductive organ/tract. In this regard it was only male penetration that could ‘enter’ the female reproductive organs; penetration that was thought to be naturally desired by the woman, in the same way that the spreading of ‘seed’ is ‘natural’ and desired for men.

What common ground there is, in centuries of misplaced medical study, places hysteria as a result of the female desire not just for penetration; but fertilisation. The female body craves the state of pregnancy; and if this is not achieved, the female body revolts. The womb moves violently about the body, the exterior genetalia becomes reddened and swollen and the woman becomes hysteric, irrational. In Plato’s Timaeus we are told how

“the womb or matrix of woman; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all variety of disease.”

Hysteria, or the wandering womb in search of male seed was historically seen to result in symptoms such as masturbation, chronic arousal, retention of fluids, anorexia, irrational behaviour, lower abdominal pain and anti-social behaviour. Indeed hysteria, historically, can have any number of symptoms, a problem understood by many early medical practitioners. We are told by George J. Preston in Hysteria and Allied Conditions that;

“the boundary lines marking the limits of what is loosely termed hysteria never have been, and from the nature of the subject never can be, very sharply drawn.”

Virtually any symptom could be blamed on hysteria; leading to a society in which over 75% of all women, were medically classified as hysteric in some from or another. It was this market, a market of huge numbers with 75% or more women classified as hysteric; that the medical practitioner was tapping with his hysteric treatments. Treatments that were usually costly, and time consuming; until the development of the electric vibrator.

The massaging of the exterior genetalia for women, to treat hysteria; came into medical discourses in the ancient times of Hippocrates and Galen. The massaging of the exterior of the vagina/womb was not a sexual act, as the only legitimate sexual act in the ‘androcentric’ model, was penetration. As hysteria resulted from a need in women for fertilisation; by massaging the exterior of the vagina/womb; it was possible to ‘trick’ the womb into thinking that the sexual act had been preformed; leading to the hysterical ‘paroxysm’ or release of fluids in the womb.

The massaging of the exterior of the vagina was regarded as leading to the ‘hysterical paroxysm’; or release of the woman’s excess fluids, fluids that are in a rage, desiring male seed. It is important to understand that the ‘paroxysm’ or release of the hysteria, would be exactly what we would call an orgasm today; yet because the only valid form of heterosexual sexuality was penetration, it was clear to historical medical practitioners, such as Galen, Hippocrates and George Preston that what this ‘paroxysm’ was; was medical science finding a way, through massage, of ‘curing’ a woman of her hysteric symptoms; of tricking the female womb into thinking that it had been ‘fertilised’. We can turn to historically famous surgeon Ambroise Pare (1517? – 1590), who, talking about the treatment and eventual release of hysteria, states;

“If she be married, let her forthwith use copulation, and be strongly encountered by her husband, for there is no remedy more present than this… (and if a husband is unavailable) let the midwife anoint her fingers with ‘oleum nardinum’ or ‘moschetalinum’, or of cloves, or else of spike mixed with musk, ambergris, civet and other sweet powders, and with these let her rub or tickle the top of the neck of the womb which toucheth the inner orifice… Those who are freed from the fit of suffocation of the womb wither by nature (penetration and eventual ejaculation with a penis) or by art (any from of exterior massage), in a short time their colour commeth in to their faces by little and little, and the whole beginneth to wax strong, and the teeth, that were set, and closed fast together, begin to open and unclose again, and lastly some moisture floweth from the secret parts with a certain tickling pleasure… The womb being before as it were raging is restored unto its own proper nature and place, and by little and little all symptoms vanish away.”

The creation of the ‘paroxysm’ in women was a necessity and a burden for medical practitioners. Hysteria was endemic in women historically, and a great burden on its sufferers and the medical persons who had to ‘treat’ it. Not only would a doctor or surgeon need to actually touch the ‘secret parts’; but he or she would have to expend copious amounts of energy and time massaging, until the desired ‘paroxysm’ occurred.

FIG. 2: French pelvic douche from about 1860

Manual, steam powered and hydraulic machines for creating this ‘paroxysm’ were invented and used by doctors to ease their physical burden, such as the hydraulic douche illustrated in figure 3; but it was not until the late 1880’s and the creation of the Weiss electrical vibrator; that this medical burden was greatly reduced; eventually and unexpectedly, disappearing all-together.

“The electromechanical vibrator, invented in the 1880’s by a British physician, represented the last of a long series of solutions to a problem that had plagued medical practitioners since antiquity: effective therapeutic massage that neither fatigued the therapist nor demanded skills that were difficult and time consuming to acquire. Mechanized speed and efficiency improved clinical productivity, especially in the treatment of chronic patients like hysterics.”

The electrical vibrator as discussed in depth by Maines represents technological chaos as put forward by theorist Raymond Williams. It was a device invented for the easy treatment of hysteria and some other conditions, which proved so successful, that it eventually ceased to be merely a medical implement; and became a personal one. In A ‘Technological Idiot’ Des Freeman summarises Raymond Williams,

“Far from technology having an inescapable internal logic of development, innovation takes place within specific social and economic contexts…there was no pre-determined outcome to the evolution of… innovations but a series of complex interactions between innovations and the world into which they emerge… The study of culture, therefore, required anthropological as much as aesthetic skills, and sensitivity to the history, traditions and daily practises of working people”

FIG. 3: early electric vibrator

Prior to the electric vibrator, the treatment of hysteric women was expensive for the patient, who needed the financial means to pay to visit the doctor; whilst being difficult and time consuming for the doctor themselves. The electric vibrator was invented with the intention to make the job of curing hysteric women more efficient, successful and easy;

“since mechanical and electromechanical devices could produce multiple orgasms in women in a relatively short period, innovations in the instrumentation of massage permitted women a richer exploration of their physiological powers… The electromechanical vibrator was less fatiguing and required less skill than manual massage, was less capital intensive than either hydraulic or steam-powered technologies, and was more reliable, portable, and decentralizing than any previous physical therapy for hysteria.”

The unforseen consequence, the chaos of the technology of the electric vibrator; was that the electric vibrator was so successful and cheap, that it ceased to be a medical tool; and became a personal one. No longer was the expensive vibrator machine – steam, water or manually powered – only affordable by doctors; now it could be afforded by the majority of the populace.

Maines tells that,

“by far the most widely advertised home vibrator of the early twentieth century was that of the Lindstrom Smith Company of Chicago, whose White Cross Electric Vibrators were sold from about 1902 through the 1930’s as ‘Swedish Movement right in your own home.’ Advantages to purchasers included the savings over massage treatments in a doctor’s office and the privacy of self-treatment at home.”

FIG. 4: Playboy cartoon satirising the technology of sexuality

The electric vibrator was invented to help medical practitioners create the paroxysm in women, which was though to relieve them of hysteria. However, the device was so successful, that by the early 20th century, not only were doctors and midwifes treating more hysterics, more frequently; but the electric vibrator was also being sold directly to individuals. These individuals were using the devices personally, and without the sterile and clinical conditions created in the doctor/patient relationship.

Turning to media theorist Marshall McLuhan and his idea that ‘the medium is the message’ we can see how the change in medium from the clinical, to the personal, democratised the vibrator and most importantly, the hysterical ‘paroxysm’. Now women, and their partners, were able to experiment with their new technology of the electric vibrator, free from the prying and clinically bias eyes of the medical practitioner. Out of the office and into the home; a move from the public sphere of personal health, to the private sphere of sexual relations.

By the 1920’s, the cheap, and easily portable electric vibrator was being used and demonstrated in early pornographic, or stag films, as demonstrated in Fig. 1. The utilisation of electric vibrators in an obviously sexual medium, pornography, fully bought home the vibrator as a sexual; and not medical tool; thereby casting doubts as to the ‘technique’ of hysteria; and leading to the recognition of the female sexual orgasm, as opposed to the paroxysm release of hysteria, provided by medical massage.

The use of the electric vibrator in stag films achieved what the analytic research of Alfred Kinsey could not; it directly linked the vibrator, and also hysteria, to sexual enjoyment; and not medical treatment. The vibrator was democratised; and had its technique/purpose changed; from medical device, to sexual one.

Technological development and societal change are complimentary parasites, feeding, growing, and changing form with the other. The electric vibrator was designed to more efficiently treat hysteria in women, by the massage treatment. The device was unexpectedly successful, and it moved from an expensive clinical device, too expensive to be owned by the ‘everyman’; to a personal one, easily afforded and easily used. Eventually the electric vibrator became part of the avant-garde, as it was used in the early pornographic films of the 1920’s. This bought the medicinal technology of the vibrator out from the private sphere of medicine; to the public sphere of sexuality; and the hysteric paroxysm of the medical office, to the female orgasm of the bedroom.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Good Vibrations: The New Complete Guide to Vibrators; Joani Blank with Ann Whiddon, revised by Betty Dodson; Down There Press; San Francisco, California; 2000

• Hysteria and Allied Conditions: Their Nature and Treatment, with Special Reference to the Application of the Rest Cure, Massage, Electrotherapy, Hypnotism, etc; George J. Preston; P. Blakiston, Son and co.; Philadelphia; 1897

• Hysteria: the History of a Disease; Ilza Veith; University of Chicago Press; Cicago and London; 1965

• Hysteria and Related Mental Disorders: An Approach to Psychological Medicine; D. Wilfred; John Wright and Sons LTD; Bristol, England; 1966

• The Medium is the Massage; Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore; Gingko Press; California; 2001

• Playboy magazine; USA edition; November 1983

• Storms in Her Head: Freud and the Construction of Hysteria; Muriel Dimen and Adrienne Harris (editors); Other Press; New York; 2001

• The Technology of Orgasm; Rachel P. Maines; John Hopkins University Press; Baltimore and London; 1999

• A Technological Idiot?: Raymond Williams and Communications Technology; found in ‘Information, Communication and Society 5 (3); Freedman, D; 2002

• Turn Me On: The History of the Vibrator; Catherine Chauchat (director and writer); Australia; 2001

• Works of that Famous…; Ambroise Pare; Thomas Johnson (translator); London; R. Cotes and Young; 1634