Good vibes: A hysterical perspective on sex toys
Quote:
According to Cornell University researcher Rachel Maines, the first vibrator was invented in 1883 as a medical device. Doctors used it to give their patients "pelvic massages" to produce "hysterical paroxysm" as a cure for a disease they called hysteria. The device was designed to mechanize a job that doctors had been doing - believe it or not - by hand.
Maines chronicled her findings in the 1999 book The Technology of Orgasm. The real bombshell, she said, was that doctors had been giving women orgasms as a so-called medical treatment since the time of Hippocrates.
By the late 19th century, hysteria was hitting epidemic proportions, with women complaining of paralyzed limbs, sudden inability to speak, and other bizarre symptoms magically relieved by their doctor's touch.
But some doctors complained the technique was difficult to learn. According to one biographer, Sigmund Freud tried to learn it, Maines says, but never got the hang of it.
Vibrators made the job much easier, though some early ones ran on steam, she says, requiring the doctors to shovel in coal. They often had cumbersome but impressive power sources, and the business end looked like a ball or some other non-phallic shape.
|
Ok, steam powered vibrators? I'm not sure I believe that. I'd sure like to see a picture of one in the Doodads thread. Maybe Bruce or Buster can find one amongst the antiques in the garage/shed/barn.
Never mind, I found
this link with a history of sex toys and a picture of a steam powered vibrator.
Anyway, I guess when sex toys become outlawed agains, doctors will have to step back in.
__________________
Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. --
Barack Hussein Obama