The Technology of Orgasm

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, i...

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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.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 THE JOB NOBODY WANTED
The Androcentric Model of Sexuality
Hysteria as a Disease Paradigm
The Evolution of the Technology
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Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 THE JOB NOBODY WANTED
The Androcentric Model of Sexuality
Hysteria as a Disease Paradigm
The Evolution of the Technology
Chapter 2 FEMALE SEXUALITY AS HYSTERICAL PATHOLOGY
Hysteria in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Hysteria in Renaissance Medicine
The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
The Freudian Revolution and Its Aftermath
Chapter 3 "MY GOD, WHAT DOES SHE WANT?"
Physicians and the Female Orgasm
Masturbation
"Frigidity" and Anorgasmia
Female Orgasm in the Post-Freudian World
What Ought to Be, and What We'd Like to Believe
Chapter 4 "INVITING THE JUICES DOWNWARD"
Hydropathy and Hydrotherapy
Electrotherapeutics
Mechanical Massagers and Vibrators
Instrumental Prestige in the Vibratory Operating Room
Consumer Purchase of Vibrators after 1900
Chapter 5 REVISING THE ANDROCENTRIC MODEL
Orgasmic Treatment in the Practice of Western Medicine
The Androcentric Model in Heterosexual Relationships
The Vibrator as Technology and Totem
Notes
Notes on Sources
Index
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