By: Rachel P. Maines
Naughty Fact: up until the 1920's, women with any variety of fatigue, anxiety, or emotional issue were often diagnosed with "hysteria," a condition in which doctors thought sexual deprivation would cause the uterus to choke a woman's body causing assorted maladies. The only cure? Manual clitoral stimulation from medical professionals, whose tired wrists eventually led to the invention of the first vibrator as a time-saving tool.
Rachel P. Mines book "The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator and Women's Sexual Satisfaction" looks to a time when masturbation was taboo and the sexual menu for women contained only one option: penetrative vaginal sex with her husband. Mines analyzes perceptions of female sexuality and the enigma of the female orgasm through the lens of its medicalization and the history of the vibrator from invention, to proliferation, to abandonment by the industry.
This is required reading for any girl who loves her vibrator and ownership over her own sex life.
Buy The Technology of Orgasm "Hysteria," the Vibrator and Women's Sexual Satisfaction Here
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