Passion and Power – The Technology of Orgasm

2008

United States

Documentary

Produced by Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori

Wabi Sabi Productions

First Run Features (USA)

Distributed in Australia by Hopscotch

Reviewer: Bob Estreich

In Texas you may own up to five vibrators, provided you don’t use them. You may, however, own as many guns as you like.

This documentary traces the vibrator through history, around two and a half thousand years. Hippocrates may have been the inventor, using it as a hysteria treatment. Hysteria according to him was caused by the revolt of the uterus against neglect, so it needed some attention. Writers through history worked on the hysteria angle, urging massage of the genital parts to cause an “evacuation of the overabounding fluids”.

It was widely believed for many centuries that female orgasm was necessary for conception. By Victorian times this had changed, and women’s bodies were tightly contained to prevent “leakages”. There were doubts raised that women even had orgasms. If women suffered from hysteria, physicians could bring them to a “hysterical paroxysm” by genital massage. This hysteria could be caused by such novel medical conditions as reading French novels while wearing a tight corset.

Women soon woke up to this and started looking for other methods of satisfaction. The douche apparatus was widely recommended by such notables as John Harvey Kellogg (yes, of Corn Flakes fame). Water-based methods were slow and labour-intensive, so mechanical vibrators soon appeared. They were not exactly compact – the Chattanooga vibrator stood nearly five feet tall. They were still all marketed as medical appliances.

The ready availability of electric power in the home and the reduction in size of electric motors made smaller personal vibrators practical at last. It is noted that the electric vibrator actually preceded the electric iron and vacuum cleaner by nearly ten years, so we know what women would rather be doing. The box for the Andis vibrator has a picture of a lady apparently waiting for the vibrator while her husband uses it to stimulate his scalp. Yeah, right. Good luck to him when he tries to get it back off her.

About this point the vibrator went underground and ads disappeared from the magazines. It wasn’t until the 1970s that it resurfaced, this time unashamedly used as a masturbation aid. Women had discovered their own sexuality and kept it under their own control. The “medical” camouflage disappeared and has stayed buried ever since.

Not so the legal side. At least five U.S. states still have legislation on the books restricting the sale, ownership or right to sell vibrators. Despite the best efforts of the Women’s movement people can still be charged for owning a device which can stimulate a woman’s genitals, and the film gives one such case. Civil liberties are set aside in such states and strangely the Women’s Libbers do not seem to have taken up the cause. This latter half of the film is far more disturbing than the lighter note taken earlier. There are still people out there who feel they have a right to impose their morality on others.

In 1952 the American Psychiatric Association took “hysteria” off the list of mental diseases – and put homosexuality on the list instead.

The Extras are as good as the main story. Rachel Maines shows us some early (and really scary) vibrators from her collection, “Dancing Vibrators” is hilarious, and there are various still galleries.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.4 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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