You can thank the rise of the vibrator for that, according to technology historian Rachel Maines. In her provocative book, The Technology of Orgasm, Rachel Maines discusses a classic medical treatment for the historical diagnosis of “hysteria”: orgasm administered by a physician. Maines explains that manual stimulation of the clitoris was, for some time, a matter-of-fact part of medical treatment and a routine source of revenue for doctors. By the 19th century, people understood that it was an orgasm, but they argued that it was “nothing sexual.” It couldn’t “be anything sexual,” Maines explains, “because there’s no penetration and, so, no sex.” So, what ended this practice? Maines argues that it was the appearance of the vibrator in early pornographic movies in the 1920s, at which point, she says, doctors “drop it like a hot rock.” Meanwhile, vibrators become household appliances, allowing women to treat their “hysteria” at home. It wasn’t dropped from diagnostic manuals until 1957. Listen to it straight from Maines in the following seven minutes from Big Think: Bonus: Freud was bad at this treatment, so he had to come up with some other cause of hysteria. After all, Maines says, “this was the guy who didn’t know what women wanted.” No surprise there, she jokes. This post originally appeared on Sociological Images, a Pacific Standard partner site, as “Why Did Doctors Stop Giving Women Orgasms?” Source
