http://www.abc.net.au/arts/headspace...or/default.htm
Cool interview with Author . . .
Time to take a hard look at the vibrator. The fifth household device to be transmogrified by electric power after the toaster, before the vacuum cleaner and the iron.
Radio National's Phillip Adams discusses the social history of the device and the modern day political debate which are prodding it off the sex shop shelves. Phillip is joined by Rachel Maines, author of The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction and Pepper Schwartz, Professor of Sociology from the Washington State University.
Phillip Adams
Rachel Maines you live in a country where there's a constitutional entitlement to bear arms but apparently it doesn't extend to the bearing of vibrators. But you're not surprised by the Alabama laws are you?
Rachel Maines
Yes, the only reason that they weren't illegal at the turn of the century when they were first invented is that they were mainly a tool that was in the hands of doctors and of course doctors have privileges t
he rest of us don't have. The other reason is that in order to outlaw them the legislature would have had to say what they thought they were for, and of course that would have been unthinkable. They had the social camouflage of the vibrator still intact. It was still something that you used for improving your circulation and relaxing your muscles. Of course most people that read the ad knew exactly what they were for.
[PA]: Like telling Queen Victoria about lesbians. Would you see the Alabama law as hinting at irrationality or perhaps deep fear of female sexuality?
[RM]: I heard a very interesting story that I think illuminates this issue. I got a call from a fellow named Woog. Dr Woog represents a vibrator manufacturer in Switzerland who manufactures the 'Erosilator' which is the vibrator endorsed by Ruth Westheimer (aka Dr. Ruth). He told me he's been having a terrible time buying advertising in the United States because they say it's bad for women to have these things so that they can have sex by themselves. He said [to publishers] that you advertise Viagra, and they say, 'Yes, but Viagra is so that men can have sex with women, and vibrators are so women can have sex by themselves, and that's immoral'. I think that there's a fear that if women have vibrators they won't be interested in men, which is absurd. Vibrators can't talk to you, they can't hug you, they can't snuggle up to you and they're not going to listen to your troubles at night. There is a joke in this country: When did God make man? When She found out that vibrators couldn't dance. Obviously men are not going to become technologically obsolete, but I think there's a fear of that in some people, including some women oddly enough.
[PA]: Rachel you write that the manual massage of the vulva as treatment for hysteria is continually tested in Western medicine from antiquity through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation. How did you make this historical discovery?
[RM]: Oddly enough the original research was on the history of needlework in the United States which doesn't sound like a very promising way to start on the history of sexuality. But I kept seeing these vibrator ads in needlework magazines starting about 1899 in things like Modern Priscilla, and the Home Needlework Magazine. I thought this is awfully early to appear in a home, and decided I would trace it back into its origins, find out who invented it and why. The more I found out about it, the more I found out that this is something that doctors wanted originally. There had been a steam-powered vibrator invented in the United States in 1869 by a George Taylor called "The Manipulator" that was again a response to doctors wanting some way of mechanising a treatment that was already around.
[PA]: I don't want to be vulgar but how the hell did you have a steam-powered one? Was it a very small steam engine?
[RM]: No, you're picturing the steam engine as being in the vibrator, but actually it was in another room.
[PA]: I get your drift. I was just overwhelmed by this image suddenly.
[RM]: Most people are, including me. The doctors were shoveling coal into it and also they had to have somebody in the room with the steam engine, and then the power train had to go into another room where the patient was.
Phillip Adams: What was the medical theory? I understand that in the 19th century there was an hysteria pandemic amongst women?
Rachel Maines There had always been in Western medicine since the time of Hypocrites a belief in this disease called 'hysteria', which means womb disease, that was caused by the uterus complaining about neglect. Plato tells us that the uterus is an animal within an animal and that it gets out of control and you have to appease it supposedly. The way that you did this was that you would massage the vulva which was thought to be a part of the uterus - anatomy knowledge was a little thin in these days - and you would produce a crisis of the disease, like the birthing of a fever, it was called the 'hysterical paroxysm', and there would be contractions and lubrication and then the woman would feel better for a while. But hysteria was incurable and chronic so she would have to come back again and again, and it was a great way for a guy to make a living.
[PA]: But it was hard and lonely work.
[RM]: It was very hard work, and also quite a lot of skill.
[PA]: Sometimes it was done on a sort of almost an assembly line basis. There's a wonderful image in the book of lots of women being simultaneously stimulated.
[RM]: Yes, the popularity of the vibrator with doctors was related to its speed. It used to take up to an hour to do this massage by hand, and if you're working an eight hour day that's only eight patients. So if you have a vibrator you can get the job done in ten minutes, that's six times as many patients.
[PA]: Did doctors think in any sense that what they were doing was sexual?
[RM]: Some of them knew exactly what was going on. There's a reference in a 17th century-book by Nathaniel Hymore which basically says 'well folks this hysterical paroxysm is an orgasm, you can call it whatever you like but nevertheless it's our job to do this because the woman will get sick and feel terrible if we don't'. There's another reference in the 1880's by a French physician who says that it's important to provide this treatment even though we know it's sexual. But some doctors maintain it's an hysterical paroxysm. It was controversial. Even in the Middle Ages we see some controversy about this.
It began to be apparent in the 1920's that what was going on was sexual. It was apparent to everybody when the vibrator began to appear in stag films. Most doctors just sort of quietly dropped it from their repertoire. As the 20th century went on there was more and more understanding of women's sexuality and it was no longer possible to say it was something other than an orgasm.
[PA]: Pepper Schwartz do you have figures on the incidents of vibrator usage in the US?
Pepper Schwartz The only decent research is at the National Opinion Research Centre that came out of the University of Washington and it was widely published as Sex in America, and the figures there were lower actually than I think they probably are. It's the most widely used sex toy, but it was about 30 per cent.
[PA]: The American Civil Liberties Union is currently fighting a major privacy case in the New York District Court against the state of Alabama which has banned the sale of sex toys or other similar devices which are designed to stimulate human genitals since 1975. The punishment is one years hard labour in an Alabama jail. What is the thinking behind this?
[PS]: I think they're trying to get rid of sex shops, by getting rid of everything they sell, [targetting] several items advertised to stimulate human genitals. In other words they're letting firms that advertise theirs' as neck massagers or muscle relaxers go, so that they won't get caught in this net. They're trying to get rid of the sex industry, and also they're trying to get elected. Every now and then, just in the 19th century, someone would bust a brothel to show what kind of moral force you were, and in this case stand in front of the Alabama Legislature arguing for or against vibrators.
[PA]: Pepper would you be kind enough to tell us about the case in which you're an expert witness?
[PS]: In Alabama, and five or six other states here, the idea is to get rid of all items sold for and specifically designed for the stimulation of genitals. There is a proposal that was voted on in the Alabama Legislature that basically said these things were harmful in some way, shouldn't be used by the general population, that they shouldn't be advertised or sold. I was brought in to say that in fact vibrators have lots of wonderful uses, that they're used by physicians for inorgasmic women, that they're used by women who are lonely, who are divorced, who don't have the sexual lives that they might like, who will find it much more effective for their sexual release. These are garden variety household items that [others] have no business getting in between a woman or (whoever else wants to use them) and her private sexuality. The legislature didn't find these very convincing arguments and voted for the Statute however when it came up against the courts, they felt that this was a violation of privacy and threw the Statute out. In fact they have upheld the Statute in several states, and so the future vibrators is not entirely clear.
First broadcast on Radio National's Late Night Live on May 11, 1999.