The Voice of the Vibrator
There are some things we girls keep to ourselves... crushes on our friends' brothers, receipts for Jimmy Choos, cheesecake... But there's one thing a girl wouldn't (and shouldn't) share with anyone, and Rachel Maines knows all about it. Hayley Birch reports.
Things have come a long way since suffragette Emily Davison famously threw herself under the King’s horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby. We’ve gone from voting rights to power suits in less than a century. These days it’s quite a curiosity if you stumble across a lady, much less a feminist, whose area of expertise happens to be needlework.
So what was it that persuaded Rachel Maines to put down her pin cushion and make such a bold stance for femininity? How did this little known textiles expert come to cause such a ruckus in the world of social science and, of all things, over masturbation?
Hitting the High SpotToday, Maines keeps a relatively low profile as a visiting scholar to the Department of Science and Technology, Cornell University in New York. But there was a time when her reputation as an academic was threatened, all because of her interest in a certain instrument of female pleasure: the vibrator.
When it was published in 1989, her paper Socially Camouflaged Technologies: the Case of the Electromechanical Vibrator created such a hoo-ha that she was asked to provide evidence of her professional credentials. A technical advisor to the journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which published her work, is quoted as saying, “Why, it read like a parody of an IEEE article!”
Yet in July 2022, a film documenting Maine’s struggle to publicise her studies opened to a standing ovation at the Lincoln Centre, the venue for this year’s New York Film Festival. Through Passion & Power, the significance of Maine’s early research, as well as her controversial book The Technology of the Orgasm, may finally have achieved mainstream acceptance.
But what happened in between? What brought 23 thankless years of hard graft with sex toys to this unlikely climax? Perhaps it’s less to do with her personal crusade and more to do with social change.
Curious Cure
Picture yourself, if you will, in an era reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice, a novel which was incidentally originally published by Jane Austen under the pseudonym “A Lady”. It’s the end of the 18th century. Men are either “aloof” or “amiable”; women are “prudent” or “frivolous”. Anything that intimates desires of a sexual nature is forbidden or certainly never articulated.But what this bland, sexless portrait of life in the 1700s fails to acknowledge is a strong undercurrent of sexual frustration, and let’s face it, the more fascinating aspects of social behaviour.
Around this time, many women were visiting spas or ‘water-cure resorts’, claims Maines. Many were encouraged to do so by their physicians. What they sought were not simply peace and relaxation, but a cure for what doctors of the day termed ‘hysteria’ or anorgasmia. At European spas, women were treated by pelvic douche; crudely, directing powerful jets of water at the genitals. The wife of America’s second president, John Adams, is known to have spent two weeks recuperating from some unspecified malady at the spa in Bath, England, to return talking of “amusement and dissipation”. And all this occurring under a veil of what was considered polite society.
When the first electromechanical vibrators appeared on the market in the 1880s, many were purchased by these so-called water treatment resorts. But Maines argues that the devices were also used by the medical profession to mechanise genital massaging, which had been carried out by doctors for centuries to help alleviate the symptoms of ‘hysteria’ (clinical signs included irritability and “excessive bicycling”).
A Man's World No MoreMaines’ interest in the contraptions was piqued when, innocently flicking through early twentieth century magazines while researching the finer points of needlecraft, she happened upon a number of strange advertisements. She describes her bemusement at the beginning of Passion & Power. “I tried not to get distracted from my needlework research, but you know, I couldn’t help noting down at least the page numbers.” Critics dismiss these adverts as promotions for more innocuous head massaging devices. However, when Maines finished her thesis, her thoughts, naturally, turned to vibrators.
In The Technology of the Orgasm Maines explores the historical and social context of the vibrator. She suggests that because the medical profession has long been dominated by men, the whole concept of female sexuality remained a taboo subject for far longer than it otherwise would have done. According to Maines, doctors have always expressed disapproval of women using vibrators in their own homes, despite their own lack of interest in providing the physical therapies which they themselves recommended - genital massaging was a chore very often delegated to female physiotherapists and midwives.
Sexual repression over the centuries is well documented, but as shown by the reaction to Maine’s research, the scientific community – at least until recently - has maintained a rather high and mighty attitude towards studies on what are perceived to be sensitive female issues. I’m no feminist, but well done Rachel Maines for sticking up for the girls.
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Hayley hopes her dad isn't reading this article, but if you'd like something more wholesome from her, try her homepage.
But if it's this sort of thing that gets you going, maybe you should try:
- Interesting - The history of condoms
- Snigger - Monkey masturbation
- Saucy - Sex takes the stress from speech
- Random - Woman gives birth to a rabbit
Or perhaps you'd like to join our Facebook group and talk dirty to other members of the Null community? They're filthy.
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