On vibrators, hysteria, and subversive women
There is no greater tale we relish telling than the one about nineteenth century physicians who got so fatigued fingering women on their operating tables (called a “pelvic massage”) that they invented the vibrator to do the job for them.
Pray tell, why were male physicians giving women orgasms? It’s been proposed that the stimulation helped to treat symptoms of “hysteria,” which at the time, was believed to be a disease that caused a whole range of health issues, from fainting and seizures to anxiety and depression. Nineteenth century doctors (all men, of course) claimed that hysteria was a nervous or neurological condition, but just one hundred years earlier, physicians had linked the disease to our malfunctioning lady bits. Essentially, we felt like crap because something was wrong with our uterus, ovaries or clitoris.
Countless articles have been published about this phenomenon (like this one in Elle magazine), and all of it stemmed from a 2001 book called The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the vibrator, and women’s sexual satisfaction, by Rachel P. Maines. A movie was also made about the central argument in the book, aptly called Hysteria, and starred Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy.
And honestly, what’s not to love about this story? It has it all: the validation of female desire, wacky medical procedures and most of all, deception. Women were one-upping these hapless male doctors by letting them think their methods were “fixing” a fake disease. It has “smash the patriarchy” written all over it, but Victorian-style smashing.
Too bad it’s almost totally false.
Recently I saw comedian Pinky Patel allude to this story in an Instagram post promoting her upcoming live shows. I commented, “Haha, super funny, but this is a myth!” A number of people responded telling me that, no, it was actually true (one even claimed to have one of the original vibrators in a museum that she managed.) It made me curious to explore why we continue to cling to this story despite the many debunkings in the media, like this piece in the NYT and this one in The Atlantic.
The first detailed debunking (some scholars had previously questioned certain parts of the Maines’ book) came from academia, in a peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of Positive Sexuality. The authors, Hallie Lieberman and Eric Schatzberg, found no evidence in the sources Maines referenced in her book “that physicians ever used electromechanical vibrators to induce orgasms in female patients as a medical treatment.” They argue that Maines misinterpreted historical medical texts from the late 1800s and early 1900s (probably not on purpose, I should add), and Lieberman and Schatzberg break each one down in detail to refute Maines’ claims.
Vibrating machines were indeed used in medicine (and the vibrator was invented by a physician), but most were penetrative devices (rather than stimulating the clitoris), and in gynecological care, they were used to treat issues like vaginal muscular spasms or inflammation of the vulva. The machines were also used on other body parts, like the head, spine, arms and hips. Vibration as a treatment technique was thought to be very effective for a lot of ailments (side note: we are still doing a version of this…ever heard of Urospot? It’s a magnetic chair that uses high intensity electromagnetic energy to treat pelvic floor issues).
Lieberman and Schatzberg found that Maines’ sources which mentioned gynecological or pelvic massage did not describe anything sexual about the practice, and did not include massage of the clitoris or induction of orgasm.
In reading one of the descriptions of “pelvic massage” I was struck by how similar it seems to the post-childbirth massage people receive after the placenta has been expelled and the healthcare provider wants to make sure the uterus is tightening back up, thus preventing bleeding. There was also something called “abdomino-vaginal and abdomino-rectal” massage, where fingers were indeed placed inside the vagina or rectum—but the description makes it sound more like a bracing technique of the area while the other hand vigorously massaged the abdomen. Physicians actually detailed their fears over stimulating “sexual excitation” and cautioned practitioners to take care to avoid this during any kind of massage. (Is it possible someone, somewhere, had an orgasm once? Sure—it would be impossible to prove otherwise. But think about how unpleasant the post-birth uterine massage is…would anyone feel sexually excited over that?)
The biggest sticking point is that even beyond the sources Maines used for her book, there are no medical texts from anywhere in the US or UK which document physicians performing a sexual procedure on their patients. Early physicians were all about written findings, and they would share/publish those and debate with each other over methods and outcomes. If this were a widespread practice, it would have been written down.
It’s also helpful to remember how extreme the sexual repressiveness was during these times. No doctor would have intentionally set out to sexually stimulate their patients, and no patients would have sought it out. Would physicians have sexually assaulted their patients? Absolutely, I’m sure that happened in many cases—but that’s not the story we tell.
I’ll also add one final note here: the her-story of hysteria is a story of white, wealthy women. Many of them had horrific experiences at the hands of physicians, and a lot of the documented “cures” for hysteria were brutal. Yet what this narrative never reveals is the suffering of lower class and nonwhite women in the form of medical experimentation. Patriarchy and white supremacy go hand-in-hand.
Why the buzz around the vibrator story doesn’t want to die
First off, it doesn’t help that articles like the one in Elle have not been edited or retracted. Pinky herself replied to my comment on IG to say she’d “read about it in Elle.” It’s no surprise the story continues to entertain the masses when publications haven’t done their due diligence to correct the misinformation.
But I think there’s more to it than sloppy journalism. Legends and myths serve a useful function in culture by addressing social anxieties. As I argue in my book, hysteria has not disappeared, even though it was officially removed from the DSM in 1980 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Hysteria has ancient roots in our Western culture, as a medical metaphor for all the things we don’t understand or fear about women. In modern times, hysteria lives on in our portrayal of women as “imbalanced,” whether in reference to our hormones, brain chemicals or general mental well-being.
Recent decades have brought about significant change for women, as taboo subjects like menstruation, sexual desire, and sexual violence are shedding some of their stigma (in other cultures, this is not the case at all.) We see young artists like Janelle Monáe (who is non-binary) and Chappell Roan embrace their sexuality, freely express desire, and push back against cultural expectations of femininity and femaleness. There is also a long-standing movement of researchers and activists who remind us that there is more to women’s health than our capacity for reproduction—reducing us to our uterus, ovaries and clitorises is so old and tired, and we’re so over this.
Running parallel to these positive steps are powerful forces within the patriarchy that are attempting to course correct, stripping us of our reproductive rights and shutting down research on women’s health, which is still in its infancy. Racialized and trans women especially now face significant threats to their health and safety.
This push-pull between sexual/reproductive liberation and repression lies at the heart of our social anxiety. We look to our Victorian counterparts as a light in the darkness; a measure of hope when we feel the world sliding backward in time. Though the hope we glean from this myth rests on a false tale, what it represents—women taking back their power in subversive ways—is far more important. At a moment when we feel powerless, I hope we can seek real examples of “troublemaking” women to galvanize us.
The vibrating Victorians are a hoot, to be sure, but what truth are we losing in its retelling? There are women and non-binary folks all around us who have done and continue to do powerful, subversive work and shed light on all the ways we are both repressed and free. Let’s look to them and tell their stories.
From my heart to yours,
Misty
Ugh, they probably thought orgasm would induce "hysteria".
A great read as always Misty!