An eye-opener. Hard-hitting and wryly humorous.

Here's the rub. For millennia, physicians (or their assistants or midwives) have been masturbating female patients to orgasm. The practice was wide-spread and well-documented throughout the history of Western medicine. In this fascinating and well-researched book, the author presents examples spanning ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; Medieval, Renaissance, and Victorian times; up through early 20th-century Europe and America. Confronted with this, the first question that might naturally spring to mind is: Why? Followed closely by: How did they justify or rationalize it?

In short, how the heck does a Victorian-era doctor, for example, manage to declare such treatments necessary, efficacious, and morally prudent?

Rachel P. Maines' answers to these questions form the soul of this book. Her style is hard-hitting and wryly humorous. She shows that many of the symptoms of hysteria, chlorosis and neurasthenia may actually have been "the normal functioning of women's sexuality in a social context that did not recognize its essential difference from male sexuality, with its traditional emphasis on coitus."

So deeply ingrained was the definition of sex as penetration leading to male ejaculation that (a) normal female sexual function came to be regarded as a medical condition requiring treatment, and (b) doctors could thoroughly, and apparently honestly, deny the sexual nature of these encounters.

The symptoms historically associated with "hysteria" resemble those of arousal. During treatment, signs of orgasm were present, including contractions and the release of ejaculate, but these were invariably described in strictly asexual terms. The results were precisely what you'd expect from a good get-off -- happier, healthier women.

Maines is keenly aware that modern understanding of female sexuality is still far from universally recognized or accepted. She does not mince words in naming the historical and still prevalent misconceptions, and she includes valuable anatomical and physiological information to support her points.

It is worth noting that she could have gone further in this direction than she did. Research into the nature of female orgasm particularly in the last 20 years has revealed a much broader, richer, and more gratifying experience available to women than the prevailing "Masters and Johnson" model of orgasm, which is, at heart, the male conception of what an orgasm should look like.

This emerging new understanding of female orgasm looks to me like the next major, most fruitful direction for sexual activism. (Search amazon.com for "Female Masturbation" or "Deliberate Orgasm" for examples.)

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Brilliant!

This book is utterly fascinating! Written by a woman who's really done her homework on the subject, The Technology of Orgasm proves to be a captivating historical account of the evolution of society's perceptions of women's sexuality. It's a must-read for a woman who's confident in her sexuality, or would like to become more so.

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hysteric paroxysm

for centuries, troubled -- or troubling -- women were diagnosed with "hysteria." the classic treatment for this vague malady was inducement of the "hysteric paroxysm" -- known to us contemporary types as the orgasm. according to rachel maines's wryly hilarious history, the first mechanical vibrators were labor-saving devices for doctors tired of inducing orgasm in their patients manually. who knew? this book is clearly her dissertation & primarily intended for academics, but i found it mind-blowing & frequently quite amusing. i frequently recommend it to friends & colleagues looking for a quick, smart, engaging read.

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