The World's Fair

Rachel Maines's book, The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (1999), is an exploration of the intersection of women's health, technology, gender, and broader social mores. It's now been used as the basis for a full-length documentary, Passion & Power: The Technology of Orgasm, which was screened at the recent meeting of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). (Here is a synopsis of the film.)

I dare say this might be the very first mention in the history of the internet about sex or orgasm. Call me naive, but I don't think those key terms are generally found on-line.

I only got a chance to see the last part of the documentary, and I take it from that partial viewing that the book serves as the primer for the first part of the film, while the latter half carries the story about stimulatory technologies through women's lib into the 1970s and on up to the recent case of a women in Texas who was arrested for selling vibrators (it's against the law in Texas, while Viagra of course, another 'sex toy,' is certainly approved).

I'd add that Zuska is currently hosting a lively conversation on a similar topic of gender and technology: Are blenders tools or appliances? Are tools masculine and appliances feminine? Or, as a colleague of mine used as the opening gambit for a gender and technology class, what exactly does it mean in that old TV ad for a deodorant to be 'strong enough for a man, but made for a women'? (All akin to, Is a vibrator a technology or a sex toy? What are the gendered connotations involved in each discussion? What is the cultural basis giving foundation to these issues?) Also worth reading are some of Zuska's other posts that have touched on Maines's work specifically, but gender and technology more generally.

And I would be remiss if I didn't again offer this link, "Nothing Phallic Going On Here," for further discussion of science, technology, and gender.

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At the risk of over-burdening this brief post with yet another link, here is a brief follow-up: If you've had a chance to see the very excellent and highly recommended new show "Mad Men," at AMC, you might've seen the episode a month or so ago about how to market a new product, the "Electrosizer," that fits this same gender and technology discussion.