Rating: 
Summary: A great read: sophisticated, learned, and funny.
Review: "The Technology of Orgasm" is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. Maines' ostensible purpose is an examination of the history of vibrators and other mechanical means to induce female orgasms. This subject is covered in depth and apparent thoroughness, but her real focus is "androcentric" definitions of female sexuality and their cultural and technological repercussions.In witty and humorous language, demonstrating that Maines has mastered post-modernism and even found a use for it, she lampoons men's refusal to recognize that for most women, insertion of a male penis into the vagina followed by a male orgasm is not necessarily a complete sexual experience. In droll tones, Maines discusses the long-held male claim, supported by what was called science, that if a woman did not achieve an orgasm from sexual penetration by a male, she was not "normal," although some 80% or more of women were thus "abnormal." And never mind that 80% of a population cannot, by definition, be abnormal. Maines is a good historian, and she recounts the historical medicalization of female orgasm, terming its inducement "the job nobody wanted." For hundreds of years, physicians or midwives were paid to stimulate manually the clitoris of women suffering from "hysteria" and thereby to bring about a therapeutic paroxism. Since this was a time-consuming task, doctors turned to hydrotherapy and then to electric powered vibrators to shorten the time necessary to induce such relief on each patient. HMOs would be proud. This is a book on a serious topic in western cultural history that could have been androphobic or, worse, terribly dull. Instead,it charms and educates with wit and erudition. I hated to see it end.
Rating:
Summary: Good Vibrations: The Doctor Is In.
Review: * * The dustjacket of Rachel P. Maines's new book, THE TECHNOLOGY OF ORGASM: "HYSTERIA", THE VIBRATOR & SEXUAL SATISFACTION, reads as follows: -*-*- From the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, massaging "hysterical" female patients to orgasm was a staple of medical practice among Western physicians. Hysteria...was thought to be the consequence of sexual deprivation. Doctors performed the "routine chore" of relieving hysterical patients' symptoms with manual genital massage until the woman reached orgasm, or as it was known under clinical conditions, the "hysterical paroxysm". The vibrator first emerged as an electromechanical medical instrument in direct response to demand from physicians who, far from enjoying the implementation of pelvic massage, sought every opportunity to substitute the services of midwives and, later, the efficiency of mechanical devices... Invented in the late 1880s by a British physician, the vibrator was popular with turn-of-the-century doctors as a quick, efficient cure for hysteria which neither fatigued the therapist nor demanded skills which were difficult to acquire... Hysterical women presented a large and lucratve clientele for doctors, and vibrators reduced, from about one hour to ten minutes, the time required for a physician to produce results, significantly increasing the number of patients he could treat in the course of a single workday. These women were ideal patients in that they never recovered nor died from their condition but continued to require regular medical "treatment". -*-*- -0-0-0-0- That male doctors were freely encouraged to perform sexual acts upon female patients is startling when compared to today's more regulated climate, and it inspires these observations: * The vibrator was not an amorous invention - no Cupid's dart - but a labour-saving clinical instrument to substitute for undesirable professional tedium the more desirable swellings of the wallet. Improved productivity is good for business. * Doctors were well-rewarded, respectable gigolos, weary as whores of the endless daily parade of hungry genitals and their distressed owners. Today, they would go to jail. * Activities that otherwise would be considered odd, transgressive, or exciting are permitted when they can be defined as, or safely packaged within, "medicine" or "science", controlled and validated by bourgeois professionals. This can be liberating as well as oppressive: clinical authority can licence the forbidden while defending the status quo, such as relations between the sexes. The clinic is where we pay strangers to intrude intimately into all our velvet cavities - wearing latex - bringing fresh meaning to the phrase, "the doctor is in". Quickly nurse, the proctoscope! * The doctor-patient relationship oppressed both parties yet remains charged with voyeuristic eroticism for the reader, paradoxically and perversely enhanced by references to the austere boredom of the clinician. The erotic relationship is toned by the pornographic whiff produced through the opposing tensions of: dominance and submission; demand and supply; buying and selling; need and numbness; control and abandon; restraint and convulsion; energy and fatigue; humiliation and relief; shame and paroxysm; tender, desiring flesh, and the subtly-perverse coupling of mechanical insult and pleasure. The clinical drama delivers a secret misogyny to be savoured as a thrilling, guilty vice by both sexes - a stolen cream bun for the soul. Spanking cures this sort of thing. * All of this occurred under conditions in which the only female orgasm recognised as "true" was the sometimes elusive one produced vaginally through intercourse with a male. The more independent and easily achieved clitoral orgasm was belittled as secondary and "immature" [see Freud]. This attitude supported male sexual necessity, authority, and privilege: only a cock can make a real woman of you - it's a magic wand. Today, women buy their own magic wands and connect them to the power station, harnessing those giant turbines and nuclear rods to their appetites. * It is widely recognised that some mental conditions are treated by electric shock but less broadly advertised is that others were alleviated by electric cock.
Rating:
Summary: Social history buffs MUST read
Review: Anyone who reads social histories, biographies of Victorian women or historical fiction must eventually ask this question, "What the heck is neurasthenia and how come nobody ever gets it anymore?" The plague of wealthy Victorian women simply disappeared without a trace in the 1920s. Why? Finally -- here's your answer.
Rating: 
Summary: Not too bad
Review: Firstly let me say I enjoyed and recommend this book, yet
have taken issue with some of the opinions expressed as if
they are fact. Well I guess that is the way people write, but take for example, on page 5 of this book the author writes: "The
androcentric definition of sex as an activity recognizes
three essential steps: preparation for penetration
("foreplay"), penetration, and male orgasism." That is not an androcentric definition of sex,
that is the procreational definition of sex. I do wish
historians could lay off the conspiracy theory, as
there is too much of it running like a theoretical flaw
throughout this book. In an age where effective
contraception is routine, many men and women blithely and
conveniently forgetting the historical roots of intercourse.
It is like people in the city do occasionally naively forget where bottled milk comes from.
The passage continues
"Sexual activity that does not involve at least the last two
has not been popularly or medically (and for that matter
legally) regarded as "the real thing."
There is the rub. Of course it is not regarded as the real
thing, as without it there is no chance of procreation. Surprise
surprise, sex is actually in reality about procreation in
the final analysis. Otherwise it becomes a mere example of
persistent human sensual trivia in the grand scheme of
things, and is moving away from actual sex into merely 'having orgasisms' --- which is a different thing. But instead the survival of human race actually depends on
the 'real thing' and that is for better or worse the reality of it. Well it did so fully depend until recent times when laboratories can increasingly at times help sperm get it touch with ova. Beside my criticism of a sly bad vibe of jingoistic
femimism running thru this book it is nonetheless a
worthwhile opinionated exploration into some fairly recent
history of Western medical practice and popular 'culture'
involving the use of vibrators. Recommended. The book that is. ;-/
Rating:
Summary: hysteric paroxysm
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and fun read
Review: I liked this book because it tells about all the weird superstitions and ideas people used to have about women's sexuality and the lengths to which women had to go to have an orgasm. The history was both amusing and somewhat exasperating, since we haven't really progressed that much. Women are still trying to finds ways to have an orgasm, a job formerly left to doctors and midwives, according to the book. In the 20th Century, we turned the "job" of giving a woman a climax over to our male partners. Technology of Orgasm is a good read if you want to find out what it used to be like. If you want to find out how women can reclaim the task of giving themselves an orgasm during intercourse, without the aid of "technology," I would recommend "Five Minutes to Orgasm Every Time You Make Love - For Women Only!"
Rating:
Summary: Getting There At Last
Review: If everyone over the age of 12 read this book, along with "Are we Having Fun Yet: The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Sex," the world would be an eminently more exciting, passionate place for both sexes (including men who have previously have had unresponsive partners).
Rating:
Summary: A frustrating and yet hilarious read
Review: In this enjoyable book, only one major qualm. The consistent reference to 'androcentric' paradigm of sexuality - as where sex consists of penetration to male orgasm. I feel androcentric is unnecessarily loaded rhetorical description of what is after all (pre artifical-semination technology) the minimal requirements of conception. Why not call it the 'birthocentric' paradigm? Just because the male seems to be getting the best deal (orgasmically speaking) doesn't mean there is an androcentric paradigm at work. Masculine interests are surely secondary to the conception issue, at least until proved otherwise, and Maines did not cover that. In fact she does routinely avoid the vexed issue of conception and it fundamental role in sexuality. Overlooking this overworked feminist fixation on 'androcentric paradigm' was not difficult, as generally I found Maines' book to be a great read, showing as it does fine scholarly humility and creative maverick research.
Rating:
Summary: A frustrating and yet hilarious read
Review: This book is indeed a hoot. The idea that early 20th century medical doctors could not tell that they were stimulating their patients to orgasm is astonishing, until the reader progresses through more of the book. The book is not about conception--it's about female orgasm, which is not directly related to conception (and can be easily achieved with no penetration at all). The androcentric bias the author mentions pertains, for example, to the writers of sex manuals in past decades who counseled men not to bother bringing their partners to orgasm, and counseled women not to demand orgasm, because concentrating on "her pleasure" (as the condom boxes say) can be distracting for the male partner. THAT advice is androcentric, and a major point of this book.
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