Vibrator: The Greatest Medical Discovery Ever

By Alex in Advertising, Film, Gadgets, Hacks & Mods, Pictures on Nov 15, 2007 at 5:16 pm

Passion & Flower, a documentary by Emiko Omori and Wendy Slick, chronicles the invention of the "greatest medical discovery ever": the vibrator!

The film chronicles the invention of the vibrator and its impact on sexual politics by tracing it from a labor saving device invented by doctors to cure women of "hysteria" to a household product manufactured and sold by mainstream companies such as Sears Roebuck, General Electric and Hamilton Beach. In the 1920s the vibrator goes underground and is re-discovered during the rise of feminism in the 1970s.

In 2004 the astonishing story continues in Texas when a housewife
is arrested for selling vibrators to two undercover cops posing as a dysfunctional couple. She had broken a state law. Texas and three other states have enacted these laws as a backlash to the feminist movement. In these states, however, it is legal to sell Viagra. This case has far-reaching contemporary implications for sexual freedom, civil liberties and the right to privacy.

Link – via The World’s Fair

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Britt
Nov 15th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Wait, it’s illegal to sell vibrators in some states? What on Earth?
tom b
Nov 15th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
“Wait, it’s illegal to sell vibrators in some states? What on Earth”

Bush should use one to vibrate his brain. It might help.
fred
Nov 15th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
“In 2004 the astonishing story continues in Texas when a housewife
is arrested for selling vibrators to two undercover cops posing as a dysfunctional couple”

Your tax dollars at work. They could be arresting “illegals” or burglars or something, but that might involve actual effort, or–gasp– danger.
kid icarus
Nov 15th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
i think the law is something along the lines of you can’t sell sex toys. they have to be labeled as novelty item in order to get past the being illegal bit. which depending on how she worded the selling of the vibrator, i guess, could constitute a breach of the law. can anyone else verify this?
jenjen
Nov 15th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
The law in Texas is that you can’t “promote” sex toys or explain how to use them. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/grossman/20040127.html
gwen
Nov 15th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
novelty toys,vibrators,sex toys, what ever you want to call them. let people do there thing they aren’t HURTING any one.
Siduri
Nov 15th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Originally, vibrators were invented as a shortcut for physicians, who up to that point had been stimulating women manually to release their hysteria. Best job ever!
biltmore
Nov 15th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Our tax dollars at work! Keeping America PURE for the Puritans!
Jill
Nov 16th, 2007 at 12:02 am
“Originally, vibrators were invented as a shortcut for physicians, who up to that point had been stimulating women manually to release their hysteria.”

Huh? Why did the doctors have to do this? Did they not relate orgasms to sex? Why was this (doctors getting women “off”) considered o.k.? Were these hysterical women not married or were their husbands just incompetent? Had no one ever heard of self pleasure? I really don’t understand this.
Abestar
Nov 16th, 2007 at 4:30 am
Jill why don’t you do a bit of research instead of just being all upset and confused?
Holly
Nov 16th, 2007 at 6:38 am
i like how this law was put into effect to combat the feminists. “You burn your bra (which actually never happened) we take your sex! no happy for you!”

i think we should take a moment of silence to remember those physicians who created the vibrator.
(zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…zzzzz)

thank you.
LordCaes
Nov 16th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Apparently women who went to their doctor to receive the vibrator treatment, were very happy with the results. Rather than feeling exploited by pervy doctors, or violated or whatever, these were the first orgasms they had ever had and so it was a pretty big revelation. At the time men didn’t really care too much about how women felt during sex, and many thought those that masturbated were crazy and had them locked up.
I was going to say thank goodness we live in enlightened times, except of course in the U.S. these laws were made and still exist for who knows what reason. America – the land of freedom. Yeah right.
ted
Nov 16th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Comparing vibrators with Viagra is apples to oranges. Sure, they both start with “vi-”, but that’s where the similarity ends.

We shouldn’t leap to conclusions about why the laws were put into place. The real reason is shoddy workmanship on the part of the original vibrator manufacturers, and the grisly results Several vibrator-related fatalities occurred in the 1950′s. Men returned home from a hard day at the office, to find their wives sprawled on the floor of the kitchen, their faces contorted in a combination grimace of ecstasy and pain. Their suppers were unprepared, cold, or burnt.

A related law was passed restricting the use of the vacuum pump for men, due to a number of grisly mutilations in the 1970′s.
Persephone
Nov 16th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Didn’t they tell you? Sex is only for making babies, not for fun. Enjoying it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Masturbation is a sin.

But since I live in a blue state, where’s my Good Vibrations catalog?
CadenceSF
Jan 26th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
To be regulated about what you do with your body, and how you feel by an authority is to be owned by that authority. Like a dog is owned.

I don’t see why I want to be owned by any other than myself. It’s high time the government/authority stopped their blundering attempt to intervene in personal matters other than their own individual personal issues.

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