says Rachel Maines. “Hysteria means womb in Greek. They believed the womb would go travelling throughout the body. Plato tells us that the womb is an animal within an animal. (Victorian doctors) thought that the womb would wander around in the body, and cause all kinds of problems. You had to coax it back and this was its way of rebelling against neglect, which was a lack of sex or sexual gratification. Depending on the doctor it could be either. Sometimes they would advise marriage as a cure for hysteria. Sometimes that didn’t work, sometimes you had these same symptoms for hysteria that were quite various, everything from sleeplessness and anxiety, and my own two personal favorite symptoms, vaginal lubrication and sexual fantasy. Which if those are symptoms, there sure are a lot of us sick.”

In Victorian times it was thought that the way to cure any disease was to induce a crisis in the course of the illness. “You know with a fever, you sweat, then the fever breaks and you start to feel better. Well, that was the model for all diseases,” says Maines. The crisis that cured hysteria was believed to be the hysterical paroxysm, or as it’s known today, the orgasm.

One might think hysterical women were a doctor’s favourite patients, but they were not. The doctors complained of the tediousness of the task. Before the vibrator was invented, the doctors used their fingers to manually massage women to orgasm. According to Maines, “They didn’t like it because it took so long. The other thing they didn’t like was that it required skill. It was very difficult for young doctors to learn the trick of producing this hysterical paroxysm. The trick was to get it just the way the patient liked it. So that it would actually work. Not all women are stimulated the same way. (One doctor) recommended putting one finger in the vagina and massaging the external genitalia with the right hand.”

The invention of the vibrator relieved doctors of this laborious and tiresome task. “The elecromechanical vibrator came to doctors in 1883, and in 1899, we see it being marketed as a consumer appliance. Which the doctors just hated by the way. They were really indignant that someone was taking away the ‘professionalism’ of the device,” says Maines. “The vibrator is actually the first personal care appliance to be introduced into the home. It precedes the hair dryer by about a decade. It was the fifth appliance to be electrified, right after the toaster.”

The way ads sold vibrators lead Maines to coin a new term. She says: “The ad copy for vibrators was what I called socially camouflaged. There were several kinds. There were ads that advised men to buy vibrators as gifts for women, and one of my favorites was ‘such delightful companions’. The idea being that she would stay home and massage herself and not go out and spend money or run off with another guy. The ones that were directed to women were expressed very cagily. If you didn’t know what that was all about then you wouldn’t be shocked by it.”

And just what did women think of vibrators? What did the Victorian women think of their doctors and what did the early twentieth century woman think of mother’s little helper?

According to Rachel Maines, “We don’t have much testimony from women. The doctors certainly wanted to believe that some women had crushes on them. There was a slew of articles at the end of the 19th century about women - especially about girls - falling in love with the speculum which is very hard to believe. If you have had a pelvic exam you know that there isn’t the slightest chance of anyone falling in love with a speculum. Which I think indicates a very lively imagination on the part of the doctors.”

Grandmas's back massager

These antique vibrators are still around today – but you have to know what you are looking for. Maines found it hard to track down her first vibrator. “At the time nobody at the Smithsonian knew that had they any. In fact they do but they did not know it.” She finally found her first at an obscure archive of electric medical devices in Minneapolis. Unbeknowst to Maines, Joani Blank had started collecting antique vibrators in 1973.

Joani Blank found her old vibrators at garage sales and flea markets. “I doubt the people selling them knew they were used for sex. They thought the vibrators were what Grandma used for her arthritic hands. Or Grandpa used to rub his sore neck. But I don’t believe they were really used that way.”

The way Joani Blank sees it, Granma was pretty crafty about her vibrator. “They were ostensibly for back or neck or feet or whatever. Those little antique books say they are good for all sorts of things but they don’t say anything about their sexual use. I assume some people figured out it feels really good when you put it on your clitoris. I assume that women have been touching their clitorises and having men touch their clitorises for a long time. And they figured out the vibrator felt good down there too. It’s pretty safe to assume."

And now the big question: has Joani tried them out? “Most of them. Not lately but when I first used to acquire them."

Do they work just as well as modern vibrators?

“Sure,” says Joani, “But some of them are noisier and shoot off sparks and stuff, so you have to be careful with them.”

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