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Sent: 27 October 2012 12:24 Hallie Lieberman wrote > Because I'm writing my dissertation on the history of sex toys in America, I've been checking Maines' sources on hysteria and medical masturbation. Her sources don't provide evidence that medical masturbation was happening in America or the UK. Nor was the vibrator used much in medical practice at all. And if vibrators were used, they were mainly used to treat other diseases, like asthma and sciatica. When doctors discuss using the vibrator to treat hysteria, they usually talk about vibrating women's backs. > Leslie Hall > That has been very much my impression from when I've looked up cites in the footnotes of /The Technology of Orgasm/. In particular, a lot of the sources do not relate at all to what was happening in the UK. And, indeed, that at least one work she claims as pioneering has huge warnings about not going anywhere near the female reproductive organs! There is an interesting story to be told about massage (physical and technologically assisted) and electrical medicine in the later C19th, but it is probably a great deal less sexy than the common narrative. Lesley Hall lesley@lesleyahall.net www.lesleyahall.net lesleyahall.blogspot.co.uk
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