The Technology Of Orgasm Summary

The book The Technology of Orgasm begins innocently, with the author, Rachel P. Maines rifling through old needlework catalogs and magazines (Modern Priscilla) in order to prepare for scholarly documentation of needlework in the late 1800’2 and 1900’s. She stumbles upon advertisements for vibrators in this era, which leads her on a journey through the Bakken Museum located here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The book within the first chapter delves into the history and definition of hysteria. Maines presents the definition of the androcentric model - the idea that penile vaginal intercourse is “the only real thing” and should be capable of sexually satisfying (producing an orgasm for) both the man and woman involved. She goes on to say that this …show more content…
Maines constantly comes back to the notion of the Androcentric model of sexuality, thus leading the reader to conclude that this is her main thesis, However she doesn’t fully solidify this until the last chapter of the book in which she proclaims “... that we have been willing to sacrifice so much to it [ the androcentric model].” The reader can gouge many messages that emerge within this work. The first is that the medical field, from the beginning of time, has been dominated by males and thus developed a dismissive attitude towards women. The second is that female sexaulity has always been obscure to men and that they have developed a medicalized gaze in response to this in order to control it. The third and final message is that medical field’s disdain towards the idea of women using vibrators at home highlights their defensive attitude towards patient …show more content…
Another aspect that weakens Maines’ argument is that there are no female voices present within her work. Maines herself points out how “the voices of women are seldom heard”, so it is surprising to see that most of the sources Maines incorporates in her book are those written by men, even though many women have written about the subject matter. In spite of this all Maines’ argument is actually very convincing due to her first and last chapters being written phenomenally. This is important because in these chapters she presents her argument and also states all the evidence used to come to the conclusion that sexual dissatisfaction due to the androcentric model of sexuality has always been the main cause of women's mysterious symptoms classified under the broad all encompassing term of hysteria. Over all this book was a good read but would not be a strong contender in upholding researching unless used in conjunction with other