Vibrators to heal hysteria, sex toys from the home medicine cabinet and a long list of diseases that can be combated with ... sex. This is the story of unconventional medicine for people with strong nerves.
Remember Marvin Gaye's song Sexual Healing? The classic soul expression expressed in its thrilling way the ancient view that sex can heal. Not only does it serve for procreation, expressing love or killing boredom on a Sunday afternoon - it can really have a healing effect on the body. While it took a musical genius like Marvin Gaye to get this fantastic message to the masses, it goes without saying that the view itself is several millennia old.
Genital massage performed by a doctor was supposed to cure female hysteria
Sexual activity has been recommended for thousands of years as a treatment against ailments ranging from hysteria to hemorrhoids. Just as often, doctors suggested abstinence from sexual intercourse ... often in the case of the same diseases. We've always had a lot to say, but seldom knew what we were really talking about. It was difficult for us to eliminate our own beliefs and prejudices from diagnoses related to the sphere of sexuality. However, we are learning this. Slowly.
The peak of medical interference in the sexual activity of the individual fell in the nineteenth century, when Victorian England, in an unimaginable manifestation of psychological hypocrisy, simultaneously promoted female masturbation (by doctors) and condemned male masturbation. However, in seeking the genesis of our complex attitude to the health aspects of this most intimate human act, we must move to the slopes of the hills in the mountainous regions of ancient Greece.
Orgy with 300 Spartans
Melampus, a figure that appears from time to time in Greek mythology, was the healer of the ancient world as famous as a rock star. One day Melampus was summoned to the Lord of Argos. The city was struggling with a problem: all the virgins living in it, having refused to attend the phallus worship ritual, burst in and ran down the mountain . Melampus ruled, "We can do it!", Then tracked the herds of virgins wandering on the slopes of the mountains, then overwhelming them with a trimmer, induced them to have sex with the strong Greek youths. (Do you remember a piece of male cinema, which was the movie 300? Melampus simply explained to these girls that they would surely feel much better if they allowed themselves to forget the characters of those Hollywood heroes for a moment.
According to the mythical tale, Melampus' wise counsel incarnate worked. The madness of the women subsided after they made a closer acquaintance with the Greek warriors. Having abandoned the mountains, they returned to their normal life in Agos.
What is this story really about? It is one of the first documented cases of Western civilization facing this age-old (male-created) problem of "female hysteria." The story of Melampus' treatment of virgins is in fact the story that the root of female madness is the lack of sex. By the way:it is said that Melampus was responsible for spreading the cult of Dionysus, the god of fertility, in the farthest corners of Greece. Do you feel anxious, nervous, depressed or in any way unfulfilled? On Saturday night, join the drunken orgy and you will definitely feel much better.
The cult of Dionysus - the god of wine and inspiration was orgiastic from the beginning, softened with time
Hippocrates devoted a lot of attention to the problem of hysteria, but the term was coined only in the 19th century. Blaming the "wandering uterus" for virtually all female health problems, he preached that women could heal a whole host of ailments with sex. Because the uterus, satisfied with sexual activity, will end up wandering around the body, and thus will stop causing disease to the woman. Pregnancy may be a bonus of such therapy. However, this is a treatment method only for married women. Virgins, widows and penguins have to fend for themselves. It is difficult to expect Hippocrates to help everyone.
Hippocrates also believed that by having sex, a woman expands her birth canals, making her body cleaner and healthier. It turns out that the father of medicine was on the right track on this point. Women who have wider birth canals - either naturally or after giving birth - often experience milder menstrual cramps, according to recent research.
Hippocrates encouraged women to get married and have an active sex life to keep them healthy. In turn, many other doctors - including the Greek Soranus and Galen from ancient Rome - argued for the beneficial effects of sexual abstinence on women's health. Of course, they were male doctors.
It took a millennium for women themselves to make any findings about their own sexual health (which does not mean that they were allowed to practice medicine). It was not until the 11th century that in Salerno, Italy, we found Trota de Ruggiero, the first doctor in medieval Europe. Trota was the first author of medical works to draw attention to the fact that sexual diseases for many patients are too personal issues to be freely discussed by male doctors. Trota believed that sexual abstinence was the cause of many diseases, therefore she recommended married women to be actively married. When there was a need to suppress overly exuberant temperament, an Italian doctor prescribed her patients a name of musk oil. You don't like musk named after you? Don't worry:maybe there is something in the Victorian era that will suit your taste better.
To the rescue of Victorian women!
The concept of female hysteria peaked in the Victorian era, when the condition was commonly diagnosed in women for symptoms such as fatigue, anxiety and mild depressive states. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the epidemic reached an exorbitant level - according to quite bold estimates by the hydrotherapist Dr. Russell Trall, 75 percent of American women suffered from hysteria. What could heal them? "Genital massage" performed vigorously enough to cause the patient "hysterical paroxysm" . The people of the Victorian era were indeed masters of euphemisms. Because, according to some historians, nineteenth-century women were advised to have genital massage - performed by male doctors (!) - to bring them to orgasm.
It might seem that it was taking place in the framework of some massive mass deception straight out of a Freudian erotic dream. Nothing could be further from the truth:the doctors saw nothing exciting about "genital massage". They even got irritated that they had to do them at all. Medics have complained that it is very difficult to master the correct technique and that the procedure itself takes a lot of time. Successful massage sometimes took up to an hour for tired medics and rarely led to "wrist strains".
Vibrator ad from 1906
But let us stop lamenting the fate of the poor, overwhelmed by the work of Victorian doctors, by the forehead of massaging the genitals of their patients - here comes an epochal invention:the electromechanical vibrator.
This is not a joke. An electromechanical vibrator, which weighed about 18 kilograms and was powered by a liquid battery, was sold with a set of small attachments called "vibratodes" . Such vibrators, invented at the end of the 19th century by Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville, they were highly appreciated by physicians because they reduced the time it took to induce a patient to orgasm per hour to about five minutes.
Doctors did not realize at the time that recommending a new invention to their patients, they became completely unnecessary. As soon as relatively portable versions of the device began to emerge, vibrators for home use appeared in the fledgling home appliance market.
A modern woman of the early twentieth century could order a personal vibrator from the Sears catalog for a few dollars. She no longer had to pay the doctor to help her achieve orgasm, so soon the medics stopped offering their patients genital massages.
The vibrator made a sensation, taking the fifth place on the list of the most popular modern household appliances . Imagine it:here is electricity and if you don't want to look bad compared to your neighbors, you need a kettle for boiling water, a sewing machine, a fan, a toaster and ... a vibrator.
Vibrator ad from 1927
Ads that have appeared in all of the most widely read women's magazines and the largest mail order catalogs such as Sears fantastically reflect the exalted spirit of that era:
The eternal mystery has been revealed - that is vibration. Great scientists argue that we owe this miraculous power not only to health, but also to our life force. Vibration gives vitality, vigor, strength and beauty ... Do not deny your body the benefits of vibration. You have no right to be sick.
The concept of female hysteria as a disease that can be diagnosed has gone into oblivion in the agony of the 20th century. The concept of hysteria functioned as a convenient and compassionate diagnostic category, but thanks to the advances in psychoanalytic techniques, its recognition was abandoned. Instead of hysteria, specialists began to diagnose their patients with epilepsy, schizophrenia, personality disorders or dissociative disorders.
The official reputation of vibrators as devices intended solely for health use in the 1920s was ruined by the first pornographic films presenting audiences… their utterly non-medical use. The idea that vibrators are only easy-to-use therapeutic devices did not stand up to reality. The masquerade is over. Vibrators, having left the first aid kits, marched to the shelf with erotic gadgets.
Sex toys from the home medicine cabinet
In addition to vibrators, many other interesting gadgets appeared on the market. In the 1890s, advertisements for Dr. Perfect Anal Dilators began appearing in the medical press. Young . The rubber dilators, available in kits of four from 1.25 cm to 10 cm in diameter, were whatever Victorian anal plugs were sold as health-related products. Advertisements touted the effectiveness of anal dilators against chronic constipation and hemorrhoids, proclaiming:
If you recommend our dilator kit to at least some of your chronic constipation patients, you will soon find it indispensable for treating all cases of this condition. ” The kit is priced at $ 2.50 "for the medical people.
Excellent Dr. Young was sold from the late 19th century to the 1940s, when the New York South District attorney confiscated a shipment of devices because they were incorrectly labeled. The contents of the packaging were no longer advertised merely as anal dilators to relieve constipation:the manufacturer went so far as - what a charlatan way - to label his product with an endless list of ailments the product allegedly treated. The dilators were somehow supposed to eliminate bad breath and the unpleasant aftertaste in the mouth. The instruction briskly encouraged:"Do not neglect using your Extenders [...] use them as much as you want".
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) disagreed, arguing that claims that dilators would permanently treat constipation and anal varicose veins were untrue. On the contrary, a dilator is one of the last things you'd like to deal with while your hemorrhoid symptoms worsen. The FDA has also ruled that dilators can be dangerous to health if used too often or for too long. The entire batch of goods has been destroyed. Production of Dr. Young was abandoned. Nothing is lost:you can easily find their replicas on the Internet.
Orgone energy accumulator
Shortly after the end of anal dilators, a psychologist presented his gripping concept of sexual energy, making a significant impact on Western culture. Dr. Wilhelm Reich, a scholar of the second wave of the post-Freudian psychoanalytic movement, developed a complex theory about the universal life energy he called orgone - it was the same universal life energy that acupuncturists call qi, Star Wars afani simply Force. Reich argued that orgone overfills all living matter and that many diseases are the result of limited or deficient orgone flow.
So what was the best way to generate orgone energy and share it? Sex. Therefore, Reich was a strong advocate of sexual liberation, which in its complex terms was linked to the theory of the working-class revolution. He regarded libido as a fundamental positive life force, constantly suppressed by the state system.
Reich's theories did not particularly appeal to conservatives. However, they flawlessly hit the tastes of the fledgling counterculture movement of post-war America. The beats with open arms adopted Reich's concepts, especially his chest. An orgone box. The Orgone Institute founded by Reich created and distributed (only in return for donations) "orgone boxes", also known as "orgone energy accumulators". The orgone accumulators were just huge empty boxes in which you had to stand or sit for several hours without a break. The walls of the crates were made of alternating layers of organic and inorganic materials, which, as the creators of the device argued, favored the accumulation of orgone energy inside it.
Are you feeling depressed? Or maybe you lack energy? Just sit in the orgone box for a few hours to rebuild depleted orgone reserves and regain well-being. The chests reportedly accumulated sexual energy in a revelatory way (by increasing the level of orgone), increasing the libido of the delinquent who sat inside for long hours, and his own orgone reflected from the walls of the device ricocheted back to him. After a few hours spent in a big box, the sex must have been just otherworldly.
The surprising fact - because we are talking about an empty chest, into which people entered to sit - that orgone energy accumulators for a short period of time enjoyed considerable popularity. Albert Einstein himself was tempted to try one of these crates, but after sitting inside it for a short time, he quickly lost his patience with the device - and with Reich's theory in general. In turn, William S. Burroughs, author of the novel Naked Lunch, was a staunch follower of the orgone concept. The writer constructed his own orgone chest (against the rules, but Burroughs was not in the habit of sticking to the rules), and then spent long hours to relieve the symptoms of "hera withdrawal" (ie, abstinence syndrome). For that, the orgone chests might have been quite good for that.
Burroughs showed his orgone energy accumulator to Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain - to this day, a photo is circulating on the Internet, in which a smiling musician, waving his hand, greets the viewers inside the chest. Cobain said in 1993 that he decided to enter the battery only after Burroughs had killed all the spiders that inhabited the chest.
Curt Cobain in an orgone box
Eventually, Reich's campaign about the health-promoting effects of the orgone box drew his attention - and the anger - of the Food and Drug Administration, which secured a federal order to stop the distribution of orgone products. Reich was jailed for failing to comply with orders and continuing to sell his products in all states, and most of his research output was destroyed. If today you feel like sitting in the orgone box, you will most likely have to do it yourself. (Don't worry, you can find tips on how to do this on the Internet). Few of Reich's original orgone energy accumulators have survived to this day, but if you're planning a trip to New England, you have the chance to see one of them at the Reich Museum in Rangeley, Maine.
Sex will give you health
Even if you fail to find the orgone chest, you can still reap the health benefits of a satisfying sex life. You don't have to sit for a few hours in a large box beforehand to increase the orgone level. Regular sexual activity has a positive effect on the immune system, lowers blood pressure, improves sleep quality and reduces stress levels. So embrace your other half, fire up Marvin Gaye's CD and go to work!