What came first: The vacuum cleaner, or the vibrator?

Hint: The answer may surprise you.

In fact, during the Victorian era, doctors used vibrators to assuage
women exhibiting signs of “hysteria,” perhaps proving that there is no
better cure for neurosis than an old-fashioned orgasm.

The film Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm reveals
this and other little-known truths about the history of vibrators and
their impact on society.

First off, Passion and Power is not a porno. Co-producer and
co-director Wendy Slick describes it as a documentary with a humorous
edge. The film is based on a book by Rachel Maines, who was researching
needlework patterns in 19th-century women’s magazines when she stumbled
upon ads that featured contraptions similar to the modern-day vibrator
(though they were far less compact than today’s models).

“My first thought was, ‘I must have a dirty mind!'” says Maines,
author of The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and
Women’s Sexual Satisfaction.

Further investigation revealed that, yes, vibrators were the fifth
electric household item to ever go on sale; women could pick up their
very own at the neighborhood Sears. However, Maines says that vibrators
were a “socially camouflaged” technology, meaning that marketing
disguised the true purpose—with ads claiming they were “good for
circulation.”

“Grandmothers of today, or make that great-grandmothers, were buying
them like crazy—they were the hot item,” says Slick, who, along
with partner Emiko Omori, competed with 12 other bidders for the rights
to the film. “Then in the ’20s, they started to be used in stag films,
and women didn’t want anything to do with them.”

Vibrators disappeared from the mainstream until the sexual
revolution in the 1960s and ’70s. Slick says that they now serve as an
icon for women’s rights—an icon which some states were reluctant
to legalize. The documentary includes the story of a woman who sold
vibrators at “Passion Parties” and came up against a Texas law
forbidding the sale of items manufactured to stimulate human
genitals.

Passion and Power seeks to help women own their sexuality in
a society that defines sex as “to male orgasm,” says Maines. This
ignores research that shows that only 70 percent of women can have an
orgasm during run-of-the-mill sex.

“Within society, we are very hush-hush in regards to talking about
sex,” says Malia Uhatafe, student director at the UA Women’s Resource
Center, the organization hosting the screening. “It is not considered
womanly or proper.”

As Slick says, the word “orgasm” itself makes people nervous.

“Women have been defined by men about how they should feel and how
they should have an orgasm,” says Slick. “I do think that the times are
opening up a little bit to the notion that women can be defined by
themselves, not by men.”

Gentlemen: This message is not meant as a blow to your egos. At
Maines’ lectures, she says that there is always a guy in the crowd who
yells, “If this is true, what are we here for?” and, “I don’t need that
kind of competition.”

Do not fear the vibrator, she says: “See it as a part of your
team.”

Her wise words have sparked not only the film; they’ve also led to a
Broadway adaptation, In the Next Room (or the Vibrator
Play).

Maines says that she is astonished by the amount of attention that
her scholarly book has received, and that the time was apparently right
to drop the vibrator bomb. Indeed—the vibrator has come a long
way from the bulky housewife staples of the 1800s. Now, a girl can play
with everything from the “Waterproof Wabbit” to a vibrating rubber
ducky; they can even drop $1,500 on the Swedish, gold-plated
“Lelo Yva” model.

“The world was ready for it,” she says. “We’ve gotten to the point
in our civilization where sex is no longer for (just) making lots of
babies—now we say maybe just a few babies, and a whole lot of
enjoyment of our lives, for women too.”

Meanwhile, Maines’ words live on. She has even heard that a puppet
musical inspired by her book is in the works, complete with a chorus of
puppet doctors, mini vibrators and—one has to wonder—puppet
“O” faces?

This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2009.