Sex Toys and the Technology of Orgasm

For those who don't think pussies and their playthings are political, the new documentary Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm (Wabi Sabi Productions) will set you straight. Co-produced and co-directed by Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori, the film offers up a disturbing history of the first vibrators as well as a glimpse into the real-life consequences of laws still on the books in four states that ban the sale of them.

The film is based on Rachel P. Maines's 1998 book The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins University Press), updated to include the tale of Burleson, Texas, resident Joanne Webb, who was arrested for peddling dildos and vibrators in 2005 under a state law that prohibits the sale of any "device including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." This despite the fact that she was on the board of her local Chamber of Commerce and got a license to peddle her wares when she started selling for Passion Parties.

Under the Texas law, ownership of six or more "obscene devices" is also illegal, based on the assumption that one intends to sell them. There is a loophole: the exception for "a bona fide medical, psychiatric, judicial, legislative or law enforcement purpose." In other words, getting off is not something the state of Texas wants to encourage in and of itself, unless you do so with your hand. A few other states such as Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama have similar laws (the Supreme Court recently declined to hear a challenge to Alabama's law).

Policing women's sex toy use isn't new, but the meaning of the vibrator has changed dramatically over time. The Technology of Orgasm shows how women's sexuality, pleasure and masturbation have been regarded alternately as taboo and important, flip-flopping back and forth between being in vogue and cloaked in secrecy and shame.

Introduced in the late 19th century, the vibrator was originally intended as a cure for so-called hysteria -- a disease manufactured by doctors during the time of Hippocrates -- and soon became a medical staple. Doctors believed that using massage to bring women to orgasm would make them less emotional, but that process took too much time, limiting the number of patients a physician could see in one day. Enter the vibrator. With help from the mechanical friend, women could have orgasms more efficiently -- and on their own time.

The perceived medical need for vibrators evaporated after only a couple of decades. By the early '20s, women were purchasing them for pleasure, with no fear of being ridiculed -- let alone arrested.

"There was no stigma attached to selling vibrators, advertising them, [or] shipping them," says Maines in the film as she shows an ad in the 1918 Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog for "Aids That Every Woman Appreciates." Another ad shown in the book for the White Cross Electric Vibrator proclaims, "Vibration is Life."

But the film isn't just about the public's acceptance or rejection of vibrators. It reveals the longstanding connection between women's sexual exploration and their freedom to explore in other arenas.

Take Joanne Webb, for example. Was she arrested merely for selling vibrators? Filmmaker Omori doesn't think so. "Passion Parties has been selling in Texas for at least ten years," she said. "I think in this case Joanne Webb was targeted. She had a license and was perfectly legitimate as far as everybody knew. There's definitely a deeper story about persecution. Here's a woman who's very pretty, who liked to flaunt that. She was on the Chamber of Commerce committees. Obviously she offended somebody, and they dug up that law."

One of the most interesting concepts the film offers up is that the enactment of these anti-sex toy laws coincided with the rise of the feminist movement. "Independent orgasms lead to independent thoughts." Slick says, quoting author Betty Dodson. "Who was in power at the time? Men. The feminist movement was picking up power, and it was all very threatening."