with filmmaker Wendy Slick, and Professor Rachel Maines (STS)
and Professor Trevor Pinch (STS)
"Diamonds aren't a girl's best friend in Power & Passion, Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori's delightful, even inspirational survey of the historical attitudes, treatments and controversies attending female orgasm—in particular, its stellar medical-technological helper, the vibrator." (Variety) The documentary is based on the book by Rachel P. Maines, Visiting Scholar in Cornell's Science and Technology Program, The Technology of Orgasm: 'Hysteria,' the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction. The history of the vibrator and its medical use had virtually vanished until historian Maines, researching needlework patterns in early 20th century women's magazines, ran across ads for electric vibrators. Piquing her curiosity, she traced the origins of this early electrified appliance and made an astonishing discovery. Under the guise of a medical treatment, Victorian doctors had used vibrators to relieve women of symptoms of hysteria by masturbating them to orgasm. Why did women need this treatment? Female sexual satisfaction was, and continues to be, misunderstood or, worse, ignored. Almost 70% of women do not reach orgasm by penetration alone. Yet, the social, legal and religious definition of "real" sex is just that: penetration of the vagina to MALE orgasm. FEMALE orgasm isn't even considered. Is it any wonder that a lot of women were unsatisfied? Their dissatisfaction was labeled "hysteria." Symptoms of hysteria were vague—being cranky, reading French novels while wearing tight corsets, etc. It was a disease manufactured by doctors creating a lucrative clientele and a mutually camouflaged procedure that satisfied both. In the late 1920s, vibrators began appearing in blue movies. The camouflage was blown. Doctors dropped the treatment and manufacturers stopped advertising. The vibrator went underground and it disappeared from the annals of history until Maines happened upon it. Power & Passion will be preceded by the short, What the Future Sounded Like, about the electronic music scene in 1960s London, and featuring Science and Technology Professor Trevor Pinch. More at technologyoforgasm.com and whatthefuturesoundedlike.com Video projection.
2007, color, 1 hour 14 minutes, USA