The history of female masturbation

Brut America

Female masturbation... Fact: Can reduce stress. Fiction: Can cure women from hysteria.  Sex historian Hallie Lieberman breaks down the stigma behind female pleasure.

Transcript

00:00A fear around women's masturbation throughout history has been the idea that women will

00:14be independent sexual creatures, that they will not need a man for sexual pleasure.

00:30In places like Liz Estrada, there are jokes about masturbation and there are women talking

00:56about having a sex strike if their men don't come home from war and how they will use dildos

01:04to masturbate.

01:22His main claims in the book about why you shouldn't masturbate and why masturbation

01:27was so bad was because it was addictive.

01:30So partner sex, you just can't do as often and so it's less dangerous and he also said

01:37it was harmful because it could injure the muscles and nerves.

02:04Rachel Maine's vibrator myth and the hysteria vibrator myth is that doctors were masturbating

02:11women's clitorises with vibrators in doctor's offices or were using vibrators on women's

02:18clitorises in doctor's office and no one knew it was sexual and no one realized it because

02:23the clitoris is misunderstood.

02:26That's the basis of the myth and that is just not accurate because if you look at medical

02:31literature in the late 19th century and early 20th century, not only did doctors know what

02:37the clitoris is, but they're also worried about women masturbating too much and touching

02:45their clitorises too much.

02:47They're so worried during this time period that there are the spate of clitoridectomies.

02:54Some unlucky women who masturbated too much or people believe they did, they got their

03:00clitoris removed.

03:16He was against using vibrators for women and he thought that they could be used for all

03:22sorts of things for men, for all sorts of nervous and muscle conditions, including and

03:31also impotence, that vibrating the perineum could cure impotence.

03:53The big vibrator revolution happened with Betty Dodson, the masturbation pioneer, second

04:00wave feminist, radical feminist, who basically what she did was she held these workshops

04:08where she would teach women how to masturbate together.

04:13Dodson argued that the only way women were going to get full freedom and liberate themselves

04:22from marriage and being stuck in these dependent relations, both economically and sexually

04:28with men, was through learning how to give themselves sexual pleasure, learning how to

04:35give themselves an orgasm, masturbating, and so the vibrator was a tool that could basically

04:41unlock your independence.

05:02In the episode, Charlotte, one of the main characters, gets addicted to this rabbit vibrator

05:09because it's so powerful and she doesn't want to leave her house, she doesn't want to go

05:13anywhere, she just wants to masturbate.

05:16Journals came out and said, this is so progressive.

05:18But then when I looked back on it, when I was researching it, I was like, wait, is it

05:22progressive?

05:23Because this woman gets addicted to her vibrator, she gets addicted to masturbation.

05:28At the end of the episode, her friends come over and have the rabbit intervention taken

05:32away from her so she could have a normal life and be in a relationship with a guy.

05:36So the message is that masturbation is dangerous, is addictive, vibrators are dangerous, addictive,

05:43and yeah, they can be fun, but in the end, you need to abandon them for a man.

05:47So if you look at the message, it's a little bit regressive.

06:06One of the most important things I think now is the rise of the sex tech industry and the

06:35women involved in sex tech who founded these companies that are all about normalizing women's

06:42masturbation, that are all about making sex toys in a way that aren't just giant dildos

06:50but are beautiful objects that women would not be afraid to have in their living room.

06:55So we have a bunch of women who've gone into this industry who are helping to change ideas

07:04around masturbation.

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