Throughout history, women have been overdiagnosed with mainly psychiatric ailments and syndromes that have already been ruled out, from hysteria to nymphomania. This distorted portrait, which had its golden age in the 19th century, has been questioned in recent decades by the research community.
sexuality. everything from a lack of desire to too much time spent fantasizing about sex, to too much vaginal lubrication. that was all your hysteria just acting up. luckily for the women of yore suffering with these afflicti s afflictions, their physicians had just the thing. the cure for a bad case of hysteria was, wait for it, a good orgasm. a treatment that if unable to be properly administered by a woman s husband was readily available in the doctor s office. the orgasm cure, delivered by manual or battery-powered pelvic massage was commonly provided to women for a fee by their doctors. if this all sounds a bit medieval, consider this, the hysteria diagnosis didn t fall out of fashion in the u.s. until the 1950s. of course the history of pathologyizing women s sexual desire hasn t always been as benign as take two orgasms and call me in the morning.
as late as the 20th century in the united states, it was accepted medical practice to deny women s sexual agency by attempting to remove it altogether. masturbation was considered to be dangerous for women because it was believed to trigger what could cause hysteria. for decades, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, clitoral circumcision was used as a treatment to prevent women from losing their minds by stopping them from pleasuring their bodies. and while the practice is brutal, historical artifact for american women, it remains a reality for girls and women in 28 countries around the world. in comparison, the possibilities of popping a pill to get things popping is a relatively small victory for women s sexual empowerment. but much like the culture shift that caused that other pill of the 1960s, even that small step for women could be a giant leap for womankind. so what s the holdup? that is next.