The Evolution of Female Sexuality: Medicalization and Misunderstanding
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Female sexuality has always been a contentious topic, often eliciting extreme reactions. Recently, I experimented with AI writing tools (like Rytr and Anyword) that shockingly refused to generate any content related to sexuality. Even discussions about menopause were off-limits, which is baffling.
While conducting keyword research with Google's tool, I encountered the same issue; sexually oriented ads and keywords were prohibited.
Sex, in general, makes society uneasy, but female sexuality seems to incite even greater outrage.
How intense is this outrage? One evident example is the erosion of women's reproductive rights, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The Western world has a troubling history of medicalizing, demonizing, and repressing female sexual expression. In my state, for instance, vibrators are illegal while adult entertainment venues operate without hindrance.
Women and men experience sexuality differently, and whenever these differences surface, society tends to react negatively. Authentic female sexual expression has never been embraced.
When men serve as the standard, women are always at a disadvantage, simply because we are not men. The male model of sexuality is invariably considered the correct one. Analyzing history reveals how the medicalization of female sexuality has been shaped by oppressive cultural norms that have evolved over time.
For example, during the Middle Ages, excessive desire was labeled as a female issue. Now, however, as sexual expression becomes more accepted, women's libidos are often deemed unsatisfactory.
Women have historically been pathologized for their natural biological processes, with common aspects of female sexuality—such as clitoral orgasms or menstruation—misrepresented as diseases needing treatment.
Sometimes, these "treatments" were as severe as surgical interventions.
Hysteria and nymphomania were two dominant diagnoses for women, both rooted in a culture steeped in misogyny. If we could journey back in time, we would find a past eerily reminiscent of the present. Below is a concise overview of the medicalization of female sexuality from ancient civilizations to contemporary society.
Hysteria: The Origin of Vibrators
Hysteria is a condition with a long and complex history. Ancient Egyptians contemplated its existence, and it gained notoriety in the 19th century, remaining in the DSM until 1952.
In recent years, hysteria has garnered renewed interest thanks to historian Rachel Maines, who meticulously examined the history of the vibrator in her book, Vibrator: The Technology of Orgasm.
Hysteria was a catch-all term for any ailment affecting women, and ancient philosophers proposed numerous theories about its origins—none of which recognized the role of oppression. Instead, they blamed the female body itself.
One particularly misguided belief was that women were merely inverted men, reinforcing the “one sex theory” that posited only one true sex: male. This perspective suggested that women did not exist in their own right but were merely flawed versions of men.
Medical experts of the time believed the female body was inherently chaotic, with the uterus seen as a primary culprit. Some theorized that the uterus could migrate within a woman's body, causing chaos wherever it went.
Plato even speculated that a wandering uterus could lead to strangulation if it lodged in the windpipe!
The etymology of "hysteria" stems from the Greek term hysterikos, meaning "that which arises from the uterus." The condition was also referred to as "womb furie" and "green sickness," believed to be chronic.
Maines notes that symptoms of hysteria varied widely across cultures and eras, ranging from seizures and anxiety to sexual arousal and fantasies.
Indeed, sexual desire played a significant role in this diagnosis, with a lack of vaginal intercourse often cited as a cause—though some attributed it to malevolent spirits. Women without male partners were especially vulnerable to this condition, and the prescribed remedy was, predictably, vaginal intercourse.
For those women unable to find partners, the medical community stepped in, with doctors sometimes using pelvic massage to induce orgasm as a treatment for hysteria.
From Hippocrates to the 1920s, physicians were known to provide these "treatments."
As one historical text recounts:
> “When these symptoms manifest, we consider it necessary to request a midwife to assist, massaging the genitalia with one finger, using oils to arouse the afflicted woman.” — Rachel Maines
Doctors did not refer to it as an orgasm; instead, they spoke of “hysterical paroxysms.” Yet, by any other name, it was still an orgasm.
With modern advancements, we are now fortunate to have devices like vibrators, which revolutionize this once tedious process.
The vibrator was created to alleviate the burdensome task that many doctors