Shock Therapy: The Bizarre True Story of Female Hysteria & the Sex Toy That Changed Medicine Forever
- theprocesshk
- Apr 25
- 3 min read
Updated: May 25
The 4,000-Year Medical Gaslighting of Women: From Wandering Wombs to Vibrator Treatments...
"The longest-running medical farce in history" began when ancient Greek doctors diagnosed half the population with a disease that didn't exist. For four millennia, women's perfectly normal emotions and sexual needs were pathologized as "hysteria" - a catch-all diagnosis that justified everything from exorcisms to forced orgasms. This is the shocking true story of how medicine invented, treated, and ultimately debunked a phantom illness that shaped gender politics to this day.
Chapter 1:
Ancient Gynecology's Greatest Hits (2000 BCE-1800s)
The "wandering womb" theory dominated medical thinking longer than the concept of germs has existed. Hippocrates (460-370 BCE) believed the uterus could detach and wander the body like a restless animal, causing symptoms from anxiety to seizures.
His treatments read like medieval torture manuals:
- Sniff Tests: Patients held rotten onions to their nose while doctors wafted floral scents toward their vagina to "lure" the uterus back (1)
- Fumigation: Smoke enemas using burning herbs to "frighten" the womb into place
- Marital Mandates: The 16th-century text The Diseases of Women prescribed "regular marital relations" as treatment (code for penetrative sex)
- Herbal Pessaries: Vaginal suppositories of opium, rose oil, or crocodile dung
The Ultimate Irony: These same physicians dismissed menstrual pain as "psychological" while prescribing treatments that belonged in a witch's grimoire.
Chapter 2:
From Medicine to Witchcraft (500–1600s CE)
As Christianity spread, hysteria was rebranded as demonic possession:
- Exorcisms replaced medical treatments for "hysterical" convulsions
- The Malleus Maleficarum (1487) declared "All witchcraft comes from carnal lust", justifying witch trials (2)
- Masturbation bans emerged, as "self-abuse" was believed to corrupt the uterus
Victims Included:
- Joan of Arc (accused of "hysterical visions")
- "Possessed" nuns in Loudun (1630s), whose "fits" were likely epilepsy or sexual frustration
Chapter 3: The Victorian Orgasm Machine (1880-1920)
By the 1800s, doctors faced an epidemic of "hysterical" middle-class women. The treatment? Manual "pelvic massage" to "paroxysm" (orgasm).
When physicians grew fatigued, technology intervened --- The First Vibrators:
The Fall: When early films like The Godless Girl (1929) linked vibrators to "sexual deviancy", ads disappeared overnight (3).
Chapter 4:
The Science That Shattered Myths (1950s-Today)
Masters & Johnson were The Rebel Sex Scientists Who Exposed Medicine’s Biggest Lies...
They turned a St. Louis brothel into a lab, wired volunteers to machines, and filmed 10,000 orgasms—all to prove what doctors got wrong for 4,000 years. Meet William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the most scandalous research duo in medical history, who:
🔬 Discovered the clitoris is the real pleasure center (not the vagina, as Freud claimed)
📹 Filmed the first biological proof of female orgasm—ending the "frigidity" myth
💡 Revealed women can have multiple orgasms (while men need recovery time)
⚡ Debunked the Victorian notion that "hysterical paroxysms" were a medical condition
Their 1966 bombshell book Human Sexual Response sold 300,000 copies in months—and made the Vatican so furious it was banned in Ireland.
The Irony? While studying "dysfunction," they exposed the real disorder: a medical system that pathologized women’s bodies for millennia.
William Masters and Virginia Johnson's clandestine lab studies revolutionized sexual medicine:
Key Discoveries:
- The clitoris has 15,000 nerve endings (vs. the vagina's 400)
- "Hysterical paroxysms" were simply orgasms with measurable physiological markers
- Women's arousal follows a fundamentally different pattern than men's
Modern Impact:
- "Hysteria" removed from DSM, a medical book that referencing psychiatric diseases (1980)
- FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved vibrators for "female sexual dysfunction" (2000)
- Recognition of PGAD (persistent genital arousal disorder) as legitimate (4)
Why Your Doctor Still Doesn't Get It
The hysteria legacy persists through:
Medical Gaslighting 2.0:
- 70% of endometriosis patients wait 7+ years for diagnosis
- Women are 50% more likely to be prescribed sedatives than pain meds (5)
- Modern "Hysterias": From BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) to fibromyalgia, we're still pathologizing women's experiences
The Bottom Line: The next time someone calls you "hysterical," remind them it's the only diagnosis in history that required orgasms as treatment.
Sources for Shock Therapy: The Bizarre True Story of Female Hysteria & the Sex Toy That Chan:
1. King, H. (2011). *Hippocrates' Woman.* Routledge.
2. Showalter, E. (1985). *The Female Malady.* Pantheon.
3. Maines, R. (1999). *The Technology of Orgasm.* JHU Press.
4. Leiblum, S. (2001). *Persistent genital arousal disorder.* Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.
5. Chen, E.H., et al. (2008). *Gender disparity in analgesic treatment.* Academic Emergency Medicine.
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