Female hysteria is not just a recent phenomenon. The condition has been in existence for as long as humanity itself. So, understanding it requires an in-depth understanding of its history and how physicians must have handled it.
While not exactly sure of the original causes, ancient thinkers and physicians often associated the various symptoms of female hysteria with the uterus moving in different parts of the body.
The thought is that every part of the body touched by the free-moving uterus would violently react and cause even more symptoms. As a result, some 17th-century neurologists would diagnose it as a psychological disorder and use hypnosis to cure sick females.
According to 1700s French physician Joseph Raulin, hysteria is an illness that often spreads through air pollution in highly populated urban areas. He says that women are more predisposed because they are highly emotional and irritable.
Even then, chest pain, difficulty swallowing, emotional states such as crying, laughing, and sexual forwardness were symptomized as hysteria.
What Exactly Is Female Hysteria?
Most medical professionals and psychologists explain female hysteria as an uncontrollable, emotionally charged behavior of the hysterical. The disproportionate emotional state carries with it a wide range of symptoms that mainly affect the fair gender. Experts say patients exhibiting some or even all of the hysterical symptoms might be diagnosed with a condition known as a dissociative disorder.
Some of the common symptoms of female hysteria include shortness of breath and fainting. Patients also depict extreme anxiety, outburst, and irritability. It is often an uncomfortable ailment with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.
In the earlier Victorian times, curing this ailment would be via pelvic massage, including rubbing the genitals. In recent times, the remedy for female hysteria lies in treatment types such as vibrators. Most hysteria therapists consider a vibrator a reliable electromagnet instrument that can quickly offer relief for female hysteria.
The Medical Term for Hysteria
The medical term for hysteria is Conversion disorder. The condition is comes with a wide range of psychic, sensory, and gross motor disturbances. While there are records of the disorder affecting all types of people, from the elderly to children, it is more prevalent among women.
The term hysteria derives from the Greek word hystera, to mean a uterus. And even though the symptoms of conversion disorder have some sexual disturbance, they also include various neurotic disturbances that often convert into physical hysteric symptoms.
These symptoms can range from hypersensitivity to a complete lack of it. The patient might also experience extreme pain without exact cause. Patients can also have special sense issues such as vision, taste, touch, smell, and hearing.
The motor symptoms of conversion disorder include paralysis, tremors, and even convulsions. Doctors also diagnose Some patients with loss of speech, nausea, vomiting, hiccups, and coughing.
Lastly, the disorder can present with psychic symptoms. From attacks of amnesia to sleepwalking and dramatic multiple personality disorder, it takes psychotherapy and other treatment types to bring the patient back to form. Mostly it is all about managing the airing feelings that cause the symptoms, hence the adaptation of various massages to treat the patient.
What Are the Primary Causes of Female Hysteria
Diagnosing and determining the exact cause of female hysteria depends on different medical and psychological authorities. The multiple but unrelated symptoms a typical patient exhibits can make different people diagnose it differently, too.
For example, in the Sigmund Freudian times, doctors often would diagnose female hysteria as a sexual frustration condition due to the sexual forwardness patients exhibited. Hence also the coining of the layman’s term wandering wombs.
Both the ancient Greeks and Egyptians believed that a woman’s uterus abnormally moving through the body would cause a combination of emotional, psychological, and sexual disorders.
A 1600s renowned physician Thomas Sydenham stated that crazy women with wandering wombs were a common sight everywhere he went. And that certain aspects of woman sexuality and sexual desire were among the fundamental causes of hysteria.
Whether these are myths or facts, female hysteria’s written evidence dates back to the 13th century. Reports indicate that women had high libidos with which they could solve with dildos.
Another suggestion is that clitoral stimulation, which women greatly needed, wasn’t forthcoming from their husbands. It is as if natural intercourse couldn’t achieve this need, resulting in volcanic-like emotional and sexual symptoms.
However, recent theories state that a combination of hormone imbalances, sexism, and even misogyny can contribute to hysteria. Any of them coupled with a wide range of stressors like an imbalance in social power can trigger toxic stress among susceptible women in a given environment.
Treatment of Female Hysteria: Then and Now
The earliest known treatment for female hysteria used various primary therapeutic techniques. These included marriages, massage, or the use of irritating suppositories. According to Roman physician Galen, who practiced in the 2nd century, hysteria was due to sexual deprivation, and it is either marriage or massages that could treat the condition. In such cases, hysterical females in marriages would be encouraged to sleep under the sheets with their husbands.
On the other hand, the singles, widows, and religious women would make do with pelvic massage. Not to sound crude, the massage would often include rubbing and touching a patient’s clitoris and surrounding genital organs. Such would make them twitch both in pain and pleasure. Such would then induce a mighty orgasm, bringing relief in the process.
Still, doctors found these treatment methods both demanding and tiring. Most clit massage specialists would come out of a typical treatment session with sore wrists and even feeling the treatment quite demeaning. This, irrespective of the enormous amounts of money patients had to fork.
Other methods would also be used, including horse exercise while at home. All it required was to have the patient galloping on horseback. In the absence of a horse, a rocking chair would do, helping to calm the raging sexual organs back into quiet and relief.
Even high-pressure showers became an optional treatment method that could help reign in hysteria. Of course, most doctors say it was a bit unpleasant. Yet, the coldness of the water would cause the skin to flush. A patient would immediately benefit from this therapy’s after-effects despite the painful and crude treatment process.
However, one thing to remember is that doctors didn’t look at this illness as sexual arousal. Instead, they referred to it as hysterical paroxysm, a condition presently known as orgasm.
The Coming to Life of the Vibrator
History states that at one time, Victorian doctors grew tired of making female hysteria patients orgasm. The use of fingers alone would not suffice, as it was extremely tiring and time-consuming. In this case, only a device is going to help get the job right.
Like a stethoscope, the first vibrator instruments were quite useful for the job. But they also drew immediate attention and interest among Victorian and Edwardian womenfolk.
Then, in the 1800s, the first portable vibrator became an effective technique for female hysteria. Addressed as the ultimate hysteria cure, doctors using this machine said it took just five to ten minutes for a woman to find relief.
The heavy marketing of battery-powered vibrators saw them eagerly received on the marketplace in the early 1900s for gynecological massage purposes. In essence, though, it was a valuable tool to help women cool off any hysterical symptoms from the privacy of their homes, but with its batteries becoming
smaller and smaller.
While the earlier times had people purchasing the vibrator so discreetly, it is no longer the issue. Whether it’s to treat hysteria or merely enjoy a generous rub and massage, the vibrator is easily accessible. You can now find it online or at your local store. And rather than a therapeutic tool, most women use it for fun and sexual satisfaction.
Other Vibrator Uses
While the early physicians used vibrators to treat female hysteria, people would soon explore other uses for them. For example, in the 1900s, doctors began to think of using a vibrator to cure male impotence.
But companies and buyers also found that it might just be a suitable masturbation sex toy. Of course, advertisers would not come out bluntly to indicate its use. And since people still viewed masturbation as a shameful act, only a few subtle hints suggested the vibrator could be just the thing for sexual pleasure.
But now, masturbation has gone mainstream in recent decades, and with it, the use of sex toys. Now you can purchase your toy just from anywhere, including those mainstream stores.
From the very beginning, advertisers let it out there that vibrators were the key to all pleasures of youth to throb within them. The point was already home, and ever since, women have been making a lineup for the vibrator as a highly effective sex toy.
Initially, vibrators were also treating symptoms of depression. It makes true sense that even though doctors were mainly focusing on female hysteria, the state came accompanied with various forms of psychosis. As an effective massager, a typical vibrator would help achieve a deeply relaxed state of mind for the patient.
Female Hysteria and Modern Types of Vibrators
With advanced technological innovations, vibrators have since gone from those massive battery-operated gadgets to using the most miniature rechargeable types. Here are various kinds of modern-day vibrators suitable for female hysteria.
Clitoral Vibrator
Studies show that a woman cannot get proper and quick orgasms from penetration alone, hence female hysteria. The clitoral vibrator functions as an effective clitoral stimulator, making a woman experience intense orgasms. It works from a woman’s external clitoris, which consists of a large density of nerve endings. The vibrators stimulate them leading to extreme pleasure and almost immediate orgasm. With female hysteria, the priority is to orgasm, and this vibrator type’s main job is to do just that and provide relief from the buildup of stressful sexual feelings.
Rabbit Vibrator
If you are a Sex And The City fan, you most likely acquainted yourself with this famous vibrator type. The sophistically designed vibrator features a slim smooth head for easier penetration. The smaller head is also perfect for clitoral stimulation enabling multiple orgasms quickly. But the sex toy doesn’t just help you quench your sexual thirst. It is suitable for strengthening your pelvic muscles, making any resulting orgasms intense and forceful.
Bullet Vibrator
The Bullet vibrator is another beneficial sex toy that offers direct sexual stimulation. It is created as something simple and merely a bit bigger than the size of a lipstick. You can quickly grab it in your hand and get the job done straight away. The Bullet Vibrator is also a perfect travel companion as it is light and discreet. But you can also pair it with other sex toys like the dildo. Most of them now have stronger magnetic charging cords, and their overall build is to help reach that intense, pleasurable final destination.
G-Spot Targeting Vibrator
The G-spot is one of those hard-to-reach pleasurable locations. Often, it’s beyond human penetration, as it’s discreetly located some inches at the very top of the vagina. Most people who hit this zone have to be more innovative and explorative. That said, the G-Spot Targeting Vibrator is mainly for that purpose. At the same time, it is an excellent clitoral play, stimulation, and penetration toy. Its primary intention is to hit where it matters most, and that is the g-spot.
Suction Vibrator
What is it about this type of vibrator that makes your nether regions tick? Its unique sensation feature involves air technologies that create a sucking kind of sensation. Akin to the medieval high-pressure female hysteria treatment method, it tickles the hell out of you, helping you to orgasm within minutes. Users say the vibrator also mimics typical oral sex sensation. And then, of course, it has a dual purpose; penetration and suction in the same breath.
Massage Wand
Massage wands used to masquerade as neck massagers. But now, you can buy one in plain sight and much loved by the fair gender. The unique microphone-looking sex toy is not discriminative, because it works with just about any type of body. While you can begin with a neck massage, you can also go all the way in achieving your pleasure point using the Massage Wand vibrator. The toy features a broad head and a long handle, both good for penetration and reaching those hard-to-reach pleasure zones.
In Summary;
The history of the vibrator is so well-steeped in female hysteria. Thanks to it, perhaps without the ailment being so prevalent, people would not enjoy the immense personal pleasure benefits that a vibrator offers.
As already stated, the true causes of female hysteria edge on sexual deprivation, affecting women at certain stages in their lives. And it doesn’t even matter that you have a partner. Sometimes penetration alone doesn’t offer the much-needed sexual release. And so, a vibrator comes in so conveniently to address these issues.
Indeed, the vibrator has come a long way. With the technological advancements in every sphere of life, this sex toy has undergone an extreme change in design. Now, you can discreetly enjoy the toy from the comfort of your home, office, or even on your travels.
Think of the modern wearable vibrator. It is so convenient that you could be carrying on with your chores while enjoying those sensations that the toy offers.
