Talk:Female hysteria

Better source than beavershaver.com?

I can't believe we didn't have an article on this until ten minutes ago--good catch, that! On the other hand I'm worried about our sources here--with so much scholarly research on this, surely something better is available than beavershaver.com? I'm a bit uncomfortable directing our readers via footnote to a page urging them to buy vibrators--not because it's vibrators, but just because it has the effect of an ad. Can any new sources be found? --Dvyost 04:33, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

This article happened to be created as I was pondering adapting some of an old term paper of mine to hysteria: thus the sudden profusion of references. I would do more work now, but I'm rather done for the day. If you don't like the vibrator seller, I have a paper reference for a similar list, or I could find another online reference. — Laura Scudder | Talk 08:32, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the paper reference might be more appropriate; it would certainly be more persuasive. Thanks for taking the time to footnote all this, by the way, and to add these great images. This would be a fascinating article to try to expand up to Featured length. (Freud could probably make up a nice long section of this, no?) --Dvyost 11:48, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Being a FAC was rather what I was hoping for one day for this topic. I've still got a lot more material that I haven't included (mostly on the analysis of the phenomenon as it needs the most rewriting to become encyclopedic instead of argumentative — not that what I've added is all the way there). I've got a great quote I want to work in by an American physician on how proud he is that America caught up with Europe in hysteria cases as it shows that they've caught up in how civilized they are.

It'd make a great addition, but I'd need help writing anything of length about Freud: for this particular topic I didn't delve into Freud much, but I think I still have all my initial research, which was more broad in scope. I'm also thinking of picking up The Technology of Orgasm from the library as the book naturally touches on a wider range of things than I could in my paper.

I'm glad another editor is excited about this article. Don't be shy about editing mercilessly. — Laura Scudder | Talk 16:26, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Freud (and actually all of this) is a bit out of my field as well; I read Dora seven years ago and that's about it. I'll see if I can pop in here from time to time to help with grammar or the technical side. Looks like you've got it well in hand, though. Good luck! --Dvyost 18:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Since this article branched off from the main hysteria one, I thought I'd point out (and second) this request from the 'hysteria' talk page: "What about feminist criticism of the concept of "hysteria"?" I also wonder if the long-standing link in Europe (and later in America) between 'hysteria' and accusations of demonic possession and witchcraft might be worth a look. I hesitate to add anything myself, as it's clear the article's already undergoing revisions by knowledgeable folks, and I don't have any good source books to hand. --LaPrecieuse 07:08, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been intending to expand upon the witchcraft aspect for quite some time. As with many psychiatric subjects, there has historically been cycling between hysteria as a pathology and hysteria as a spiritual malady. Witchcraft trials reflect the latter, and decreased in frequency as the medical profession expanded and redifined epilepsy, conversion disorders, etc. as diseases. Micale's book Approaching hysteria: disease and its interpretations elaborates on this I believe.

Don't be shy about editing. The article's a little focused on the Victorian era because that was the original subject of my research. I've been meaning to expand beyond that for a while, but am procrastinator by nature. I'll try to get my act together though. — Laura Scudder ☎ 19:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Boston Legal

The episode of Boston Legal tonight had this "disease" mentioned as well as a device used to "cure" it. If someone wants to add it to the article I'm willing to help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ImmortalDragon (talk • contribs) 03:52, 22 March 2006

If you'd like to add a popular culture section, feel free. — Laura Scudder ☎ 04:56, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

NY times

Anyone want to add something from today's science times? "Is Hysteria Real? Brain Images Say Yes" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.165.126.18 (talk • contribs) 06:13, 26 September 2006

External Links

This looks like it will fit this article. I'm the author, so I won't put it there... Mehmetaergun 21:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Concern about this article's approach

This article is about 95% sociology / feminist theory and about 5% medicine in terms of its approach and references. All but the fifth and least used reference approach hysteria from a sociology perspective. I agree that this perspective is important, but I think the article needs significant balancing, especially from a modern psychiatry (bio-psycho-social) perspective. This is NOT an article about "history of the female orgasm."-Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 06:09, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe it's wrong to trace this back too far like the article does. In melancholy under "arab" one find examples of lovesickness, depression and other mental ailments being treated as "huzn", while europeans might call it "melancholy". The central point here is that there is a multitude of mental illnesses and moods that are or were not easily classified, but over the centuries different labels for subsets of these illnesses went in and out of vogue. The article as it stands today documents the fading out of "hysteria" pretty well, but it does a weak job at describing how and why the term caught on, and I suspect it places too much emphasis on the manual-stimulation case. Mental-asylum cases likely got a different treatment :-(

That said, I disagree with Rustavo on there being too little medicine here. As "hysteria" is not recognized as an illness any longer and never had a well-defined set of symptoms, modern medicine dosn't have much to add here. In hindsight, hysteria was "only" a cultural phenomenon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.118.37 (talk • contribs) -BR

It documents the sociology approach because it's based entirely on research I did for a sociology term paper. I completely agree that it needs balancing, but so far no one has stepped up to do it. — Laura Scudder ☎ 02:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Hilde Bondevik [1] saw hysteria as a form of protest among women, just to name one of many points of view. The idea here I think, was that for instance "hysteria" legitimized a violent behaviour against authority. She thinks Freud's Dora got too much attention and documented that men and children also got the diagnosis. I'm afraid I lack the background to contribute much to this article, but as they say, evereyone's a critic. ;-) -BR

Warning by IP

There is someone trying to spoil the beautiful work some of you have done!!! Please check it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.24.99.42 (talk) 19:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Automatic addition of "class=GA"

A bot has added class=GA to the WikiProject banners on this page, as it's listed as a good article. If you see a mistake, please revert, and leave a note on the bot's talk page. Thanks, _BOT Giggabot (talk) 05:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Normally i contribute to topics in the sphere of religion and spirituality so this is a rather racy departure for me. Nevertheless i felt compelled to make a correction. Somebody had replaced the phrase 'vaginal massage' with 'genital massage' and this is incorrect. The medical treatment for hysteria over the centuries was not stimulation of the clitoris and vulva but what is today called the 'g-spot'. So, to be absolutely precise, the 'hysterical paroxysm' mentioned in the introduction is not merely a common or garden 'clitoral orgasm' but a 'g-spot orgasm' which is qualitatively different. I know it's all rather gory but the details do matter. Langdell (talk) 21:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a citation, because I've never seen this mentioned in the literature. — Laura Scudder | talk 22:03, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Similarities To "PMS"

Has anyone else noted the similarities of female hysteria to PMS? It seems like PMS is just a more sophisticated name for female hysteria. Kind of funny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.192.11 (talk) 02:24, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Female hysteria/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

The sum total of the GA review for this article in 2005 is this edit summary. Times have changed: GAs are now actually required to satisfy WP:V, which means that they are not term papers supported only partially by a small number of unrepresentative sources. They must be encyclopedic and verifiable, with no original research. Problems have been raised about this article on the talk page but have not been addressed. I intend to delist this article shortly. Geometry guy 22:47, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

---

A start has been made on improving this article, but so much needs to be done that renomination is necessary.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   See Words to avoid: there's a lot of editorial opinion here. It needs to be sourced, rephrased or removed.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   The list of references is too narrow for the topic. There are many unsourced claims and the article presents a thesis which may amount to original research.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   The article focuses on the sociological viewpoint. Historical and medical viewpoints need expansion and sourcing.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   The article doesn't really present a neutral perspective, but this is a consequence of the other issues rather than a strong indication of bias.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   The first image contradicts the idea that pelvic massage amounts to anterior vaginal wall massage, but this may be a problem with the article rather than the image.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

The article has been delisted per above. Geometry guy 22:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Obsolete, but close to the mark

While the theory is obsolete, it comes remarkably close to the truth in that:

1. It does ascribe certain characteristics pre-dominantly occuring in women to something specifically female.
2. It explains them by a connection to the reproductive system, which is at least partially true (through menstruation and related issues) even in modern science.
3. It gives a solution (sexual stimulation), which is actually one of the best ways for women to release tension, overcome troubles and grief, and stabilize their moods.

Compared to other medicinal and psychologic theories from the same time periods, this one is actually quite close to the mark.188.100.199.31 (talk) 16:40, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• Go away you tired misogynist. The last one especially is true of both men and women and I'd assert that men rather need it more to stabilize their 'moods' which, more often than not, throughout history have been the cause of unending misery upon humanity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.136.57.217 (talk) 20:36, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Try reading Plato some time, kids.

Timaeus tells of the uterus wandering throughout a woman’s body, strangling the victim as it reaches the chest and causing disease.

Anyone who has ever read Timaeus can see that this is not true. --173.230.96.116 (talk) 03:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Victorian era

Should the term Victorian era be changed to nineteenth century in this article? The article seems to be referring to social phenomena beyond the borders of the British crown. I will wait a few days and, if no one objects, I will make the change. PeasantScribbler (talk) 02:43, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that even though it did extend beyond the UK, the era is still commonly called Victorian due to the large influence the BE had. Ranze (talk) 15:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Feminism

FEMINISM???!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.26.89.236 (talk) 04:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Is this a reference to mentions of feminism in #Better source than beavershaver.com? by LaPrecieuse or #Concern about this article's approach by Rustavo perhaps? Ranze (talk) 15:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It is important to note that the sharp decline in the diagnosis of Hysteria in women coincides perfectly with the first outbreak of feminism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.183.241.102 (talk) 09:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Lede

Some various changes to the lede. Namely from was to is. The original first version says Female hysteria was an incorrectly diagnosed medical condition - since then over the years various vandals have tried to change it, so it becomes blurred as to which one is correct. By showing the original, we know it should be "was" and it can be changed to "is", so long as we have a reference to support that.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 20:54, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you'd have a hard time finding a sufficient reference asserting is since both ICD and DSM have dropped both it and its presumptive psychodynamic construction from usage. About the best you're going to get is cute opinion pieces such as Illis, L S (July 2002). "Hysteria (abstract)". Spinal Cord (2002) 40, 311-312. nature.com. doi:10.1038/sj.sc.3101327. Retrieved March 13, 2013. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) It has been defined out of existence with its symptom clusters subsumed under dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders, conversion disorders and anxiety disorders, (and possibly factitious disorders) all which are gender neutral and independent of presence or absence of uteri. Trilobitealive (talk) 01:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

User:‎141.136.241.155 - Please be aware that the reference I posted above is the best I could find in favor of your stance. It, is what is termed in American slang, hogwash. I posted it to illustrate that your viewpoint is a fringe opinion. Trilobitealive (talk) 01:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

It turns out that one of the central premises of this article is probably false

It turns out that the recently popular story of doctors masturbating their female patients in the 19th century is probably exactly what it seems like-- a fantastic myth with little if any basis in reality. This is certainly not to say anything against the original author and other contributors-- it seems that many, many people were taken in by Raines and her misreadings of historical documents. I'm sorry I don't have time to make a cleaner edit, but all of the necessary source material needed to properly represent the consensus of the historical profession (instead of one rogue sociologist and those who have parroted her) can be found here: http://www.lesleyahall.net/factoids.htm#hysteria — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.228.170.168 (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC) See also https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/10/victorians-invent-vibrator-orgasms-women-doctors-fantasy 193.29.76.37 (talk) 08:39, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

ZarhanFastfire, regarding this, regardless of what the IP stated above, that masturbation or massage of the genital area was used to treat female hysteria is widely reported in the literature. For cases like these, WP:Due weight applies. A counterclaim can be mentioned if it's notable enough, but counterclaims should not be presented as though they outweigh the general literature. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:24, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

This 2016 Sexual Deviance and Society: A sociological examination source, from Routledge, page 178, for example, states, "In the Victorian era, diagnoses of female hysteria were reaching epidemic proportions. In fact, hysteria in women was one of the most frequently diagnosed diseases in history until its removal from the American Psychological Association's list of disorders in 1952. To treat hysteria, self-masturbation was not recommended (as it was considered to be highly deviant activity, see Box 7.2.). Instead, physicians generally believed that women suffering from symptoms of hysteria should be relieved through manual stimulation of the genitals until orgasm." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:43, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello Flyer, good of you to involve me. I do agree it's better to do that when there are conflicting sources. However given this is a discussion of a supposed medical treatment of the period, I think we may need to apply WP:MEDRS standards here. At present we have some sociologists (not medical historians) who claim this was going on, and no confirmation from historical or archival medical sources at all. For all we know, this commonly repeated line could have as much historical truth-value as the modern (from 18th century?) belief that medieval lords exercised a legitimated droit du seigneur (they may have done such things, but my understanding from fellow medievalist colleagues is there was never any law codifying/justifying the practice). On those grounds, I think those medical sources should be found to give the topic its due weight. It's not something I know much about, and the assertions had been begging for sources since April, so I felt it better that we first, do no harm by not misinforming readers in Wikipedia's voice, but rather someone better placed than I do the necessary research. In other words, by all means, the claims should be made, but I'd suggest finding med-historical sources before letting those claims stand unchallenged (I don't recall who wrote the Guardian article, but unless it's a med-historian of some significance we will basically have an article saying one source says yea and another nay, perhaps not the best outcome in a topic light this. I mean, it's one thing to even say it went on, but the lack of details written in anything like an authoritative tone thus far strike me as suspicious (again, thinking in terms of medical RS). Ideally, you'd almost need a contemporary book by a physician describing the procedure, and should be found easily if it really was as widespread and accepted as all that. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 22:01, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi, ZarhanFastfire. I am a WP:Med editor. And the above scholarly source I pointed to is WP:MEDRS-compliant. The sources that the IP pointed to are not, and includes the opinion of a columnist asserting that the general literature is wrong. WP:Due weight is policy, and that is also what we should be following here. The general literature is clear that "To treat hysteria, self-masturbation was not recommended (as it was considered to be highly deviant activity [...]). Instead, physicians generally believed that women suffering from symptoms of hysteria should be relieved through manual stimulation of the genitals until orgasm."

I'll query WP:Med about weighing in on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:42, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

agree w/ Flyer22 Reborn as to above statement (should be MEDRS compliant)...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:21, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

When discussing the history of medicine, I don't find the MEDRS criteria always fit very well. But we should be focusing on academic texts. Bondegezou (talk) 13:36, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Bondegezou, yeah, the WP:MEDDATE section of WP:MEDRS lists History sections as an exception. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Good to hear from all of you and thanks for the learning opportunity. Wish you well in developing the article more. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 00:08, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Hmm. This has made me think of the myth about how much iron scientists said is in spinach. Someone made a claim, and the result was an "academic urban legend", mostly caused by academics citing the erroneous secondary sources until it becomes "common knowledge". ZarhanFastfire, I wonder if you think this case might have some similarities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, good point. That could be the case here, but the "believed that women suffering from symptoms of hysteria should be relieved through manual stimulation of the genitals until orgasm" assertion hasn't been debunked. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:01, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, there's no harm in seeking additional sources for the purposes of confirmation, or diving deeper into the sources we have to flesh things out. We ought to be able to say just how prevalent or accepted a practice it was, in which countries, and conversely, to find out if anyone in the profession looked upon it with scorn or skepticism, and to get a sense of how many there were in either camp (it's hard for me to imagine this wasn't at least debated somewhere). ZarhanFastfire (talk) 05:25, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree that there's no harm in looking at this idea with an open mind about what we might find in the sources. It'll take some time, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

ZarhanFastfire and WhatamIdoing, I see that, with this edit to the Vibrator (sex toy) article, Mabandalone added some counterarguments about genital massage for the treatment of female hysteria, but it's not fully challenging the idea that genital massage was used to treat female hysteria. I don't think that the lesleyahall.net source is an appropriate source or that The Guardian source is ideal. The Guardian stating that "the idea that orgasms were administered to women by doctors is pure fantasy" certainly goes against a number of academic sources. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:34, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

It might be interesting to involve editors with some experience in historical research. It's a field that has a lot of experience with these kinds of issues, and someone who is familiar with the field might be able to figure out whether there are any good historical sources to support the oft-repeated claim (e.g., a medical text from the time that teaches how to do it, which I gather from limited searching may be one of those obvious types of confirming evidence that seems to be missing. This one, for example, seems to prohibit things that trigger emotions (pathos-filled plays are given as an example) and promote the use of strenuous physical exercise (e.g., spinning a weighted wheel) as an outlet for people who find their emotions overwhelming. Then it goes on at great length about some rather elaborate arrangements to deliver a stern lecture for girls whom the practitioner deems to be faking it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:08, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I'll leave a note at WP:HISTORY about this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:30, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, thanks for mentioning me, I had been considered looking at this page as well having made the edits to the vibrator page. I made these edits because I had recently heard from someone that a story I had always believed was true (female hysteria commonly treated with masturbation, leading to invention of the vibrator) was actually only given by Rachel Maines and was not taken seriously by others working in the field. So I got Maines' book out of the library and read it + the disputing sources that have been mentioned here. Here are my notes of relevant passages from Maines' book, which I actually thought was quite good.

I think the information removed by ZarhanFastfire from this page should be returned (but sourced better), and with some of the critical sources added too. I know a website and guardian article isn't ideal (though the latter is written by a cultural historian, not a columnist), but I'm not comfortable giving Maines writings as fact as I still have yet to find anyone else claiming the same thing, that's not just citing Maines, and I've read in many blogs now writings from people in the field disputing Maines. Have we found any other sources for the Maines view? E.g. the Sexual Deviance and Society: A sociological examination source mainly cites Maines, and the Bullough source cited doesn't seem to say anything about female hysteria after the classical period. Here's an interview with Maines herself (you can view the transcript on the page) where she says:

"I thought maybe a few people might use it as a textbook, but actually it's used as a textbook in about 150 colleges and universities around the world. It's been translated now, I think it's now in three languages, and people just loved my hypothesis, and that's all it is really, is an hypothesis, that women were treated with massage for this disease, hysteria, which has supposedly existed since the time of Hippocrates, 450 B.C., and that the vibrator was invented to treat this disease. Well, people just thought this was such a cool idea that people believe it, that it's like a fact. And I'm like, "It's a hypothesis! It's a hypothesis!" But it doesn't matter, you know? People like it so much they don't want to hear any doubts about it."" Mabandalone (talk) 13:52, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

If the lone originator of this theory is now deprecating it merely as "an hypothesis", then we should probably reduce both the certainty and the amount of attention that we give to this everywhere, not just in this article. A statement like "Rachel Maines has famously hypothesized that doctors treated hysteria by masturbating female patients to orgasm, and that the inconvenience of this may have created a market for vibrators" might be sufficient. (Read the old medical text I linked. It's clear from that description that the hysterical paroxysm – which sounds a lot like a tonic-clonic seizure, only with more sobbing – is what prompts people to call for the doctor, and that his goal is to end it, commonly through smelling salts and pouring a bucket of cold water on her.)

And then we should probably look for competing theories, such as the Victorian belief that a woman was unlikely to get pregnant if she didn't have an orgasm. Or, indeed, whatever our theory is now for their popularity, since humans probably haven't changed all that much in 150 years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. This is one of those rare occasions where I'm half-disappointed when it looks like I (or rather the Guardian article) was right. From the sound of things, it is too soon to reinstate what I removed back in the article as it stood then. That being said, there's nothing wrong with presenting the material as a hypothesis, if that's really all it is (I wonder if we can trace the earliest mention in the popular press now), while emphasizing that is exactly what she calls it, and noting its widespread (and perhaps uncritically popular) acceptance as fact. If there's one thing I grudgingly and somewhat despairingly have come to accept from watching QI over many years, it's that most of the everyday things we all take for granted have no basis whatsoever in reality. This just might turn out to be one them. Droit du seigneur all over again? ZarhanFastfire (talk) 02:31, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I certainly think Maines' theory should be mentioned, seeing as, though it may be an exaggeration of the truth, or even false, it IS, as Flyer22 Reborn and Maines have said, used in many textbooks, and thus not to include it would be to misrepresent its prominence in academia. How about this extension of WhatamIdoing's suggestion as a replacement for the previously removed bit?:

Rachel Maines has famously hypothesized that doctors, from the classical era until the early 20th century, treated hysteria by masturbating female patients to orgasm (termed 'hysterical paroxysm'), and that the inconvenience of this may have driven the early development of and market for the vibrator. Other historians have described Maines' claims as false or only true for an extremely limited group, and Maines has said her widely accepted theory should be treated as a hypothesis rather than a fact. Mabandalone (talk) 21:42, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 03:24, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps "widely reported" rather than "widely accepted"? Mabandalone, would you like to put that in the article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Eugesta (a scholarly journal on gender studies in antiquity; see ERIH entry) ran an article about this, which you can download and read here at no charge. It includes some of the information you were wondering about, about how this idea reached into popular culture. And, to speak candidly, it might be more "impressive" to our fellow editors if we cite this scholarly journal than a website that contains the same information, which is perhaps something that should be considered as a practical matter when popular ideas get de-bunked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes the King article should definitely be included, thanks for the reminder. However it only deals with the classical to the medieval period, not the 19th and 20th centuries, so I'll keep the other ones in too. I'll edit the article now including your suggested changes, then if any of you can think of any further improvements please make them. Mabandalone (talk) 09:41, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

ZarhanFastfire, WhatamIdoing and Mabandalone, I don't agree with this addition; this is because of due weight issues. Mabandalone's wording makes it seem like the masturbation/orgasm matter is just the view of one person and that scholars generally disagree with that person. This is not the case; as I noted above, the masturbation/orgasm view is widely reported and widely accepted as fact. Mabandalone's wording currently makes the matter seem as though it is a minority viewpoint or highly debated viewpoint. It's not highly debated, which is why so many scholarly texts report it as fact. And like noted, I don't think that the lesleyahall.net source is an appropriate source or that The Guardian source is ideal. We should be sticking to scholarly sources. We shouldn't be using poor sources to try to debunk a widely accepted viewpoint. The WP:Due weight policy makes that very clear. It is not for Wikipedia to debunk anything; we let reliable sources do that. In this case, the masturbation/orgasm viewpoint has not been debunked (and I'm not talking about the vibrator aspect). It's been challenged, but it hasn't been proven as false. Most of our weight should go to the majority viewpoint. In cases like these, I generally turn to an RfC; see, for example, the RfC I did on the definition of a serial killer. In that case, per WP:Due weight, we adhered to what the literature generally reports. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I tweaked the wording here, here and here, per due weight concerns. I can be fine with the paragraph like this. Per the due weight policy, we should be very clear about what the majority viewpoint is. Also, like I noted above, Mabandalone's wording at the Vibrator article isn't fully challenging the idea that genital massage was used to treat female hysteria. It's challenging the prevalence of the treatment, and outright disputing the vibrator aspect. Mabandalone's wording at this article is also challenging the prevalence. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:40, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Minor tweak here. I think that, given what Maines has stated about the matter being a hypothesis, the current paragraph is very appropriate and very much an improvement over what was there before ZarhanFastfire removed the text. I thank you all, especially Mabandalone, for the help on this issue. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:00, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Other fix here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:07, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I've changed the sentence to say that non-historians have widely repeated this hypothesis (uncritically, as if it were a fact), because that's what they've done. From what I see, there is exactly one person behind this idea, and scholars of history do generally disagree with this hypothesis (at least to the extent of considering it to be, at most, a non-mainstream treatment). Maines herself (her background is in classical studies and needlework, not history) has said "that her work on this topic was not taken seriously in the scholarly community", to quote the Eugesta article. It's worth a read, especially at the start; it gives examples of the quality of evidence for this hypothesis (e.g., there was piped water in Roman baths, so maybe women [whose use of those baths is not mentioned in Maines' cited source] used the water pressure [no information about water pressures in that source either] for masturbation!). Or – if you read this kind of critique in a respected scholarly journal on something that discussed, say, a source on the effectiveness of a vaccine, you'd probably throw out the criticized source completely, rather than saying that "some" scholars disagree with it.

This article would benefit from a section that describes a hysterical paroxysm as understood in the 19th century – an hours-long seizure-like event that was usually induced by strong emotions and that often left the patient sobbing "hysterically" or urinating on herself (or himself). The old medical text I linked above could perhaps be mined for quotations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:41, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I'm fine with you adding "repeated" in front of "reported," but I'm not sure I agree with the reporter aspect of your edit summary since many reporters just report on what sources have stated. And, as made clear, many scholarly sources (by that, I mean anatomy, sexology and sociology sources) report on this hypothesis as being fact. I've read many scholarly sources that don't even refer to Maines when stating this treatment took place. That is why I added "some scholars." Maines has stated that it's widely reported as fact. We aren't even sure that most historians disagree with Maines's viewpoint. If they do, I don't think Mabandalone would have worded the material the way he or she did, with emphasis on whether or not the treatment was prevalent. The point I've been making is that the hypothesis is still treated as fact; it has not been debunked. So, as Mabandalone and I have made clear, it's not something that can just validly be thrown out of the article. Due weight is on Maines's side. And even if her hypothesis were debunked, it would still be something that needs to be mentioned in this article, given its prevalence. I agree with you that "this article would benefit from a section that describes a hysterical paroxysm as understood in the 19th century." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:47, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

On a side note: I don't think "classical studies" is completely separate from "history." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:57, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Historians think that these are separate fields. Classical studies is more literature than history. A scholar of, say, Jane Austen will have to know something about history, but that wouldn't make her a historian.

As for the "many scholarly sources that don't even refer to Maines", there's an important gap between "failed to cite Maines as a source" and "independently developed this idea". One quick test: Can you find any scholarly source that makes this claim and predates Maines' publication of her hypothesis? (I can't, but perhaps you'll have more success.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I didn't state that they aren't separate fields; I stated that "I don't think 'classical studies' is completely separate from 'history.'" Emphasis on completely separate. Even your latest comment indicates that they are not completely separate. They do, in fact, overlap in a number of cases. My point was to make it clear that Maines is not completely out of her field when commenting on historical matters. It is not as though she is even close to clueless on history. Even historians have theories and do not always agree with one another.

As for the rest, I will look further into the matter at a later date, but I repeat: No matter what we personally think of Maines's hypothesis, the hypothesis is widely accepted as fact and it is not up to Wikipedians to debunk anything on Wikipedia. We give due weight and move on. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, this claim about history (i.e., that male doctors frequently masturbated female patients) is not "widely accepted as fact" by historians. I look forward to seeing whether you can find any high-quality sources that pre-date Maines' 1999 book, written by competent historians (i.e., the only group of scholars whose opinion about whether something did or didn't happen frequently in previous centuries actually matters). WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:43, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, and, in a discussion about reliable sources and due weight, among a larger group of Wikipedians, I look forward to you justifying your statement that historians are the only group of scholars whose opinions matter in a case like this. I've never seen such a "historians only" argument work in a case like this on Wikipedia, just like I've yet to see a decent reliable source stating that "most historians disagree with Maines." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

MEDRS says the same thing, only using medical examples: we do not accept cancer specialists writing about how to splint broken bones, or cardiologists writing about how to diagnose skin diseases, or historians writing about (current) medical practice. A source can't be reliable for the subject matter if it knows relatively little about the subject matter (about medicine if you're writing medical claims, about history if you're writing historical claims, about mathematics if you're writing mathematical claims, etc.). And for a controversial claim like this, you need a solid source. See also WP:HISTRS, which contains some good information on when a historian's viewpoint is the relevant one. I think that this claim falls well within the scope of that recommendation. (User:Rjensen helped write that advice; perhaps he'd be able to give us a third opinion on whether, say, the writer of a psychology book is a reliable source for what did or didn't happen in previous millenia.)

As for the overall reaction of academic historians, I remind you that Maines herself has said that her publications on this subject damaged her academic career, and this page already cites a journal article that does a detailed take-down of multiple mistakes, such as misquotations and assuming that multiple separate diseases are all just "hysteria" whenever it serves her hypothesis. A damaged career and the presence of detailed rebuttals is not exactly the reaction you'd expect from an academic community that accepted and supported the quality of her scholarship. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:32, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, when I was typing "I look forward to you justifying your statement that historians are the only group of scholars whose opinions matter in a case like this.", I was thinking of medical cases and WP:MEDRS, but I decided not to make the comparison. You know why? Because Wikipedia takes medical and WP:BLP matters very, very seriously and are subsequently very strict on those matters. For sourcing in general? Not as much. In this case, we have a topic that pertains to the historical, health, psychological, sociological, anatomical and sexological fields; this hypothesis, as Mabandalone and I have told you, is widely accepted in all of those fields except for the historical one...depending on how one defines a historical source. And there is no guideline or policy stating that we must or should give most of our weight to the historical sources or only to historians. You know how the WP:Due weight policy works. You know that Wikipedia is not the place for people to try to debunk things based on flimsy sourcing, scarce sourcing, or in any case, really. And even in the case of WP:MEDRS, academic books -- whether those books are medical or not -- are very much allowed. We are allowed to use psychological and/or sexological texts to cover a number of medical topics. Until you or someone else finds a source stating that "most historians disagree with Maines", then we should not state it or imply it. Otherwise, this case will eventually become a RfC case. That will be my third opinion, not pings to editors who will likely take my side on how policy is supposed to work. And given how accepted this hypothesis is, I can't see that it damaged Maines's career much. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:30, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

In the meantime, I've tweaked the material on this at the Vagina article. Anyone is free to further improve that text, of course. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:51, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

And I reiterate that historians describing the hypothesis as "a distortion of the evidence or only relevant to an extremely limited group" is not outright stating that Maines's hypothesis is a myth; in fact, it's indicating that it is partly true. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

That depends upon what you consider the key elements. Back when women were believed to produce semen, was orgasm considered one of multiple ways to remove stale/corrupted semen from a woman? Yes. (Men, too, for that matter.) Was that a common view in the 19th century, when Maines is trying to connect this treatment with the development of the electrical vibrator? No. Back when that was the prevailing view, did male physicians personally masturbate female patients? No. Multiple texts, including some quoted in Maines' book, specifically name female midwives as the practitioner. (Multiple texts are also vague on the question of whether the midwife is actually masturbating the patient or applying salves or an irritating pessary.) There's even a text that discusses whether a male physician could legitimately apply any remedy to a woman's genitals in an emergency, if he thought the patient would die before a female midwife could be summoned – and surely no such question would need to be discussed if it were the normal, accepted, everyday practice that Maines claims!

Perhaps most importantly as far as the overall balance of this article is concerned, is Maines correct when she claims that hysteria was a single, stable concept through two millenia? No. To quote King, "Maines' claims that "hysteria" is a single disease entity with a continuous history, made in both the interview and the 1999 book, do not reflect the scholarship of the 1990s, which instead insisted on the complexity of the history of this diagnosis". WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:51, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Without even addressing all of that since I have little tolerance for Wikipedia these days and usually don't like to debate a thing on it unless I have to (like this other recent case), let me ask you this: Going by the due weight policy, exactly how is the current paragraph unbalanced? Because it states "some historians"? Because it doesn't outright state that Maines's hypothesis is a myth? Again, if someone finds a valid source explicitly stating that most scholars or most historians disagree with her, or that historians generally consider her hypothesis a myth, I'd agree. Otherwise, that paragraph satisfies the due weight policy. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:30, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand why the opinion of any random historian who is not specialised on any relevant field or period of history (but, for example, on Tang Dynasty China) and has not investigated this specific question at all should matter. History is a very large field, and only few experts will have an informed opinion on a highly specific subject such as this one. Another argument that strikes me as dangerously fallacious is "the hypothesis has not been debunked, so it should be presented as fact". Just because many non-specialised, non-historically-trained writers accept the hypothesis as fact on face value, apparently naively trusting Maines more than she even trusts her own conclusion, does not mean we should present it as fact. Anyone can come up with a wild hypothesis; "it has not been debunked!" is a favourite argument of conspiracy theorists when confronted with inquisitive questions from those pesky sceptics. See Truzzi's adage. Positing a hypothesis is not enough; you also need to present solid evidence for it. When the evidence in this case is sorely lacking, which weakness even the originator of the hypothesis herself admits, we should exercise much more caution.

(Flimsy or entirely lacking historical evidence, arguments to authority and consensus galore, appeal to irrelevant experts – hmm, what does that remind me of again? Oh yeah, the Historical Jesus clusterfuck.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello all, I've been away for a while and will just reiterate my position of why I'm happy with the article as it stands now:

1. Maines's view is probably, at the least, exaggerated, as other writers in the field have shown
2. However there's been no proper scholarly work debunking Maines's theory (King deals only with the ancient and medieval part, but the really important bit is about the 19th and 20th centuries and the invention of the vibrator.)
3. Maines's view remains widely cited in the literature
4. Therefore we should describe Maines's view, but also note its critics

I'm just going to make a small edit now to remove the dead link on Maines's name and clarify one sentence. Mabandalone (talk) 15:06, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Florian Blaschke, may I ask how you came across this discussion? I take it that you looked at my contributions and saw that I'd commented here? Since your statements are often interesting and we have a decent Wikipedia relationship, I'm not particularly concerned that it seems you decided to weigh in after spotting me here, but keep in mind that I'd rather not be followed unless it's by an editor (or editors) I commonly and (usually) peacefully work with. This is due to bad experiences I've had with editors following me, and then me winding up at WP:ANI complaining about WP:Hounding. Because of the contentious and/or controversial topics I work on, it's common for editors to want to see what I'm currently editing, but that's not always for the best. As for "the hypothesis has not been debunked, so it should be presented as fact", I never stated that. Read again what I stated. As I've told you before, Wikipedia has ways that it is supposed to be work. And, yes, that means following rules such as the due weight policy. What I have stated is that since Maines's view is widely accepted as fact, we should adhere to the due weight policy in a way that makes it clear that it is the majority viewpoint. We should not word the content in a way that makes it seem as though her hypothesis is highly disputed and/or has been debunked. Because of these factors, those who disagree with Maines should not get as much weight as her hypothesis. In this case, however, we've compromised to give the opposition to her viewpoint just about as much weight because Maines said that her hypothesis has been taken as fact when it's rather a hypothesis and that it should not be treated as a fact. Also see what Mabandalone stated above me yesterday, if you haven't already. This is not comparable to conspiracy theorists and their usually asinine views. In my experience, most conspiracy theorists' ideas are so asinine that there is no need to seek that they are debunked.

Mabandalone, I agree with your latest statement except for specifically naming the critics. To me, that would be undue weight. For the very fact that "there's been no proper scholarly work debunking Maines's theory" and "Maines's view remains widely cited in the literature", we should not start naming people who challenge her on this matter. "Some" covers them. If we start name-dropping, then people will start adding more writers who are skeptical of Maines's hypothesis, and this includes media sources like the aforementioned source that started this thread. As for this edit you made, I'm not sure why you added "has." Adding "has" is unnecessary, and I avoid text like because, in some cases, the author later ended up deceased and then "has" became inappropriate. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:12, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, you've guessed correctly. I routinely inspect people's user contributions for various reasons, especially to determine if they are still active, how much and what their main fields of interest are. It's nothing personal and I did not anticipate at all that my butting in here might be triggering for you. Sorry. The wording in the article is cautious enough, I only felt I had to object to your reasoning in a few points, because they ... just irked me a little. My inability to shut up is a major weakness of mine. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:48, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Florian Blaschke, no need to apologize. I understand. I also "routinely inspect people's user contributions for various reasons, especially to determine if they are still active, how much and what their main fields of interest are," including when I'm trying to see if they are a sock. I have some stalkers, including sockmasters, that like to follow me. Like I noted, I didn't mind you weighing in; it's just that, due to bad experiences, I'd rather that editors not think that I'm generally open to being followed to talk pages. I admire your "inability to shut up." You think outside of the box, and I like that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh, thank you! The feeling of admiration is actually mutual.

Evidently I'm a bit paranoid, because I couldn't help but wonder if "your statements are often interesting" might be a veiled criticism (as it can be interpreted as implying that my statements are more usually uninteresting, although that would be a very subtle attack and quite uncharacteristic of you as far as I can determine, not to mention squarely against the good-faith principle, so I tried to ignore the suspicion – but it admittedly gnawed on me as it wouldn't be an unprecedented criticism and triggered me a fair bit myself!), in light of our past disagreements.

As you have noticed, gender is an area of interest for me and I'd read that sceptical appraisal of the masturbation-by-doctor/vibrator hypothesis on Leslie Hall's website before, so I came in here primed against Maines already, to be perfectly honest. I don't want us to propagate a (possible) myth just because (perhaps not sufficiently or appropriately careful) scholars do the same, but I'm satisfied a reader will not be misled by the current phrasing and will understand that the whole idea should be taken with at least a grain of salt. So, all is well. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:20, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

No, I wasn't trying to attack you in any way. Although when it comes to disagreements like the one we had at Talk:Man, I encourage you to focus on Wikipedia's rules, I do generally like reading what you have to state. It's just that Wikipedia is usually not the place for our personal opinions. Wikipedians disagree with a lot of things, but we are not supposed to let that bias affect the articles we edit in ways that go against the rules. There is WP:Ignore all rules, but it's not to be taken lightly. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello people - I am very new here but I'm also very interested in how this is developing because I'm Helen King, and wrote the EuGeStA article which has been mentioned several times in the discussion. I agree that reference to Rachel Maines' hypothesis should be included in the article, simply because so many people take it seriously. Maines describes herself [2] as a 'scientist' and she is in a School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, so her Bachelor's in Classics is a long way behind her. Her interests are firmly in the modern period now, and I pointed out in the EuGeStA piece some of the ways she has failed to engage with ancient primary sources. The discussion on this page about (I summarize) 'Is classical studies history?' is interesting but I'd answer that it depends - in some departments, classical studies is more literary: in others, ancient historians and literary specialists work together. I think that's a tangent to the main issue which concerns how she uses her evidence, but I've said enough about that in the EuGeStA piece.

The ancient material is very important, I believe, in examining that claim "Hysteria appears in the medical corpus as early as 2000 B.C. in Egypt". Mark Micale's "Hysteria and its historiography: a review of past and present writings", History of Science 27 (1989) states "References to something that may be interpreted as hysteria can be found in the Egyptian papyri of 1900 B.C." (NB, 'may', bit of a warning there!) but then goes on to show that this was Ilza Veith's interpretation in 1965.

Merskey, H. and Potter, P. in "The womb lay still in ancient Egypt", British Journal of Psychiatry, 06/01/1989, Vol.154(6), pp.751-75 end with:

We conclude that there is no warrant for the fanciful view that the ancient Egyptians believed that a variety of bodily complaints were due to an animate, wandering womb. In so far as we can appraise their medical opinions about the uterus, their views seem to be based on direct observation without elaborate speculation. All the information available so far shows that whatever views about hysteria may have been held in the Greek world, the wandering womb did not come from Egypt.

So can we permanently lose the "can be found in the Egyptian papyri of 1900 B.C.' please?

Micale then (p.230) talks about my own early work on the Greco-Roman material and agrees with my finding that "the actual term 'hysteria' - that is, a noun to designate a disease entity - never appears in these texts" and there is "no sense of hysteria as an integrated disease entity with a distinct nosological identity".

I think the most interesting thing about Maines is the enthusiasm with which her claims were originally taken up. The time was ripe for the image of the physician using science to make women's bodies do what they couldn't do without him??

Fluff35 (talk) 18:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Helen, great to have you here. I'm not quite sure what you mean about the Egypt references though, as they don't appear in this article. Are you referring to the Wandering womb article?

More generally, I'd be interested to know whether you're aware of any academic sources, other than your 'Galen and the widow' piece, that deal with Maines's argument? Mabandalone (talk) 18:18, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Inclusion of hysteria as a diagnosis for men

Right now this article only discusses hysteria as a female diagnosis, since that was the main focus of the literature for some time (always with a token mention that it was also a diagnosis applied to men), but there's been several books published addressing this deficit, notably Micale's Hysterical Men: the Hidden History of Male Nervous Illness and Lerner's Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930. However, the title "female hysteria" is problematic. I've often thought that this really belongs either at Hysteria or Hysteria (medicine), but it was hardly a pressing issue when there weren't any sources outside the female experience, but I'm thinking now might be the time. Thoughts? Laura Scudder | talk 23:31, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree. There were effectively three conceptual entities by the late nineteenth century "hysteria" a generic description, hysteria masculina and hysteria fœminina. These may be seen from today's perspective as groping towards a wide range of conditions, from bipolar through PMS and depression. We should cover all three concepts. A Happy New-Year! Rich Farmbrough, 21:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC).