Doctor's Journal: The Female Orgasm and Hysteria

The year is 1924.          
A young woman came to me today with a case of hysteria, hmm...            
I am starting to become skeptical that there is such an illness.          
I hope that it’s not unchristian of me to think so.          
In any case, this woman was really quite quirky for a lass of our day.          
She might have been bitten by the jazz bug.          
Her bobbed hair under her hat was shorter than most,          
and her skirt almost transcended her ankles,          
and she discussed sexual experience quite liberally.          
           
Into the door a lady enters          
in a blue jacket and skirt and a black top, and I can see her slender, long smooth legs almost up to her knees.          
She dismisses her husband who was her escort to my clinic          
(I am a physician for treating women).          
“Make her better,” he commands me awkwardly, then exits quickly through the door of glass with wooden edges.          
Sliding towards me like a current in the rapids, she smiles quickly at me and opens her cherry-colored mouth,          
“I noticed you’ve been staring a lot at my legs, Doctor Eager Eyes,” with a voice like a songbird that’s free.          
“I assure you that I’ll be wearing less tomorrow.” She grins, and I understand that she’s been to see physicians before;            
hers is typical hysterical behavior—very loud,            
but her hysteria calls me to enjoy her vibrant energy with her.          
           
She wears gold jewelry that accentuates her affluence and flashy tastes.          
“Now what might it be that is causing you this hysteria, Ma’am?”            
She stops her forwardness and becomes reflective for a moment with a fingernail between her teeth,          
and somehow she begins in her New York Brooklyn accent, “There’s more to sex than what’s in the definition, ya know?”          
Hmmm…            
She pulls out a lighter and a Marlboro with the ivory tip, the Mild as May edition,          
and I stand back and watch her fill my firm with the moist mist of her rose petal lips,          
and I watch it scatter the light of the crystal chandeliers.          
“You shouldn’t smoke, Ma’am.”          
Reproached, quickly shooting me with a bullet, “Men do; why can’t I?”          
“I’m a man, and I don’t smoke; it’s bad for your health.” I dodge the bullet, but I don’t win.          
She continues to smoke her cigarette, and I catch a glimpse of anxiety in her eyes,          
and a moment’s raindrop sadness,          
and she tells her story,          
“When I was younger, I dreamt of being a wife and being happy forever like in those stories.          
I gave up all my freedom for it,          
and I was pretty free when I was 16;          
I was locking lips with strange men parked on that Lover’s Hill where you can see the moon real easy.”          
She pauses a moment, holding her Marlboro, and dives into the world of her memories          
that she can’t enter while trying to relax.          
She must stress herself, bring her palm to her head a couple of times and say,          
“but when I was 18, it was marrying time, and all my friends were marrying off, and all the good men were getting gone fast,            
and I didn’t want one too old. This isn’t the 1800’s, ya know.          
So I got married fast, and I got married quick,          
and I’m still not happy.          
I just don’t feel pleased.            
There’s more to sex than what’s in the definition, ya know,          
than what we were taught growing up?          
It’s more than just sticking the… in the…          
Ya know what I’m getting at?”          
           
“Ma’am, I think you might need to discuss these things with Sigmund Freud.”          
She leaves her realm of forms and returns to our world and to her vibrant smile,          
“No, Doctor, it is you that I need, you and that little Manipulator machine of yours.”          
“All I can do for you is give you a temporary cure for your illness, Ma’am,” I reason.          
But she is so excited. She is so overjoyed and hopeful that I curing her hysteria will cure her sex life.          
           
I pardon myself to check the back room to examine the steam engine for the Manipulator          
(I live in a very primitive town, and the clinics haven't acquired Granville’s electromagnetic vibrator yet).          
Everything is in working order.          
Then, I return to her beaming face, and I remember the melancholic face I knew a minute before,          
and I ponder, “What is it? What is with this woman?”          
           
She begins to remove her attire in front of me as if without any conscience to subjugate her under slavery,          
and I rush to the windows and the door and close the blinds.          
She is like Eve before the fruit—without any shame of her naked feminine shape,          
so somehow she is purer a woman than the many more modest ones I get          
though I might be only thinking so          
because I am a lover of the aesthetic and womanly,          
but there must be something else—something special that I like about a woman that’s free and well-spoken          
(her clothes are now completely off), and that something makes me constantly more liberal everyday.          
It is the fault of these Flappers.          
           
I set a sheet over the plank at which she will lie,          
and she plops herself down with the grace of being ungraceful.          
This similar scene has progressed for thousands of years.          
Women have been attending clinics to handle their hysteria          
ever since the Greeks came up with the idea of the wandering uterus          
that wanders around a woman’s body when it isn’t properly managed and causes her mental distress.          
In fact, uterus is where the word hysteria comes from. The Greek for uterus is hystera.          
This way, I believe, is the most humane in solving this issue—          
massage the clitoris until the woman has reached the height of her hysteria and it is released from her,          
until suddenly, she is serene and calm.          
           
In front of her the Manipulator prepares itself, pounding and whistling loud as if anxious, as if harboring the same impatient energy as her.          
I wonder if her partner is able to match her as well.          
“Often times,” she says as if a guru of some sort,            
“the bear enters the cave, then falls asleep, awakes and leaves,            
and comes back to the cave again with no vigor            
whenever he is done with everything else that he has planned,          
but the bear that treats the cave as an adventure will know the cave so much more,          
and the cave loves to be explored. She is rich of many jewels that beg the bear that he’d desire them.”          
           
Yet, I refute, “My job is to think more of a flower. To entertain a flower, one does not go into it.          
He merely brushes the petals, and the flower’s tint grows stronger.”          
“That will cure my hysteria, Doctor?” she questions wondrously intrigued (or to test me).          
“Yes, Ma’am. That clears the hysteria as soon as you go through hysterical paroxysm.”          
“Is that like an orgasm?”          
“Not at all, Ma’am.”          
“It feels like one; it feels like sex.”          
She slashes my heart with that statement—to imagine that I would put my whole life’s work into giving women sexual pleasure.            
It is uncouth. “Ma’am, I will proceed with the operation.”          
           
The long piece for stimulation is trembling as I manage it, and my gaze drifts up for a moment,          
and I see the woman’s face in innocent bliss          
with her closed eyes          
as if the sun has kissed her          
and made her glad to be a woman.            
She knows the works of the machine,          
so she mans it with her hands and with her legs engulfs it like the Atlantic ocean engulfs the Iberian Peninsula.            
           
I can’t help but watch          
and wonder what crazed passion is manifesting itself before my eyes?          
What demon of hysteria has possessed her?            
Oh, Succubus, what are you doing here taking a form so beautiful,          
and you seduce me without even wanting to?          
This lady’s hysteria is very strong.          
Her deep inhales and heavy exhales when she takes it slow.          
She drives the machine harder and faster when she is going to breathe shallow and fast.          
Sometimes, the bear comes in. Sometimes, a possum’s furry face nuzzles a flower’s petals.            
But she is in heaven on earth.          
Her head beholds the ceiling, a vision of the extremes and the climax of emotion,          
and she captures every ray of artificial light within my clinic.          
           
Later, the woman tells me of her passionless husband          
of how much it hurts her and pierces her heart to have him look at her without the eager eyes          
until the moment when he wants to come in and out.          
She feels so alone.          
The current times rob her of her intimacy.            
“After he’s done with his pursuits, I cry, ‘Hold me,’ but he won't.          
During our experience, sometimes, I try to get his shaft to rub me where I get touched by the machine,          
but he forces me into the submissive role when we make love (or intercourse because there is little love)          
always.          
This is more like sex to me though you may call it medicinal.”          
           
The lady left me with a dilemma.          
This medicine does not seem to treat hysteria, but some underlying issue that might be called hysteria—          
it is the woman’s state of sexual deprivation          
and constant loneliness          
when a man expects her only to cook and clean, but never takes time to discover her          
even in sex,          
when a woman is surrounded by people with whom she can’t feel intimacy          
because intimacy for them is taboo.          
A woman’s needs should not be taboo.          
I have found new meaning in my work.            
           
The year is 1924.          
I pray that the voice of the woman weeping in the night          
is soon heard.