Alliteration in a headline is always good and if you can pull it off inside a post as well it’s even better. I was reading Bob Jones’ blog post More Bogus Racist Claims yesterday when I almost spilt my cup of tea over my keyboard.
His summing up of the faith healer’s actions was a shocker but very funny and used alliteration as well.
[…] God it’s tiresome. Not a day passes without racist charges being levelled whenever something happens to a non?European.
And while I’m on the subject of wild racial allegations, noting the Police have charged a Tokoroa-based Tongan faith healer with indecent assault, this over his methodology for curing cancer, namely fingering women’s fannies, I hope they’ll produce evidence that it doesn’t work. Frankly, it sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
That aside, the Tongan accused should stick to the tried and true defence and claim the Police charge is simply racism. That should do the trick.
Of course “fingering women’s fannies” is not a new thing in medicine. Believe it or not, it was considered a cure for women’s “hysteria” back in the day. Women actually paid to visit a doctor who would stimulate them in order to give them an orgasm in order to cure them of their “hysteria.” Needless to say, these doctors were in high demand; especially if they were good looking.
Until the 20th century, American and European men, including physicians, believed that women did not experience sexual desire or pleasure. […]
Not surprisingly, these beliefs left an enormous number of women sexually frustrated. They complained to doctors […] This syndrome became known as “hysteria,” from the Greek for uterus.
Documented complaints of female hysteria date back to the 13th century. […]
Fortunately, a reliable, socially acceptable treatment appeared. Doctors or midwives applied vegetable oil to women’s genitals and then massaged them with one or two fingers inside and the heel of the hand pressing against the clitoris. With this type of massage, women had orgasms and experienced sudden, dramatic relief from hysteria. But doctors didn’t call women’s climaxes orgasms. They called them “paroxysms” because everyone knew that women were incapable of sexual feelings, so they could not possibly experience orgasm.
By the early 19th century, physician-assisted paroxysm was firmly entrenched in Europe and the U.S., and proved a financial godsend for many doctors. […] For more on the 19th-century treatment of hysteria, read The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle or see the movie.
psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/all-about-sex/201303/hysteria-and-the-strange-history-vibrators
