"...Getting off is not something the state of Texas wants to encourage in and of itself, unless you do so with your hand."
-Rachel Kramer Bussell-
Bussell's article "Sex Toys and the Technology of Orgasm" may, at first glance, seem like the kind of piece fated for the pages of Cosmopolitan, but, as she successfully shows, sex toys are as political as they are pleasureable. In particular, Bussell focuses on a new documentary, Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm (Wabi Sabi Productions), co-produced and co-directed by Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori.
The film draws inspiration from Rachel Maines's book The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins University Press), offering viewers a history of the first vibrators as well as a glimpse into the real-life consequences of laws still on the books in four states that ban the sale of them.
Bussell's article gives a political context to these works -- quite interesting!