“Passion And Power”: Everything You’ve Always Wanted To Know About Vibrators, But Were Too Busy Getting Off To Ask

This past Saturday, in a great leap forward for womankind, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center in New York played host to a movie about the history of vibrators. Based on "The Technology of Orgasm," a fantastic and obsessively footnoted book by accidental-vibrator-scholar Rachel Maines (she used to study nineteenth century needlepoint, and you know how one thing leads to another), the film gives celluloid life to a story that needed to be told.

In an attempt to make plain old talking head interviews seem hip and cool, the film's editors seem to have gotten a little overenthused about all the cool things you can do with iMovie. This means that the shots often have weird borders and spin around on screen, making us wonder if we were tripping on a phthalate contact buzz or something. We might be nerds and all, but simply seeing women talk about vibrators on a big screen (even with their clothes on!) is still plenty fascinating without all those bells and whistles. Our advice to the editors for next time: tempting as though it might be, stay away from those drop-down menu items and let your subjects speak for themselves.

Other than the editing weirdness, the film is well worth seeing—if only because it's pretty cool to see respectable-looking, well-coiffed suburban ladies talk about how awesome orgasms are. Plus, the advertisements for vibrators in vintage Sears catalogs and the story of how the porn business eventually pushed vibrators out of the mainstream is illuminating.

· "Passion And Power: The Technology Of Orgasm" (film + DVD info @ technologyoforgasm.com)
· See also: Antique Vibrator Museum (goodvibes.com)