History Horrors

Dr. J Marion Sims is considered to be the Father of Modern Gynecology. As with all Fathers, you look up to them until you find all of their dirty secrets. Dr. J was a man of his times. I don’t think he meant to be intentionally cruel, he just didn’t know any better and in the name of medical science proceeded forth into unknown territory.

That territory was the vagina. In the mid to late 1800s the vagina was still a mystery–not just to men, but to women as well. Because it involved sexual guilt, studying it became a moral question and not a medical question. After all, if you say, “I’m off to work to look at pussy two inches from my eyeball,” your wife and the neighbors are going to think you’re a pervert on your way to hell. Forget that without gynecological help, numerous women suffered and even died.

At the time it was only acceptable to palpate a vagina, which basically means to do an examination of the size, firmness, or location to determine if something may be wrong. From there, where do you go? Most doctors at the time did not know. They could tell a woman something was wrong with her plumbing, but not how to fix it. What good is that?

Since African slaves brought to America were considered sub-human and looking at their equipment was not the same as revealing a white woman’s area, Dr. J Marion Sims began to experiment with them to learn his craft. While it is admirable that the man found a way around the moral system, it also meant that he did not treat these black women like real patients. And when you’re dealing with the vagina, the last thing you want is a doctor who is sticking his fingers in and is not concerned if he tears something or causes bleeding. 

I’ve always found it fascinating after seeing the series “Roots” on TV when I was a kid that we still consider white women’s bodies to be more valuable than black women’s. It’s fine to see black boobs on TV or on a coffee table magazine like National Geographic, but once a white woman exposes herself everyone gets upset. The standard of beauty has been set so that we think arousal only occurs with white skin and black skin is more like seeing a naked animal–you tolerate it because a dog is a dog and you can’t dress them up. It’s really quite offensive if you stop to think about it.

Fortunately, I do believe that attitude has changed as more interracial dating has become normal and black celebrities have emerged as power players that make taking off their clothes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to this article found on the web, black women were required to be on all fours on Dr. Sims’ examining table–again, another animal-like insult–as he poked and  prodded them with a shoe horn. If they had resulting pain, he gave them drugs which could lead to addiction. He operated without the aid of anesthesia even though it was available at the time. This could be due to expense or because much like we treat animals, they assumed black women felt less pain than “humans” or even no pain at all. I’m not sure why we think that way when pain evolved for almost every species as a way to let the creature know their body was in trouble and needed to be attended to.

Slaves were not allowed to read or write.  There isn’t much evidence left behind to show us the extent of Dr. Sims gynecological horrors. Was he on the same level with the Nazi Doctor Mengele or was he an ignorant pioneer who if enlightened that black women weren’t lab animals would have mended his ways? Without ethical constraints, I think an individual can go too far in their efforts to discover scientific truths we need, leaving a wake of destroyed bodies and destroyed lives. Gynecology may have Sims to thank, but the victims aren’t clapping.

One of his known victims, amongst the faceless, was a slave named Anarcha. It is said that she underwent 34 experimental operations at the hands of Dr. Sims. I think most slaves would have rather taken the occasional whipping and working in the cotton fields to that kind of treatment. Degradation, the pain of the vaginal exploration at the cold hands of a gynecologist who didn’t know what he was doing, and an America that didn’t give a damn unless a white woman was involved–surely that must have been a thoroughly depressing life to live without no signs of hope.

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