Raunchy observations at TIFF

The subject of American director Tanya Wexler’s oh-so-British sex farce, Hysteria generated a few raunchy observations at Thursday’s press conference, following the film’s premiere at TIFF.

The supposedly true story of the invention of the personal electric vibrator in Victorian London by a young doctor who treated women with numerous emotional problems by stimulating their genitals to produce “paroxysms”, is a winner, judging from audience reactions to festival screenings. It stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce.

“What were you doing down there?” Dancy was asked at the presser.

“Acting!” he replied.

Dancy, like most who’ve commented on the film, was astonished to learn how ignorant Victorian men, even trained physicians like the characters he and Pryce play, were of female sexuality. Or were they?

“These medical men were seriously, and without any irony, diagnosing a non-existent condition, doing what they were doing manually, and failing to see that there might be anything sexual about it.”

-Greg Quill