The speculum was invented in the 1840s by James Marion Sims, a doctor from Alabama who carried out numerous experiments on slaves; he forced one of them, called Anarcha, to go through thirty-odd operations without anaesthesia. “Racism and sexism is [sic] baked into the innocuous speculum itself—think of that next time you’re in the stirrups,” suggests Sarah Barmak, the Canadian author of Closer, about the ways women are now reclaiming sex for themselves.
