knew about it so long ago, is it not more widely known? We can draw a heart, and lungs and a liver, and yes, as many school textbooks with testify with their marginalia, even school kids can draw the male member. But how many people can draw a clit?
For millenia, scientists thought women were inside-out versions of men, and male anxiety about female sexuality generated ludicrous ideas and perpetuated inaccurate information. Even when it was fully understood, the establishment went into overdrive to hide it, with punitive censorship laws banning the distribution of such material to anyone who was not a medic or a judge on the grounds it would “corrupt” the morals of the people. Famously it was left out of the gold standard medical textbook, “Gray’s Anatomy” in 1948 and it didn’t feature in the 8th grade sex-ed booklet that my son bought home from school. We are beyond the days, surely, of the Victorian men who were so consumed with worry that if it was widely known that their penises were not central to female pleasure then women would suffer “marital aversion”?
The Sweetness of Venus. A History of the Clitoris is available in book shops now. It is a funny, informed book that takes you on a journey through the history of anatomy, religion, philosophy, psychology and evolutionary theory to answer the question, how come we are still so anxious about the clit. It challenges Western culture’s definition of female sexuality and will have you laughing out loud, shouting “Clitoris!” with abandon and championing sex equality and pleasure for all.
Photo Credit Patrick Perkins