Women and their clitoris: personal discovery, signification, and use

Clinical Anatomy

Stimulating the clitoris activates the brain to instigate changes in the female genital tract, namely, the enhancement of vaginal blood flow that increases vaginal luminal pO 2 , vaginal transudate (lubrication) facilitating painless penile penetration and partial neutralization of the basal luminal acidic pH, vaginal tenting, and ballooning delaying sperm transport and allowing semen de-coagulation and capacitation (sperm activation) factors to act until arousal ends (often by orgasm induction). All these genital changes taken together are of major importance in facilitating the possibility of reproductive success (and thus gene propagation) no matter how or when the clitoris is stimulated-they reveal its overlooked reproductive function. Of course, also commensurate with these changes, is its activation of sexual pleasure. The clitoris thus has both procreative (reproductive) and recreative (pleasure) functions of equal importance. Clitoridectomy creates not only sexual disability but also a reproductive disability. Clin. Anat.

Sex Roles, 2000

Even though the “clitoris” is the organ homologous to the “penis,” this term may not be commonly used as the female counterpart to the penis. We conducted three studies to examine the usage of terminology for female sexual anatomy. In the first study 57 books in a university computer database for “sex instruction” were examined for the inclusion of terms such as penis, clitoris, vagina, vulva, and uterus. Penis was mentioned more often than either the clitoris or vulva in these books. In the second and third studies we investigated the terminology used by college students as well as their sexual attitudes and knowledge. Participants in the studies were Euro-American (76%/76%, Study 2/Study 3 respectively), Hispanic (18%/14%), and African American (4%/7%); students reported that they were overwhelmingly taught vagina as the female counterpart to the penis. Believing that the inner portion of the vagina is the most sexually sensitive part of the female body correlated with negative attitudes toward masturbation (Study 2) and agreement with sex myths (Studies 2 and 3).

Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2001

Sexualities, 2007

The relationship between discourse, sex and the body has attracted sustained interest from scholars in sociology and cultural studies over the last 20 years. It is only recently, however, that sociological analyses of sexuality have begun to explore the specificity of the body and its relationship to human agency. This work suggests that, far from serving as a passive surface upon which sexual scripts are inscribed, the body in sexual action is itself a dynamic force in generating sexual subjectivities. This is related to the way in which the praxeological aspects of sex are always corporeal and that corporeality is indivisibly related to individual agency. The specific configuration of sexual practices is central to the making of sexual identities. Indeed, it is through such a configuration that the sexual subject is brought into being. Yet human agency is a central feature of the process, rendering it a project that develops over time. Such an idea is particularly relevant to feminists who are concerned with the way that feminine sexual subjectivity can be theorized as active and desiring. This paper explores the way in which the body is implicated in sex practice and the making of active feminine sexual subjectivities. In doing so, it draws on qualitative data collected from life history interviews with 18 women.

2018

This contribution develops a longue-durée of the clitoricidal history in the 'West,' i. e. countries like Italy, Germany, England, France, and the United States between 1600 and 1970. Finzsch shows how the discourse and the practice of cliteridectomy changed over time, from a rarely practiced gynophobia operation to control female sexuality directed against women-desiring women to a medical procedure that was supposed to combat masturbation, nymphomania, and hysteria. Finally, the author proposes three hypotheses to explain the diminishing occurrence of cliteridectomy in said countries. Purpose and Scope of the Study 1 This paper is the pre-study of a larger project on which I have been working for the last two years now. My study addresses cliteridectomy in "Western" countries, by which I mean predominantly European countries (Said 12). I am not going to address FGM in non-Western countries, and I am not going to research immigrant communities in Western Europe or North America. There is abundant literature on both issues, to which I do not intend to add.

The anatomy of the clitoris is much larger than commonly believed. Besides the small tip of the clitoris known as the glans, which protrudes in the external genitalia, the crura (or legs) of the clitoris extend 9 cm inside the body, with erectile tissue adjacent to the vagina and urethra. This finding has significance for theories of female sexual responsiveness, including the differentiation of clitoral and vaginal orgasms. It also offers guidelines for preserving erotic response during pelvic surgery in women. The facts of clitoral anatomy, clarified with modern scanning procedures by surgeon Helen O'Connell and colleagues , have been repeatedly discovered, forgotten, and rediscovered, at least since 1844, when the German anatomist Kobelt made accurate drawings. Psychological reasons for why the true anatomy of the clitoris has so often been repressed or misrepresented by anatomists, psychologists, and other scientists are proposed. That most anatomists have historically been men may have led to disregard for precise charting of the clitoris that might lead to greater preservation of female sexual response. Envy by male anatomists of female sexual response may also play a role. Correct anatomical knowledge may significantly alter psychoanalytic theory and practice.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) “more than 125 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 29 countries in Africa and Middles East” (UNICEF 2013) where female genital mutilation (FMG) is performed as a lawful practice in order to socially control women’s sexuality. In 1997 WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA condemned internationally all practices of FMG for non medical reasons as a violation of human rights of women. However, amongst those who still performed it, some claimed an ancient pedigree for this practice. In Antiquity we find evidence of two types of FGM: a ritual clitoridectomy (Strabo; Philumenus; Aetius of Amida), and a “selective clitoridectomy” (Brooten 1996:162) prescribed by doctors (Soranus; Muscio; Caelius Aurelianus; Paulus Aegineta) due to an overly enlargement of the clitoris, which was medicalized as a pathological condition associated with an unrestrained sexual appetite leading to hypersexuality (Halperin 1990; Rousselle 1983). This article will provide an overview of ancient sources dealing with the surgical practice of FGM. In doing so, it will show how, historically, androcentric societies have aimed to control women’s sexual pleasure by performing different procedures of FGM as a means to “emphasize feminine fertility by de-emphasizing female sexuality” (Boddy 1982). I argue that such a behaviour is symptomatic of a society which need to (re)-negotiate the sexual identity of women amongst social expectations, medicine and sexuality. Key words: female sexual and reproductive health, clitoridectomy, ancient surgery, ancient social morality.

Visual Ethnography 13(1), 2024

Italian society does not acknowledge vulvar pain sufferers as patients affected by legitimate pain: the condition is not supported by the national healthcare system, besides being medically unexplored and socially invisibilized. Patients do not see themselves as deserving care until sexual intercourse is compromised. Vulva health gains awareness when feminine sexual performance deviates from heteronormative models and coital imperatives. In a feminist gendered perspective, this paper presents the artistic and scientific exhibition "Vulvar Pain", based on anthropological research to explore vulvar pain experiences thought qualitative participatory methods. Research partners co-produced symbolic handicrafts revealing the difficulties of be seen as bodies deserving care. This effort aims to present scientific results through a public engagement event, including arts, workshops, and roundtables with health professionals and patient associations. The exhibition "Vulvar Pain" advocates considering genital pain beyond the cultural taboo of sexuality, privileging visual narratives to facilitate dialogue between biomedical discourse, social sciences, and the embodied knowledge of sufferers. Considering the multiple lens of this case study, the paper presents collaborations between ethnographers, artists and designers, engaging in the co-construction of new forms of knowledge that can be seen, touched, smelled, sat upon, and circulated to unfold vulvar taboos.

Signs: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 2018

Abstract: Researchers in the fields of affective neuroscience, psychology, urology, and physiology attempting to understand some of the conflicting politics around questions of women's sexual pleasure as a context to their own scientific work, much to their credit, are now frequently considering historical accounts of these ideas (O'Connell, Sanjeevan, and Huston 2005; Pfaus et al. 2016). But many of the most accessible humanistic works that discuss the history of ideas about women's genitals and orgasms are plagued by a common historical myth: the notion that repressive views on sex in the Victo-rian era were primarily responsible for the denial of the clitoris and its central role in women's orgasmic response and for the reification of the vagina as the central organ of women's pleasure. Yet any scholar who has studied many nineteenth-century texts about sexuality across French, British, German, Ital-ian, and US cultures cannot help noticing that female sexual pleasure was in fact heavily represented in medical thought throughout this time. The view of the Victorians as sexually repressed was famously mocked by Michel Fou-cault in the first volume of The History of Sexuality as a myth that serves to reassure us that we in the present are now liberated sexually (1976, 1–22). But it seems that Foucault's laughter has had little impact on popular ideas about the origin of the overprivileging of vaginal pleasure and denigration of the clitoris that is understood to be part of the modern Western medical tradition. Hence, the first section of this article proposes a corrective to the historical schema that is widely circulated in popular writing about this question. Nineteenth-century medicine was not unanimously dominated by attempts to deny clitoral pleasure to women, and differing views about female sexual-ity circulated throughout this time, just as they did in the early modern era. Moreover, the notion of vaginal orgasm was strictly a twentieth-century invention , and no corollary of it can be found prior to this time. There never was an era that was or is liberated in its views about female pleasure, for the simple reason that there is never just one view shared by everyone on the matter—our own time is a case in point.

Liverpool University Press eBooks, 2023

E lisa G roff P u ttin g th e H is to ry o f C lito rid e c to m y in t o P erspective This ch apter w ill explore diffe re nt scenarios in w hich the surgic al te chniqu e o f c litorid e cto m y was p erform e d in a ntiq uity , and brin g th e discussion o f a ncient g e nit al surg ery in to dia logu e w ith conte m porary a esthetic m e dicin e and intim a t e cosmetic surg ery for wom en. It w ill prese nt some examples o f g enit al surg ery in d u cin g th e tra n sitio n o f somata, w hich are und erstood here as 'n a tura l bodie s', in to technosomata, th a t is, bodies whose n a tura l a n a tomy has been altered to make th e m appe ar a nd/or fu n c tio n in a pre-d esigne d way. O ur p rim a ry sources w ill show th a t in a n tiq u ity there is evidence o f tw o types o f surgic a l c u ttin g o f th e clitoris: a pre -m a rit a l elective clitorid e cto m y (P hilum e nus, A etius o f A m id a ) p erform e d to corre ct a perc eive d disfig ure d g enit al appe arance w hich f a cilita te d wom e n's ind e p e nd e nt sexual arousal; and a 'selective clitorid e cto m y' (Broote n 1996) pre scrib ed by doctors (Soranus, C aelius A ure lia nus, M ustio , Paulus A e gineta , A l-Z a hra w i) to corre ct v irili z a tio n in th e wom a n and her p ote ntia l to penetrate. I sh all argue th a t b y c u ttin g th e w om a n's physical body (n a tura l soma) for reasons unconn e cted to he alth, ancient doctors a im ed to reshape th e w om a n's s e xu a lity and gender so as to make it subordinate to a m a ns a u th ority and conform to sexual, social, and be auty standards. In the last se ction I sh all bri e fly ta ckle th e m od ern p a th ologiz a tion o f female g e nit al d iv e rsity w hich promote s th e sta nd ardiz a tion o f female g e nit a l appe aranceth a t is, sizes th a t m atter, sizes th a t d o n't 1 -a nd female sexual fu n c tio n in g for m e dic al (e.g. tre a tm e nt for c litora l metastasis; H in o et al. 2020), cosm etic (e.g. ' B arbie d o ll ide als'; S chick et al. 2011) a nd c u ltura l (e.g. F G M) reasons (G iussy et al. 2017). W e sh all see th a t th e u n d e rlyin g m otiv a tion s for c lin ic a l female g enital 1 1 See, for example, Braun and Kitzinger (2001) on the increasing surgical, health, and social problems posed today by women's desire for a perfect vagina. See also Tiefer (2008). Cf. Bildhauer and Mills (2003: 2) on 'bodies that matter and bodies that don't ' in the construction of the monstrous in the Middle Ages. See also Haraway (1985: 99-101).