Soc 345 Exam 1 Lect 6

Front 1

Contested discovery of the clitoris

Back 1

Since then, anatomists, physicians, clergymen, sexologists, politicians, husbands, pornographers have all struggled to established their professional reputations by making some claims on the clitoris.

Front 2

Penis homologue

Back 2

Anatomists and biologist have seen the clitoris as similar in shape and function to the male penis.

Front 3

Object of clitoris

Back 3

Pleasure is its only object, a woman “does nothing practical at all with her clitoris.

Front 4

Clitorophobia

Back 4

We do not want such an ugly, hanging down thing in our women” An east Nandi man referring to female mutilation in Africa.

Front 5

Silencing the clitoris

Back 5

no sooner did Columbus ‘discover’ the clitoris than other western genital explorers sought to bury it, culminating (finally) in Freud’s denial of the clitoral orgasm.

Front 6

Vanishing clitoris

Back 6

The clitoris was absent in anatomy books; it was simply omitted. In spite of the of the fact that Kinsey had refuted Freud’s vaginal orgasm supremacy and Master and Johnson work in the 1966 discussing the nature of female orgasm, most texts insisted on the value of vaginal orgasm.

Front 7

Clitoral backlash

Back 7

Vanishing Clitoris: Anatomy Textbooks refused to recognize the clitoris. Very little representation of the clitoris appear on its pages.

The Return of the Vagina: the vagina was made predominant over the clitoris. The vagina became a locus of traditional gender roles, as an organ to be penetrated by the penis.

Front 8

Clitoris at the center

Back 8

Feminist anatomy was contesting biomedical science by placing pleasure and the clitoris at the center of female anatomical representations. They defined the clitoris as the “most sexually sensitive organ in the female reproductive system which gets hard and may expand to two times its size during stimulation.