The wonderful history of the clitoris

When you think about what has been surrounded by secrets, taboos and prohibitions in recent centuries, women’s sexual pleasure is certainly one of them. Yet in ancient times they had a very different view of the subject. It was possible to talk about this openly at that time. Let’s just look at what Ovid writes in the Transformations: Teiressiah, the later fortune teller, was turned into a woman by the gods for seven years, so she could experience both sexual pleasures. When Zeus asked if the joy of women or men was greater, he clearly put his vote in favor of women. At the time, the clitoris was considered one of the major genitals, which was attributed an important role in fertilization. In the Middle Ages, as surprising as it may be, the position of the church reflected this. But as soon as it was revealed that the clitoris “merely” completes sexual pleasure and contributes to “undeserved” pleasure, the centuries-old procession of women began. It was believed that if this organ was not needed for reproduction, it was not needed, so excision had become standard practice, with great pain and risk of infection. The brutal interventions put an end to the radical decline of the population, as the women who underwent them were reluctant to have sex, and the number of births fell sharply. It took a long time for the era of medically recommended orgasms to arrive, until finally Sigmund Freud’s psychology brought the issue of female sexuality back to its natural place. How will the injuries that have been carried on women’s souls and bodies for centuries ever be curable? It depends only on us, the women who want to live their lives as women, and the parents who raise women from girls. In addition to disseminating knowledge and presenting cultural-historical curiosities, this volume also serves the purpose of enabling women to experience their own sexuality more self-consciously than in the past. JEAN-CLAUDE PIQUARD (1952–) is a French sexologist, therapist and writer in Montpellier. He has published several works on this topic: The Two Types of Sexual Ecstasy, Pleasure and Orgasm (2006) and Good Practice in Sex (2018).