The Clitoris: The Secret Button

Andrea Roberts

While killing some time on the website Upworthy.com I stumbled upon an article about an artist Sophia Wallace, an artist who is working on a multi-media art project about the clitoris. Her main focus is to educate the population about the ‘true’ female sex organ; she is calling this project ‘Cliteracy’. [1] I was shocked to see some of the facts that she was throwing out in her interview I had to investigate! What I do know is that in the Colonial era the popular belief was that woman were just inversions of male genitalia, [2] the next large piece of information I found was on Sigmund Freud and how he believed that orgasms by the clitoris were considered immature. [3] Not until 1998 was there a notably published paper, written by Helen O’Connell an Urologist, which shed light on this mysterious little ‘button’. The first myth is that the clitoris is mostly a external structure, it actually averages around 9 centimeters long! [1] It also has around eighteen distinct functional parts. [3]

I also cannot sit here exploring the history of the clitoris without talking about the practice female circumcision, clitoridechtomy, and the practice of removing a young woman’s clitoris. It was a major practice in Africa, and is still practiced today, was performed to young females who are getting ready for marriage. [4] The clitoris was used in the victoria era to treat hysteria; Doctors believed that stimulating the clitoris to an orgasm would help ‘level’ out woman. [5] Hysteria was the diagnosis of a woman who in laymen’s terms could not be handled, if these ‘treatments’ did not work a woman would have been ordered to have a hysterectomy.

Why did it take so long for the medical world to acknowledge this important part of female anatomy? And why has there been such a negative association with the clitoris? I believe that a lot has to do with our struggle, as woman to find our voice, when the major scientific revolutions on anatomy were being made women’s opinions were not taken into consideration. With being in such a patriarchal society, doctors were not even able to touch a woman were she would normally have clothing. [4] I believe that this puts women at a major disadvantage, we enjoy sex just as much as men, why should women not be educated on an organ that plays such a major role in orgasms.

1. Mosbergen, dominique. The Huffington Post, Last modified September 05, 2013. Accessed February 28, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html.

2. Moore, Crystal . "The Role of Sex and Gender in the History of Sexuality." lecture., UNCC, 2014. .

3. King, Ph.D., Robert. Psychology Today, "The Lady Vanishes." Last modified July 16, 2013. Accessed February 28, 2014. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hive-mind/201307/the-lady-vanishes.

4. Melissa Jo, Peltier. "The History of Sex: Don Juan to Queen Victoria." History Channel . California State University. Web, http://distance-ed.fullerton.edu/bbpresentations/Karul_Ketchum/4his_sex_from_don_juan_to_queen_victoria/player.html.

5. Castleman, Michael . Psychology Today, ""Hysteria" and the Strange History of Vibrators." Last modified March 01, 2013. Accessed February 28, 2014. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201303/hysteria-and-the-strange-history-vibrators.