The Anatomy of the Clitoris: Reflections on the Theory of Female Sexuality

Innovative redrawing of female anatomy appeared in the scientific literature and then in the popular press leading up to the Millenium. The surrounding structures of the clitoris, that small, vestigial organ, are part of a larger one, with equivalent structures to the penis. This knowledge was lost for centuries for complex social and cultural reasons. The new work disappeared in a wave of embarrassment and trivialisation, underpinned by anxiety. In the long and passionate debate within psychoanalysis over the theory of female sexuality, which has spanned more than a century and reached no definitive conclusion, this pattern of non-acceptance of ideas, their disappearance and then re-emergence later is a continually repeating one. It mirrors the characteristics of the female organs themselves, hidden, kept secret, circular and concentric in form, both physically but also generationally. Perhaps the time is right culturally to explore this further.