Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2003 - 10:25 pm:

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quote:

'Freud, she pointed out, had demonstrated that normal women gave up the clitoris as their chief source of sexual pleasure and moved on to experience the mature vaginal orgasm. Unfortunately, therapists found that for many women the clitoris remained regrettably eroticized. The psychoanalytically enlightened had to recognize this lag as a sign of women's infantilism if not their bisexuality. Bonaparte conceded that for some the problem was due to the fact that their clitoris was too far from the vagina. The answer to such a fixation clitoridienne, she suggested, was surgical intervention to cut and move the clitoris to a more suitable locale so that the excitement it engendered would aid rather than detract from genital penetration. Bonaparte concluded her amazing essay, which came complete with disturbing photographs of the procedure, by hailing the modern surgeon's ability to aid the psychoanalyst.'

Angus McLaren, Twentieth Century Sexuality: A History (1999)

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