Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment

Description

An engaging and surprising history of surgeries on the clitoris, revealing what the therapeutic use of female circumcision and clitoridectomy tells us about American medical ideas concerning the female body and female sexuality. From the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, American physicians treated women and girls for masturbation by removing the clitoris (clitoridectomy) or clitoral hood (female circumcision). During this same time, and continuing to today, physicians also performed female circumcision to enable women to reach orgasm. Though used as treatment, paradoxically, for both a perceived excessive sexuality and a perceived lack of sexual responsiveness, these surgeries reflect a consistent medical conception of the clitoris as a sexual organ. In recent years the popular media and academics have commented on the rising popularity in the United States of female genital cosmetic surgeries, including female circumcision, yet these discussions often assume such procedures are new. In Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, Sarah Rodriguez presents an engaging and surprising history of surgeries on the clitoris, revealing how medical views of the female body and female sexuality have changed -- and in some cases not changed -- throughout the last century and a half. Introduction: Rethinking the History of Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States Women, Masturbation, and Clitoral Surgery, 1862-1945 Children, Masturbation, and Clitoral Surgery since 1890 Female Sexual Degeneracy and the Enlarged Clitoris, 1850-1941 Female Circumcision to Promote Clitoral Orgasm, 1890-1945 Female Circumcision as Sexual Enhancement Therapy during the Era of the Vaginal Orgasm, 1940-66 Female Circumcision and the Divisive Issue of Female Clitoral Sexual Pleasure Go Public, 1966-89 James Burt and the Surgery of Love, 1966-89 Conclusion: Genital Geographies Appendix: The Clitoris in Anatomy and Gynecology Texts Notes Bibliography Index