The Sweetness of Venus: A History of the Clitoris by Sarah Chadwick

Author:Sarah Chadwick [Chadwick, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781736298831
Amazon: 1736298836
Barnesnoble: 1736298836
Publisher: LDLA
Published: 2021-02-20T06:00:00+00:00

I went to a highbrow source to understand Rousseau’s influence. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy has this to say:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of his contributions to political philosophy and moral psychology and because of his influence on later thinkers. 135

Rousseau perpetuated a vision of the ideal woman as passionless and selfless. I don’t know about you, but here are my responses to that:

a) Women are not passionless.

b) Women don’t have to be selfless. It’s O.K. to put oneself on the agenda. This is not something many women have felt free to do in sexual encounters, nor is it something women have been good at in myriad walks of life, because society has not encouraged them to develop a strong sense of self. Self is not a binary choice between selfless and selfish; it is both of these and every nuance in between, and the balance changes constantly in response to personal needs combined with external factors.

c) Deviation from Rousseau’s vision left women open to accusations of being unnatural , a word used to denote immorality and forces of evil, like the witches in Macbeth.

T his part of the book started with a quote from Catch-22 that illustrates the impossibility of the central character’s situation. Orr is keen to avoid war by being sectioned out of the army. He can only be sectioned out if he is insane, but if he were insane he wouldn’t have the wit to seek such medical help. So he can’t win. Women and their sexuality have for centuries been caught in a similar catch-22. Enjoy sex too much, ask for better sex, give yourself an orgasm, and you would be considered immoral—which does nothing for your chances in life, or for the advancement of women’s equality.

Fear stems from misunderstanding, and there has been profound misunderstanding of women’s sexual anatomy and a deeply ingrained misunderstanding of women as equals—but we no longer operate in a world where this is the case. Anatomical knowledge has never been so advanced, and equality may be resisted but it is not up for debate in informed circles and has many champions. We (the siblinghood, not just the sisterhood) need to speak up when we hear misinformation, check those who use language to make moral inferences about women and their sexuality, and get used to putting a woman’s orgasm into the heterosexual sexual experience.

Throughout the centuries, scientists, religious leaders, and philosophers have all held strong views on the nature of female sexuality. They have sought to understand the anatomical makeup of woman; the right way to live life as a woman in relation to God; and the essence of woman by a philosophical process of deduction. They have deemed themselves qualified to speak about their findings using fact, opinion stated as fact, illogic, and a lot of rhetoric to become authoritative and influential in defining the social systems within which women function. The early 19th century heralded the emergence of a new field of academic inquiry that would be used to further scrutinize women and their sexuality.

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