February 17, 2011

CHARLIE

I owe a number of you – JFB included – the sources from my last post when I denied the existence of vaginal orgasms and suggested these were due to direct clitoral stimulation. (True for those lucky women who have a short clitoral distance.)

Well, the initial thinking and research was conducted by the previously mentioned Princess Marie Bonaparte. She measured 243 women’s nether regions and asked each a detailed set of questions on their sexual responses. All this in 1924 – were it not for Freud’s later influence on her who knows how much further studies into female sexuality might have gone.

For more information on this fascinating and utterly eccentric woman; Celia Bertin’s 1982 work titled Marie Bonaparte is a grand place to start. Also you may be able to track down the original article published by Marie under the pen name A.E. Narjani for a European medical journal. The procedure she undertook to rearrange her lady bits is called “Halban-Narjani” and a surprising number of women undertook it in 1920s France. (Let’s be honest, one is a surprising number, more is simply astounding.)

We’ll be revisiting some bizarre surgeries pioneered in France around that time in a later post. (This time about men adding to their bits…)

More recently an Emory University professor of behavioural neuroendocrinology has reviewed our Princess’ original study and is undertaking his own on “C-V” distance. I am waiting with baited breath for his publication of the results, but in the meantime I appreciated his “rule of thumb” witticism.

If the distance is less than the width of your thumb, you are more likely to come.

Another key source for much material we will discuss is Masters & Johnson’s Human Sexual Response published in 1966. (Also the year England won the football world cup – but that bears no relation to this or future posts. It’s just nice to remember past glories sometimes.)

I will bear in mind my audience’s hunger for references in future, who knew you were such a bookish lot reading the usual filth peddling on here!  Next week’s topic is another controversial one (which will  impeccably reference the original sources) and we’ll be discussing circumcision.

Rather than ending this week’s article there and leaving you all so unsatisfied, below are some amusing historical tidbits for pub chats and elevator small talk over the weekend.

~ 25000 B.C. Carvings of nude women with oversized breasts and labia found from this period are mostly considered “fertility goddesses” – however these could have been the porn of their day.

~500 B.C. Olisbos invented and sold to grateful women around the Mediterranean. (The first commercial dildo.)

~500 A.D. Ben Wa Balls appear, originally in singles for male pleasure, they were later paired to improve pelvic floor muscles in women. (Still popular today)

~1400 A.D First appearance of the word dildo – many thanks to the Italian renaissance

~1600 A.D. Chinese men first begin using ornately carved ivory rings (mostly dragons) over erections to maintain them for longer. Later additions of dragon’s tongues added a clitoral stimulator for the ladies.

1869 Steam powered vibrator invented to treat “female hysteria” by a physician. In 1882 this invention was improved upon and reappeared as the first electro-mechanical vibrator.

Share This

---

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•