2024/09/15 by Norbert Finzsch, Finzsch, Norbert
Social Sciences · #Historical Gender and Feminism Studies #female genital mutilation #lesbianism #sexuality
paper · doi:10.18716/ojs/gefo/2018.2458
openalex publication_date 2024/09/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
This contribution develops a longue-durée of the clitoricidal history in the ‘West,’ i. e. countries like Italy, Germany, England, France, and the United States between 1600 and 1970. Finzsch shows how the discourse and the practice of cliteridectomy changed over time, from a rarely practiced gynophobia operation to control female sexuality directed against women-desiring women to a medical procedure that was supposed to combat masturbation, nymphomania, and hysteria. Finally, the author proposes three hypotheses to explain the diminishing occurrence of cliteridectomy in said countries.