5 Clitoris Myths Women Wished Men Would Stop Believing
Let's debunk the big one — the "vaginal orgasm."
When men first found the clitoris, they tortured women for it.
In 1486, The Malleus Maleficarum, the witch hunter's guide, taught that if a man found a tiny nub of protruding flesh between her labia, then you better hide her broomsticks. A clitoris was a sign the woman was a witch.
Of course, they didn't call it a clitoris. Medical examiners called it a "devil's teat" because Satan and his imps garnered supernatural powers by suckling off of it. (If only women could have convinced men that they would get magical powers from suckling it too.)
The belief that the clitoris fed the devil continued into the sixteenth century. In 1593, Alice Samuel was accused of witchcraft, stripped naked, and examined for the devil's teat. Unfortunately, the witch hunters found her clitoris, and Alice was hanged for witchcraft.
She wasn't the only one to suffer for her shameful anatomy. In the early twentieth century, doctors believed the clitoris caused "hysteria," or female melancholia. They cured these hysterical ladies (and children) by performing clitorectomies — surgical removal of the clitoris.
