Female genitalia

“ There may be simply a union of the perfect body of one sex with the susceptibility to such sexual charms as ordinarily attract the other sex alone, or with the mental traits of the other sex. Or the individual may possess the male genitals, but be beardless, or else possess mammary glands, broad pelvis, and sacral dimples; or possessing the female genitals, have a rudimentary moustache, or else meagrely developed breasts, narrow pelvis, etc. Instances have been known of human beings with an ovary on one side of the body and a testicle on the other, and of males who were able to suckle infants. ”

“ But other differences are also noticeable, not dependent, however, on differences in age, but on whether there has or has not been experience of sexual intercourse, and on whether pregnancy and parturition have occurred. When we compare a female child with an adult woman, the first obvious difference is in the shape of the external genital organs. In the child, the vulva is placed much higher and more to the front, so that it is distinctly visible even when the thighs are in close apposition. ”

“ The clitoris, like the male penis, is made up of erectile tissue, and when a woman is sexually excited it becomes erect in the same manner that the penis does. It also has a head and a foreskin covering it, and the head of the clitoris, at least in children and adolescents, is generally extremely sensitive to stimulation. In the fully mature female this sensitivity often diminishes, giving way to the vagina as the primary source of the greatest sexual pleasure. However, many women who become fully mature sexually maintain much of the original sexual responsiveness of the clitoris. ”

“ In handling or other manipulation of the genitals, without actual intercourse. If the genital organs of a female have merely been gently handled, without any more violent manipulations, we shall not, as a rule, either in the case of children or of adults, find any local changes as a result; contrariwise, if the handling has been rough and brutal, if the fingers have been forcibly thrust within the vulval cleft, or if the pudendum has been pulled and rent, we may expect to find excoriations, redness, swelling, laceration of the hymen, or even of the vagina and the perineum. ”

“ We are all conceived with the potential to develop into either sex. The embryonic developmental default is female. A series of triggers during the first weeks of pregnancy places the fetus on the path to maleness.
In rare cases, some women have a male's genetic makeup (XY chromosomes) and vice versa. But, in the vast majority of cases, one of the sexes is clearly selected. Relics of the stifled sex remain, though. Women have the clitoris as a kind of symbolic penis. Men have breasts (mammary glands) and nipples. ”

“ Observation has shown that the sexual appetite diminishes in proportion to the imperfections in the genitalia, and certainly many of these persons are sexually indifferent.
We give descriptions of a few of the most famous or interesting instances of hermaphroditism. Pare speaks of a woman who, besides a vulva, from which she menstruated, had a penis, but without prepuce or signs of erectility. Haller alludes to several cases in which prolonged clitorides have been the cause of the anomaly. ”

“ He considers that under normal circumstances coitus should take place but rarely, and then only under the most favorable circumstances, perhaps exclusively in spring, and, most especially, only when the woman is ready for it. Then, when in the arms of the man she loves, the vagina, in sympathy with the active movements of the womb, becomes distended at the touch of the turgescent, but not fully erect, penis, "flashes open and draws in the male organ." "All animals," he adds, "have sexual intercourse by the male organ being drawn, not forced, into the female. ”

“ Sometimes, however, the genital organs have been cut from the cadaver of a woman, presumably for the purpose of concealing traces of rape that may have preceded the murder. The signs furnished by the female genital organs as to virginity, maternity, and the menopause are so easily demonstrated at the necropsy as to become positive proofs of identity. The uterus loses both in size and weight with age. This along with hard, atrophied, and germless ovaries attests the stoppage of menstruation. ”

“ A well-grown and abundant supply of fine pubic hair is a possession highly prized by women, of which they are justly proud, though few of them would acknowledge the fact, even to themselves. None the less it is a fact.
The female sex organs, speaking generally also, are as follows: The vulva, or outward portion of the parts; the vaginal passage; the uterus, or womb, and the ovaries. All but the first named lie within the body of the woman. The vulva is made up of several parts which will be named and described later. The vaginal passage is a tube, or canal leading from the vulva to the womb. ”

“ Owing to the fact that both male and female organs develop from more primitive structures which were sexually undifferentiated, a fundamental analogy in the sexual organs of the sexes always remains; the developed organs of one sex exist as rudiments in the other sex; the testicles correspond to the ovaries; the female clitoris is the homologue of the male penis; the scrotum of one sex is the labia majora in the other sex, and so throughout, although it is not always possible at present to be quite certain in regard to these homologics. ”

“ Their 17 organization, influenced by a different genital apparatus, presents a different mode of existence, action and sensation. Thus the sexual characters are slightly marked at birth, become distinct as the genital organs develope themselves, suddenly enlarge at the period of puberty, exist in the greatest degree when these parts have come to their perfect state, and lose their energy in old age. The destruction of the testicles in the male and of the ovaries in the female prevents the regular development, or even alters the special distinctions of sex. ”

“ The outer genitals appear in the early stages of the embryo, but there is no apparent distinction between the sexes, the external organs being the same in all cases, and consisting of a small tubular organ with a small lateral fold of skin on either side. Later, in the male, a groove appears on the under side of this primitive organ, thus forming the urethra, the scrotum being formed from the folded skin at the side. In{39} the female, the primitive organ ceases to develop as in the male, and thus becomes proportionately smaller, and evolves into the clitoris of the female ”

“ If the position with the husband superior is taken, let him, after he has gotten into place and before the organs are united, have his wife take his penis in her hand, and, as he moves his hips up and down, stroke her vulva, especially the clitoris, with the glans penis—not entering the vagina at once, but continuing this form of exterior contact of the organs, for a longer or shorter time—slipping past the wide open vaginal mouth, even when the wife raises her thighs and, as it were, begs for an entrance ”

“ The hard bodies proved to be on one side an irreducible omental hernia, probably congenital, and on the other a hardened mass having no glandular structure. The patient was an adult. As we have seen, there seems to be a law of evolution in hermaphroditism which prevents perfection. If one set of genitalia are extraordinarily developed, the other set are correspondingly atrophied. In the case of extreme development of the clitoris and approximation to the male type we must expect to find imperfectly developed uterus or ovaries. ”

“ While it is easily possible to carry to excess a view which would make the woman rather than the man the active agent in coitus (and it may be recalled that in the Cebidæ the penis, as also the clitoris, is furnished with a bone) , there is probably an element of truth in the belief that the vagina shares in the active part which, there can now be little doubt, is played by the uterus in detumescence. Such a view certainly enables us to understand how it is that semen effused on the exterior sexual organs can be conveyed to the uterus. ”

“ This broadening of the penis results in the female's external genitals being subjected to much more pulling and pushing during the performance of pelvic thrusts. With each inward thrust of the penis, the clitoral region is pulled downwards and then with each withdrawal, it moves up again. Add to this the rhythmic pressure being exerted on the clitoris region by the pubic region of the frontally copulating male, and you have a repeated massaging of the clitoris that — were she a male — would virtually be masturbatory. ”

“ It is said that female slaves belonging to these races are greatly esteemed by the 62ladies of the harem, and are eagerly sought for. In the anatomicopathological museum at Prague there is a preparation of the female genital organs with a clitoris as large as the penis of a full-grown man. ”

“ As observed by Debierre, where the subject is really a female, even where the vagina or uterus is unperceived, the presence of the menstrual function or some physical disturbance at its stated periods are sufficient evidences, as a rule, by which to determine the sex. The case of Marzo Joseph, or Josephine, reported by Crecchio in 1865, had rudiments of an hypospadic penis ten centimetres in length and a prostate of the male sex, with a vagina 6 centimetres in length and 4 in circumference, ovaries, oviducts, and [125] uterus of the female ”

“ With the assistance of an enlarged clitoris, with which one woman performs the sexual act by introducing the organ within the vagina of another. In France in the nineteenth century a woman is said to have lived whose genital organs were so formed that, on the one hand, as a woman she played the passive part in intercourse with men, and, on the other hand, was able to give sexual gratification to women by assuming the active part of the male. ”

“ More time, indeed, than the average, uninstructed husband gives to it. Yet woman has at the surface a small vestigial organ called the clitoris, which corresponds morphologically to the man's penis, and which, like it, is extremely sensitive to touch-sensations. This little crest, which lies anteriorly between the inner lips round the vagina, enlarges when the woman is really tumescent, and by the stimulation of movement it is intensely roused and transmits this stimulus to every nerve in her body. ”

“ A woman’s genital apparatus is both internal and external. The external genitalia are called the vulva when they are referred to all together. The most obvious part of the vulva is the part we called the major (or sometimes outer) lips, which enfold the rest of the genitalia. If these lips are parted we see two smaller lips; these are called the minor lips and have a very high degree of sexual responsiveness. Even in books for laymen the Latin words are often used for these two organs: labia majoris and labia minoris, which mean, simply enough, the major lips and the minor lips. ”

“ The hairy covering of the female genital organs is in adults, and especially in brunettes, very abundant; above, it is usually sharply limited by a transverse line across the top of the mons Veneris, and it extends outwards only a little beyond the labia majora, whilst below it extends only to about the middle of the sides of the perineum. ”

“ Sometimes, during the five days of menstruation, during which time the union of the organs is deemed not best, the wife can thus help her lover with her hand, to their delight and benefit. Let love direct the way here, and all will be well.
And here is a curious fact: The hand of the opposite sex will produce effects on the genitals of the other which will not be produced in any other way. Thus, a man may hold his penis in his own hand for a given length of time, longer or shorter, and no result will be effected, no secretion of prostate fluid be made, at all. ”

“ It is plain, therefore, that the females may be impregnated at all times. By another singularity in their conformation they are found to be as lascivious as [95] they are fruitful; the gland of the clitoris is prominent and almost as large as the sexual distinction of the male; and as the vulva is hardly visible, and the males when young have no exterior marks, it is often difficult to distinguish the sexes. ”

“ These women are usually flat-breasted and plain. Even though they menstruate, their metabolism is often for the most part masculine in character: indications of this are seen in the bones which are heavy, in the skin which is coarse, and in the aggressive character of the mind...If a woman have well-developed genitalia, and secondary characteristics, she usually is normal in her instincts. A feebly menstruating woman with flat breasts and coarse skin cannot be expected to have strong reproductive instincts, since she is largely masculine in type... ”

“ In women with sexual inversion, ordinary copulation with the male is insufficient to arouse the sexual orgasm, and for this reason, as well as because persons thus affected avoid coitus as much as possible, sterility commonly ensues.
In sterile homosexual women, and equally so in women addicted to masturbation, gynecological examination may disclose no abnormality whatever; but in other cases of the kind we may find a contributory cause of sterility in the fact that the internal genital organs are imperfectly developed, or even completely absent. ”

“ Over the whole body, indeed, it is apt to be more distinctly marked than is usually the case in man. But even if we confine ourselves to the genital region, while in man that portion of the penis which enters the vagina, and especially the glans, is normally the only portion which, even during turgescence, is sensitive to voluptuous contacts, in woman the whole of the region comprised within the larger lips, including even the anus and internally the vagina and the vaginal portion of the womb, [89] become sensitive to voluptuous contacts. ”