De las mutilaciones físicas, psíquicas y textuales a la "clitorrevolución"

Abstract

Emphasising the complex disciplinary interrelationships that have been historically woven around female pleasure, this text traces some of the key moments in the bodily, psychic and textual mutilations of the clitoris, mainly in Europe and North America. Firstly, it shows that genital mutilations have been present in many cultures since Antiquity, although, under the cover of medicine and in an attempt to “cure”, they are called clitorectomies. Secondly, it shows that the history of the clitoris has different angles, and although the most painful one is that of physical extirpations, it would be naïve to think that clitoral ablations are not related to the psychic mutilations theorized by Freud, as well as to the textual ones, which range from erasing the clitoris from anatomies to the limited presence that the organ of female pleasure has traditionally had in literature and cinema. Finally, the article evokes the clitorevolution, mainly driven by the visual arts.