Huffington Post has a substantial article on artist Sophia Wallace and her project Cliteracy. Sophia has created a major set of art installations focusing on the clitoris, especially the way that it has been almost ignored by science and society for years. Women’s sexuality has been constructed around the notion of penetration and shame while the clit barely gets a look in.
The article says that the clitoris was only “discovered” in 1998 when Australian urologist Helen O’Connell mapped it out using cadavers (I wrote an article about her research for Australian Women’s Forum in 1999). That’s not quite true, of course. Women have always known it was there. And traditional medical history says it was “discovered” by two separate anatomists, Gabriel Fallopius and Renauldus Columbus, in the seventh century. Nonetheless, the clit was often left out of anatomy textbooks and its true structure wasn’t really described until Dr. O’Connell did her work. It wasn’t until 2011 that we got a proper 3D MRI scan of an aroused clitoris:
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(Pic from here)Sophia says:
“I wanted to talk about female genitals in a way that I felt wasn’t really being talked about,” Wallace said. “For me, this word ‘cliteracy’ perfectly breaks down the idea of the project. It’s this pithy, wonderful little word that encapsulates so much so quickly and so simply. It illuminates this idea of total illiteracy and incompetence when it comes to the female body.”
Her work includes street art, clothing and installations. What I liked best was her “Clit Rodeo”. This involved a three dimensional gold sculpture of the clitoris (the full internal structure, not just the “button” that we see), mounted on a spring. The audience is invited to ride the gold clitoris like a bucking bull. It’s a fun idea so I thought I’d put up these pics:
You can see more of the Clit Rodeo and Sophia’s other work at her Tumblr Blog