10 Monumental Historical Misconceptions About The Female Body [View all]

You may have heard about Hippocrates’ hilariously insane belief about women’s wombs wandering inside their bodies, but have you have heard about the clitoris that could be used as a penis? That’s right, the ancient Greeks thought that women with particularly big clitorises could use them as penetrative appendages for intercourse. So prevalent was the belief that it carried over well into the 19th and 20th centuries, when American and European physicians also incorporated it into their study of lesbianism.Perhaps one of the most vocal supporters of the existence of the “female penis” was Italian inquisitor Ludovico Sinistrari. As a priest and author who specialized in demonology and sexual sins, he stated that women who were overcome by lust could enlarge their clitorises and transform themselves into men. In a time where lesbianism was a crime punishable by death, Sinistrari made the odd postulation that such a crime could occur only if the accused successfully penetrated the other party with her clitoris, an argument that may have saved some lives. Nevertheless, Sinistrari advocated extreme punishment for those found guilty of the crime.


Shunamitism—the practice of an older man sleeping with a young, virgin girl without any sexual contact—took its name from the biblical story of King David. Worried for his health in his old age, his attendants found a beautiful virgin named Abishag of Shunam, who slept with him in his bed. While with no established medical rationale—although it has been speculated that it could raise testosterone levels in old men—shunamitism has been practiced in varying degrees by a variety of different cultures. A fourth-century doctor prescribed it for an upset stomach, while in 18th-century England it was believed that a virgin’s breath had health-giving properties. Across the Channel in the same period, the practice turned a profit for French entrepreneurs. One hostess named Madame Janus owned a house with fifty virgins who catered to rich old men, again without any sexual contact.In India, a variation of shunamitism called Brachmarya has been in vogue for a long time, with its most famous practitioner being none other than Mahatma Gandhi.

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Being one of the greatest philosophers of all time apparently did not prevent Aristotle from making a whole list of mistakes about the female body. He believed that women were deformed men, with their genitals inside their bodies due to a lack of the “heat” needed to form a “perfect male body.” He also speculated that this disability prevented women from making semen and therefore they were passive recipients in the child-making process. Other gaffes included Aristotle’s declaration that women had fewer teeth and skull sutures than men, and his failure to distinguish the vagina from the urethra.Aristotle equated his findings about the supposed inferiority of the female body to a justification for male dominance in all aspects of life. After his death, his views remained popular until the 15th century and contributed hugely to the prevalent chauvinism of the era.

http://listverse.com/2014/01/19/10-historical-misconceptions-about-the-female-body/