The Clitoris: Forbidden Pleasure. Directed by Stephen Firmin & Variety Moszynski,
First Run/Icarus Films, 2003
There is something a little ironic about subtitling a documentary purporting to
present a new and positive view of the clitoris ‘Forbidden Pleasure’. Less
sensationally, the story this video tells is about the invisibility and neglect of the
clitoris, at least in Western culture (there is not really any consideration of cultures
beyond Western Europe, North America and Australia). It conveys a certain amount
of basic information about the history of understanding of the clitoris, its role in
female sexual pleasure, and the present state of research into this still relatively-little investigate organ. Therefore it might serve as a useful introduction to the
subject and provoke discussion.
However, there are a number of problems. There seems a desperate desire
to ‘keep things moving’, in spite of the frequent lingering on talking heads, or
perhaps to counteract these relatively static episodes. So there are long tracking
shots, a voice-over while a woman who had childhood genital surgery for gender
ambiguity rides on a bus, someone cycling through Amsterdam to participate in
orgasm research, a surely staged interview with Helen O’Connell about to go into
the operating theatre. This all seems rather forced and unnecessary. Possibly even
more tiresome, and very clearly there to ‘liven things up’, are the cartoon
representations of the history of knowledge of the clitoris, and the inserted flashes of
erotic images, excerpts from pornographic movies, and scenes from commercials.
These are symptomatic of the refusal to linger, to consider, to give time for
discussion or reflection. German anatomical studies of the 1840s were fleetingly
mentioned but with a frustrating lack of detail and context. And the fact that Gray’s
Anatomy included some account of the clitoris in editions previous to 1948, after
which it was dropped, raised certain questions that would at least have been worth
asking, rather than merely noting without comment: surely textbooks of anatomy
were unlikely to have been influenced by the then pervasive spread of a popularised
version of Freud’s characterisation of the clitoral orgasm as ‘immature’ and to be
transcended on behalf of the ‘mature’ vaginal variety? A relevant question not raised
was why there has been this now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t quality to the history of
the knowledge of the clitoris, which seems to be perennially being rediscovered.
There is a similar hiccuping dash from topic to topic, from cosmetic genital
surgery to where pleasure fits into sex education and female sexual empowerment
to research into the physiological processes of female arousal and climax. There is
some attempt at problematising the role of the pharmaceutical industry in facilitating
the recent burgeoning of ‘clitoris studies’, given that this is aimed at finding the
female Viagra, a ‘magic bullet’ to capture that elusive entity, the female orgasm, in
spite of the weight of evidence that suggests that for women (and indeed, men as
well) the issue is not simply one of mechanics but the broader emotional context.
The history in general is cliched and rather weak, though the broad-brush
treatment may be understandable. Perhaps it is being unduly pedantic to want some
evidence for claims that even after the disgrace of Isaac Baker-Brown on account of
the clitoridectomy-happy practices of his London Surgical Home, ‘hundreds’ were
still regularly performed during the rest of the nineteenth and well into the twentieth
century. One would not guess that anyone before Masters and Johnson had
indicated the importance of the clitoris and its stimulation to female sexual
satisfaction: quite apart from Kinsey’s pioneering work in the area, there were a
number of writers of sexual advice from Marie Stopes onwards who emphasised its
importance for mutual conjugal delights. While Helen O’Connell’s work on the
anatomy of the clitoris is extremely important, it is not true that prior to her
investigations the extent of the hidden clitoral body was not realised.
Ultimately it is not clear what audience is being aimed at with this
documentary: is it meant to be education or entertainment? Is it perhaps trying to be
too many things to too many presumed viewers? An Australian television listings
website refers to it as ‘traditional Friday night Euro-porn’
. While this seems a little on
the harsh side, it does underscore elements which tend to militate against a simple
reading as worthy educational project. Many of the points made are excellent, but
the constant recourse to jokey little cartoons and graphics, lingering shots of naked
female bodies, and so forth, creates an uneasiness about the overall agenda. It may
merely be that the makers felt under pressure to jazz the material up, not to be too
dry and scientific, to be accessible. This may say something about the constraints
which remain about making informative documentaries for a general audience about
aspects of human sexuality: that there is still a good deal of ambivalence about the
subject, which is bound to inflect even media representations aimed at lifting some
of the veils of ignorance.
Lesley A. Hall, Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine,
London
