Volume 17, Supplement 1, April 2008, Pages S39
Abstracts of the 9th Congress of the European Federation of Sexology
Nineteenth-century Attitudes to Female Sexuality
The
nineteenth-century medical attitude to normal female sexuality was
cruel, with gynaecologists and psychiatrists leading the way designing
operations for the cure of the serious contemporary disorders of
masturbation and nymphomania. The gynaecologist, Isaac Baker Brown
(1811-1873), and the distinguished endocrinologist, Charles
Brown-Séquard (1817-1894) advocated clitoridectomy to prevent the
progression to masturbatory melancholia, paralysis, blindness and even
death. Even after the public disgrace of Baker Brown in 1866-7, the
operation remained respectable and widely used in other parts of Europe.
This medical contempt for normal female sexual development was
reflected in public and literary attitudes. Or perhaps it led and
encouraged public opinion. There is virtually no novel or opera in the
last half of the 19th century where the heroine with “a past” survives
to the end. H G Well's Ann Veronica and Richard Strauss's Der
Rosenkavalier, both of which appeared in 1909, break the mould and are
important milestones. In the last 50 years new research into the
sociology, psychology and physiology of sexuality has provided an
understanding of decreased libido and inadequate sexual response in the
form of Female Sexual Disorder (FSD) or Hypoactive Sexual Desire
Disorder (HSDD). This is now regarded as a disorder worthy of treatment,
either by various forms of counseling or by the use of hormones,
particularly estrogens and testosterone.
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