Featured Read of the Month: The Button by Wednesday Martin

The Button by Wednesday Martin

I had a bit of an internal struggle about putting some sort of heads up at the start of this review regarding the content about to be discussed regarding Wednesday Martin's wonderful piece, The Button.  Should I say something about how we're about to talk about the sexual anatomy of women?  Or should I go for some eye-grabbing headline, something like "CLITORIS!" or "Yes, the Title IS a Euphemism"?  And then it hit me.  This string of thoughts on how to "appropriately" introduce a discussion of women's bodies is a product to the same social and cultural norms and mores that have caused so much violence against women.  I'm a self-professed feminist, and yet I still find myself considering if I should tiptoe around a critical element of the fight against sexual oppression.  When the very culture you live within is structured around oppression, those beliefs seep into everyone.  Martin takes one small facet of this struggle - the cultural history of the clitoris - and then explains, in a fascinatingly insightful manner, why this is not a small facet.

Most people are pretty cognizant of the fact that western culture has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to solve the "problem" of women's bodies, or the "problems" that are caused because of women's bodies.  Vibrators were brought into prominence because they were used by doctors in the hopes that they could cure female hysteria through orgasm.  Beyond the problematic notion that women are obviously prone to hysteria, anyone who has ever stepped foot into a hospital has to be able to imagine exactly how conducive that setting would be to having an orgasm, especially when it is your doctor holding the - pardon the joke - medical tool.  And this whole "strangers in a position of power telling women that they need to give them an orgasm in their office to save them from insanity" is not even remotely the most disturbing medical attempt to navigate women's health.

It was only in the last half of the 20th century that female castration became rare in the United States.  That's worth re-reading a couple times so it can sink in.  If that seems disturbing, consider this: female genital mutilation on a minor for non-medical reasons only became a felony in 1996, and it wasn't until 2013 (FIVE YEARS AGO) that it became illegal in the United States to transport a female minor to another country for castration.  For those of you not familiar with female castration or female genital mutilation, it is a grim procedure: in most cases, the clitoris is removed in an attempt to stymie female sex drive.  In many cases, only the external part of the clitoris was removed, resulting in life-long nerve damage and excruciating pain.  Doctors in the United States are reported to have regularly practiced this procedure into the 1950s.

This is a horrifying picture, and it only speaks to a small element of the dark history of western society's interactions with the clitoris.  From removing the clitoris from textbooks and manuals such as Grey's Anatomy to Sigmund Freud's condemnation of pleasure from clitoral orgasm as being immature and childish, there is a never-ending narrative of the evils and harms of the female body and female sexuality.

Martin advocates "cliteracy."  She stresses the importance of learning more about the clitoris and the female sexual experience.  Providing information to remove the negative fog surrounding women's bodies can also help to create a shift in the unconscious messages being spread on a societal level.  And for those hoping to increase their cliteracy, The Button is a great place to start.  Martin has a very smooth and readable style that shares a narrative that is horrifying in a palatable way.  She leaves you shocked, and also ready to go out and make change.  This short piece feels like an important stepping stone in helping to make the world we live in one that is a little more equitable for all of its citizens.

If you are interested in reading The Button, you can pick up a copy here.  It is part of a series released by Amazon called Missing, which focuses on different permutations of what is "missing" in the eyes of the authors.  It is currently only available digitally through Amazon, and can be read on any kindle device, table, smart phone, or computer.