Freud claimed that young women growing up experienced anxiety when they realized that they didn’t have a penis. But maybe that was just wishful thinking on Freud’s part. The truth could be totally the opposite — that men are jealous of the female clitoris.

Men are jealous because women have a clitoris, the only organ dedicated to sexual pleasure whereas they have a multi-use organ that serves mainly for urinating.

“Clitoris” comes from the Greek word “kleitoris” which has been translated as “little hill” as well as “to rub”. The clitoris has over 8000 nerve endings, more than double that of a penis, and could explain why women can have multiple orgasms but men can’t.

Men are so jealous of the clitoris that, in some cultures, women are subjected to genital mutilation. There are no health benefits from a clitoridectomy, just physical and psychology damage.

Men have always been afraid of women’s vaginas. It shows in folkloristic beliefs such as that of the vagina dentata, a toothed vagina that can castrate you. The man enters the vagina full of himself but then withdraws in defeat after being devoured. As Camille Paglia says in her book Sexual Personae “every penis is made less in every vagina.” Maybe that’s why the existential French call an orgasm a “petite mort”, that is, a “little death”.

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Related: The Clitoris, Uncovered: An Intimate History + Vagina dentata +