The belief has been bandied about since the time of the ancient Greeks that “women’s ailments” are caused by the womb.4 With a more sophisticated awareness of anatomy, this belief grew to include the clitoris and ovaries.
In the United States alone, it was less than a hundred years ago that feminine sexuality was seen as something so downright wrong that a woman was likely to be put in a mental hospital if she dared indulge in sexual expression of any sort.5 This included masturbation, expression of sexual desire, lesbianism, and everything between and around these actions and definitions.6
These “ailments” have been given different names and different diagnoses throughout the centuries, and ultimately meant anything deemed “improper” for a woman. For a very long time that has nearly universally included the expression of rage, emotionality, or sexual desire, regardless of the circumstances surrounding any of these emotions or responses.
In the United States we have a horrifying, hidden history that includes untold numbers of women treated for faddish diseases like nymphomania and hysteria. These women were put through unimaginable “treatments,” the least of which was “genital manipulation” (manual stimulation of the clitoris by a doctor), enforced rest, and hospitalization. The more shocking, outrage-inducing treatments were hysterectomy, oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries—also known as female castration), clitoridectomy (surgical excision of the visible clitoral tissue), cauterization of the clitoris, cauterization of the cervix, and bloodletting by leeches, which were applied inside the vagina and directly to the neck of the cervix.
Other ailments that medically justified these treatments were suicidal behavior, eating disorders, and any “emotional” behavior. It looks like any complaint by a woman could have landed her in surgery, sans varied bits of her pretty pink parts when she walked out.
In 1906, an estimated 150,000 American woman had received oophorectomies; removal of the ovaries, as treatment for “ailments” such as nymphomania, hysteria, and melancholia.
Source: Men Who Control Women’s Health: The Miseducation of Obstetrician-Gynecologists by Diana Scully, 1980.
• • •
One doctor’s rationale behind American female genital mutilation: “Why do we alter our colts and calves? Not that we expect to abate strength or endurance, nor yet to render them less intelligent: but that we may make them tractable and trustworthy, that we may convert them into faithful, well-disposed servants.”
—Written in 1896 by Dr. David Gilliam, as quoted in Scully, 1980.
Astonishingly, as late as the 1950s, some doctors in the United States elected to “treat” masturbation with clitoridectomy. In 1936, clitoridectomy and cauterization of the clitoris were listed as viable treatments in the widely used Holt Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, which was published from 1897–1940.
Numbers of the women who suffered the knife in the United States for treatment of these imagined ills are hard to come by. Quite reasonably, the American medical industry is embarrassed by these stories of practices we now think of as utter barbarism, and have rewritten their story to create a kinder, gentler version. Only by picking through antique patient files, acquiring and reading old medical texts, and reading entries in personal journals have people been able to find accounts of these surgeries.7
Today, women’s “diseases,” like PMS, menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, and birth, are still being pathologized, and are treated mostly by male doctors, who rely on research done mostly by male researchers, sometimes performed on male research subjects!8 Yes, it’s absurd, but many studies dealing with diseases that primarily affect women have been performed on male subjects, because the female system is more complicated. You have to take into account hormonal fluctuations and such, and the male system has less of that sort of “inconvenience.” Does the hormonal component affect the course of some of these diseases? Yes. Heart disease in women has been under-tested, and many pharmaceutical companies have most drug testing performed on male subjects for the same reasons just stated.9
American women who are sure of themselves sexually are often made fun of, sometimes ridiculed, and are at times even at risk of harm or death for expressing themselves sexually.1011
In some cultures under Islamic rule, women can be legally stoned to death for adultery. This law has even been applied on occasion in the case of women having children out of wedlock.12
In many Muslim countries in Africa (and some other continents as well), the ritual practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is often performed by older women on local girls and young women. FGM is a term that refers to the removal of part or all of the external female genitalia. The practice often includes clitoridectomy, and approximately 15 percent of the time it includes the more damaging practice of infibulation.13
The term infibulation comes from the Latin fibula, which means “to pin or clasp.” With infibulation, varied amounts of the labia are cut away, and then the open wounds are joined together with sutures, bamboo slivers, or thorns. The wound heals with about a pencil-sized hole for menstrual blood and urine to escape from the girl’s body.14 Women who have somehow reached adulthood without having the ritual performed are often not considered marriageable.15
Religion, superstition, and medicine have all been used throughout our cultural memory in attempts to constrict women to a subservient role, to disallow us our sexual expression, and to keep us thinking of ourselves as crazy and thinking of our most pleasurable, creative (and procreative) parts of our bodies as the enemy.
Magick in Action— Binding: Binding is an act of sympathetic magick. You can bind energy, thoughts, spirits, or actions.
• • •
Intention: A stretching or bending of the mind toward an object; closeness of application; fixedness of attention; earnestness.
Source: Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1998.
We all carry vestiges of these cultural stories. From birth to death we are defined by our histories, both personal and pervasive, as well as our present circumstances. Knowing where our wounds come from can be the first step in healing them. How do the wounds that have been handed down, from generation to generation, manifest in your life?
Journaling Prompt: One Woman’s Story
Write a story of one woman’s experience of suppression, oppression, or depression. This can be your story, or your mother’s, or your sister’s, or your grandmother’s. It can be personal, or it can be a cultural myth or history. Even if it happened to someone other than you, or may never even have happened at all on the physical plane, this is still your story.
Like the story of Eve and the apple, or the abduction of Persephone, or the story of how your grandmother lived her life, or the story of the rape of your best friend, this story rests in the deep spots of your psyche. It informs the way you present yourself, the way you interact with your surroundings, and what you see as safe, or right, or wrong, or permissible. It informs how you walk in this world.
Spell Working: Binding the Past
Binding our collective history is something that will help keep each of us in the place where we have the most power—firmly in the present. Only in the present do we have the power of choice. Only in the present do we have the ability to look forward and set a positive intention for our lives. In the present, we have the ability to create new answers to old questions.
What You Will Need to Bind
• Art or writing supplies.
• Scissors.
• Yarn or thread. I recommend black or white, but you may use whatever color you think is appropriate.
• A taper candle (for wax, to seal the binding).
Note: If you have a relationship with a deity that you think would be helpful in this binding, feel free to invoke it before you begin this ritual. Appropriate deities might be loving, like Inanna, Ishtar, or White Tara, or somewhat wrathful in aspect, like Kali
, Babalon, or Red Tara. Any deities that you feel are protective of you, or whom you see as being capable of warding, would be helpful. (See appendix ii: A Compendium of S/heroes for some info on these and other Goddesses. Better yet, research them yourself if you are not yet familiar with them. Google is an amazing tool!)
Warding:
To keep something away, to protect, to defend.
• • •
“When a woman has a discharge of blood . . . the uncleanness of her monthly periods shall last for seven days.
“Anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.
“Any bed she lies on in this state will be unclean; any seat she sits on will be unclean. Anyone who touches her bed must wash his clothing and wash himself and will be unclean until evening . . .
“If a man sleeps with her, he will be affected by the uncleanness of her monthly periods. He shall be unclean for seven days. Any bed he lies on will be unclean.”
—Leviticus 15: 19-24
• • •
“They ask you about menstruation: Say, it is harmful; you shall avoid sexual intercourse with the women during menstruation; do not approach them until they are rid of it.”
—The Quran, 2:222
Also, you may wish to see the spell working titled “Blood Magick” in the menstruation section later in this chapter. Blood magick can intensify any magickal act, and if you perform this spell while you are menstruating, you may as well take advantage of that fact!
How-To
1. Create an artifact that represents one of these collective stories of betrayal, neglect, or deep injury. It can be a piece of writing, a drawing or painting, a sculpture, or anything you feel moved to create.
2. Once you are done creating your artifact, take a length of string or thread that is long enough to tie around it three times.
3. Wrap the string around the artifact, and as you do, think of the stories, the emotions, the images that you are binding. Imagine them becoming tied and bound, unable to affect you anymore.
a. If it helps you to speak while you work, you can say, “I bind you. I bind you. I bind you . . .” as many times as it feels right.
b. If you have invoked a deity for this working, you may also choose to invoke the name of the deity to aid the binding. You may wish to say, “In the name of _______, I bind you.”
4. Once you have performed the binding, place the bound artifact on the altar you built while working the first chapter. This artifact, this story, is a part of your history, and you can claim it. By so doing, you claim your wounds, and allow yourself permission to heal them. This bound artifact now represents a past that is contained, and a future that is wide open for growth and healing.
You may keep your binding, and add it to your altar. It is bound, after all. However, you may destroy it, if that feels more magickally complete to you. Burning is the best route for destruction of malignant forces. After you burn the artifact of binding, flush the ashes down the toilet, throw them in a running stream (but only if totally nontoxic items were used in its creation), or cast them to the wind in an open space.
Masturbation, Onanism . . . Can We Just Call It Sexual Self-Love?
Words, again! In researching the roots of the term masturbation, I found that there are two schools of thought as to the origins. One etymological theory says that the root is the Ancient Greek word for penis, mezea, and the Latin verb turbare, which means “to disturb.” So, by that theory, to masturbate would mean to “disturb” the penis16 One more point for phallocentric language! The other etymological theory holds that the word masturbate comes from the Latin phrase manus turbare, which means “to disturb, defile, or dishonor [depending on the translation] with the hand.”17
Onanism is the term that was used before the word masturbation was brought into play in the 1700s,18 and it’s even worse. Onan was a Biblical character who was put to death for “spilling his seed upon the ground.” Not really accurate as far as our sexual relationships with our bodies, and really not nice!
So onanism is definitely out, and going by either of the etymologies, masturbation is not the most positive nor the most accurate word possible to describe what we’re doing when we head downtown. The first etymology excludes women de facto, and the second is kind of ugly.
The Kinsey Report states that in studies conducted in 1948 and 1954, 92% of men and 62% of women reported that they masturbated.
In a 2003 study performed on-line by playwithyourself.co.uk, 99% of male respondents reported masturbating, while 96% of females did. Are we starting to catch up?
The frequency of masturbation that most of the female respondents reported was lower than that of most male respondents.
• • •
“I have a total love affair with my pussy. I thought everybody had done all that hippy stuff in Our Bodies, Ourselves, and that everyone was cool with their genitals.
“But I guess I was wrong. I have been hanging out with some women lately who are around my age, and there are three of them who swear they have never touched their pussies. I was amazed when I found out!”
In an effort not to be overly sensitive, I will still use the word masturbation throughout this chapter. However, I encourage you, Ms. Sexy Witch, to adopt a word that works better for you. Who knows . . . if we had a word that actually meant what we mean by it, maybe we wouldn’t feel so bad about doing it!
Masturbation is something girls (and “ladies,” for that matter) just don’t usually talk about. Blame it on negative word connotations, vestiges of puritanical thought, or plain embarrassment; it’s an issue, whatever the origin. Our internalized, repressive fear of our sexuality is holding us back from really taking our needs into our own hands.
While this is beginning to change (see sidebar3), it’s still true that many men speak more openly about their solo sartorial pursuits.
So, do women really not masturbate as much, or are we just ashamed to admit that we do? Are we ashamed to admit we have sexual needs and desires, and ashamed that sometimes we take care of those needs a mano? Ashamed to say that we touch ourselves down there? Ashamed to say that we want sex more than we get it from our sexual partners? Ashamed to say we think about it at all, perhaps?
Journaling Prompt
• I (do/don’t) masturbate because . . .
So . . . Why Should I Pet the Kitty? If You Want
Something Done Right, Sometimes You Gotta
Do It Yourself!
After all of this heavy stuff, the issue of masturbation may seem a frivolous topic. But what better way to claim ourselves, body and soul? Masturbation is an act that says, “This is mine, and I know how to use it!” It says, “I love myself . . . a lot!” It says, “Wow! I have this amazing, pleasure-giving, pleasure-making body!” And it says, “This is my sexuality. MINE!”
We have been without for far too long. Without the freedom to claim our bodies, our drives, or our needs. Without the security to go against convention and claim our desire for sex. Without the support to be out and proud as sexual beings. Without the benefit of being our own best bed-buddy.
A Magickal Thought: Masturbation is a magickal, (r)evolutionary act!
• • •
Fun Toys You Can Buy Anywhere:
• Detachable showerheads—the more massager options, the better! ($10-?)
• Massagers ($10-60)
• Facial kits with pore cleaners ($30)
• • •
What It’s Called—
A Compendium of Names for Masturbation:
Banging the box, beating the bush, doing your nails, feeding the cat, finger dipping, going downtown, going south, hitting the slit, jerking off, jilling off, kneading the dough, petting the kitty, petting the pussy, rocking the boat, she-bop, spending some quality time, taking a ride, tending the garden, two-finger ta
ngo, the two-finger salute, wanking.
Let “I wank!” be the new motto of the girl revolution! Let your own box be your newest musical instrument, and learn how to play it! Let your masturbation be a statement of sovereignty. Claim your body. Claim your pleasure. Claim your power.
And, for the practical among us, here are a few (mostly) pragmatic reasons to bang the box:
1. Masturbation allows you to teach yourself how to orgasm. And, if you learn how to get off on your own, it’s going to be a lot easier to get off with others, too. Without the stress and pressure of making sure a partner isn’t waiting for you to come, getting jealous of your toys, or feeling badly that he or she can’t get you off, it will be much easier to focus on what really matters: you . . . getting off!
2. Orgasm is good for you for many, many reasons, including:
a. Orgasm is a major stress reliever.
b. Orgasm can help you get to sleep, and it doesn’t have any side effects, like most sleeping pills do.
c. Orgasm can relieve menstrual cramps and lower back pain.
d. The hormones released when you orgasm can help combat depression.
e. Masturbation and orgasm stimulate your immune system.
3. Masturbation encourages familiarity with your sexual anatomy. If you are familiar with your sexual anatomy, you will more likely be able to tell if something is wrong.
4. If you are afraid of, or alienated by, your genitals, it is going to be uncomfortable to share them with a lover.
5. Masturbation feels good.
6. Masturbation can’t get you pregnant.
7. Masturbation is fun!
8. Masturbation is revolutionary.
9. Masturbation is sex with someone you love.
If You’ve Never Ventured South
Sexy Witch Page 8
