Originally a Greek word, "Kleitoris", meaning "divine, famous, Goddess like." There are a lot of allegories representing the clitoris from Priapus to Kleite to Artemis. Indeed it is closely associated with menstrual blood too, as in the story of the city of Clitor, as it was sacred to Artemis or to Demeter . T he city stood at the genital shrine of the earth, the headquarters of the Styx. As this was the belief that the Styx represented Mother Earth's menstrual blood. Naturally with the dominance of the new patriarchal society, the clitoris was entirely ignored. The church taught that women should not enjoy sexual pleasure, but instead, only endure it for the sake of procreation purposes. The church was so staunch in this mandate, that young girls and boys were kept ignorant of female sexuality. Even allopaths (male conventional Doctors) of the time, were convinced by the church, that no virtuous woman would even have a clitoris! Virtuous women rarely showed themselves naked in front of any man, including her husband, instead, she was reduced to wearing a bulky nightgown with a hole cut out at the genital area to enable her husband to impregnate her without actually seeing or touching her skin. At a Witch trial in 1593, the investigating gaoler (married man) discovered his wife's clitoris, and identified it as a devil's teat. This was sure proof that the woman was a Witch. The gaoler exposed his naked wife's clitoris to observers, they were so shocked at the sight of this on a woman, that she was indeed convicted as a Witch. The church and medical authorities (the church) in the 19th century (not so long ago is it?) were very anxious to stop women from discovering their own sexuality. Girls who discovered orgasm through masturbation, were regarded as having a "medical problem". Often they were "treated" or "corrected" by amputation or cautery of the clitoris, or were made to wear miniature chastity belts, sewing the lips of the vaginal lips together so that the clitoris became unreachable. It doesn't stop there...Even castration by surgical removal of the ovaries! What lengths the church went to, to suppress women! Naturally there is no record or documentation of a boy ever having his testicles removed, or amputation of his penis to stop masturbation. If you think this was only during the medieval times, how about this? A clitoridectomy was performed on a 5 year old girl to stop her exploring her genital region in 1948....In the United States! The catholic church's definition of female masturbation as "a grave moral disorder" in 1976 (yes, only about 30 years ago) had a profound and devastating effect on the woman's psyche. And less than a century ago, during the Victorian era, priests and doctors agreed unanimously that it was essential to totally repress women's sexuality, if indeed they were to succeed in ensuring her thorough subjugation. Leading authorities performed many clitoridectomies to cure women's nervousness, hysteria, catalepsy, insanity, female dementia, and other catchwords to describe forms of female sexual frustration!