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Female sexuality has always been conceptualized on the basis of masculine parameters. Thus the opposition between "mas culine" clitoral activity and "feminine" vaginal passivity, an opposition which Freud-and many others-saw as stages, or alternatives, in the development ofa sexually "normal" wom an, seems rather too required by the of male
For the clitoris is conceived as a little penis pleasant to masturbate so long as castration anxiety does not (for the boy child), and the vagina is valued for the "lodging" it offers the male organ when the forbidden hand has to find a replace ment for pleasure-giving.
In these terms, woman's erogenous zones never amount to anything but a clitoris-sex that is not comparable to the noble phallic organ, or a hole-envelope that serves to sheathe massage the penis in intercourse: a non-sex, or a masculine organ turned back upon itself, self-embracing.
About woman and her pleasure, this view of the sexual rela tion has nothing to Her lot is that of "lack," "atrophy" (of the sexual organ), and "penis envy," the penis being the only sexual organ of recognized value. Thus she attempts by every means available to appropriate that organ for herself: through her somewhat servile love of the father-husband capable of giv-
