The Illustrated Book of Country Manners

The portion of a woman that appeals to Man’s depravity Is fashioned with considerable care, And what, at first, appears to be a simple little cavity Is really an elaborate affair. If he wrote the above verse, and the indications are that he did, A P Herbert never said a truer word. So who better to thoroughly investigate this ‘elaborate affair’ than one whose credentials in matters of anatomy and art history are equally impeccable – Oliver Maitland? In broad cultural terms, a gynaecological vision of the female parts is perfectly legitimate. Their name, however, is unutterable – hence the Shakespearean euphemism ‘country matters’ for the title of this book. Maitland discusses the female pudendum and why it has been airbrushed out of art history.He examines taste: ‘a light, quite lemony Hollandaise sauce, adorning some foodstuff which I haven’t yet quite defined’; anatomy: ‘[the clitoris is] the only organ in the solar system which has no other function than to give pleasure’; recreation: ‘vaginal fisting is not every woman’s cup of tea’; scientific theory: ‘for the adept… stimulation of the G-spot… produces orgasms far more intense than those produced by clitoral stimulation alone’ or ‘female ejaculation… its advocates gush over it with unaffected enthusiasm’; and finally, mythology: ‘the vagina dentata… an unattainable item on the shopping list of dominatrixes’. ‘From the earliest times, art and literature were not the places to find enlightenment about the female parts, or even a subjective angle,’ writes Maitland, grasping this nettle of a subject with a confidence and skill that go far to redress this unfortunate cultural imbalance.

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