Anne Zachary, 'The perils of writing a book about the clitoris, 2 years on'

The Anatomy of the Clitoris: reflections on the theory of female sexuality (2018). There are considerable diplomatic concessions built into this title, advised from 'on high.' My imagination was caught, now 25 years ago by new work in the form of accurate drawings in the anatomical, biological, medical world. To me this work challenged Freud's masculinist, phallocentric views of female sexuality. But it also underlined psychoanalytic work throughout the 20th century, largely from women, which searched the unconscious and 'knew' that woman's makeup was more comparable to man's, just hidden inside and adapted evolutionarily for childbirth. My talk will describe how the book was received, inevitably with controversy and mild discomfort, evidenced by 2 previous talks and the one professional review I have seen as yet.