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Articles on Female sexuality

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Madonna with child and angels by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato, 1674. The cult of the Virgin is emblematic of the way the church silences women and marginalises their experience. Wikimedia Commons

How the cult of Virgin Mary turned a symbol of female authority into a tool of patriarchy

Belief in the eternal virginity of Mary has inflicted damage to women, who can never attain her sexless motherhood or unsullied ‘purity’. Yet in the Gospels, Mary is strong-minded and courageous.
There are very few spaces in which girls can discuss menstruation or ask questions about it. Reuters/Zohra Bensemra

How to break down the stigma and taboo around menstruation

Menstruation is a fact of life – but in many parts of Africa, it’s something that young women dread. A South African research group is working to change this.
Baby boomer women are dressing differently and rejecting a look they associated with their mothers. Pedro Ribeiro Simões/Flickr

Ageing gracefully: how women steer the line between inauthentic and old

It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can still look fabulous. This message is sold to us by magazines, newspapers, the cosmetics industry, fashion labels and dating agencies. Think of the recent movie…
Baby Boomer women are challenging ideas around what it means to grow old. Cesar Vargas/Flickr

Sex, desire and pleasure in later life: Australian women’s experiences

Older people, and particularly older women, are often thought of as being asexual or sexually undesirable. Although the particular age this is believed to happen varies somewhat in the popular imagination…
Our culture tells women there’s something wrong with them if they don’t orgasm. Gustavo Gomes/Flickr

Female sexual dysfunction or not knowing how to ask for what feels good?

The recently published Italian study suggesting women can only have clitoral, rather than vaginal, orgasms raises important questions about the medicalisation of female sexuality and sexual dysfunction…
Most women are just happy to have an orgasm, any old way. Ares Tavolazzi/Flickr

Health Check: clash of the orgasms, clitoral vs vaginal

Controversy over vaginal versus clitoral orgasm is nothing new; it’s a debate that has consumed sexologists and psychoanalysts for the last 100 years. Now, new research has added fresh fuel to the controversy…

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