ABSTRACT
In January 1977 when I agreed to give one of four lectures on gender at the Warneford Hospital, Oxford, I said that I would choose my exact topic after attending the first paper, which was entitled ‘Sexual Selection’. This paper turned out to be concerned with the penis and included a consideration, illustrated by slides, of penile length. I therefore decided that the empty theoretical slot to be filled would have to be a complementary offering concerning the vagina. In my introduction to the paper I then presented I noted that it differed from Dr Short’s in being ‘less concerned with quantity and more with quality; less concerned with measurement than ideology; and less concerned with function and more with meaning’. This chapter derives in some measure from that presentation. However, while it draws attention to an aspect of gender symbolism – that associated with the female pudenda – which may have been relatively neglected compared to that of the more familiar male, phallic imagery, the theme of my paper is the replacement of male honour by shame and female shame by honour, and the use of the body and of vulgarity in making these transformations.
