Primary Femininity and Female Genital Anxiety Presenter: Arlene Kramer Richards Discussant: Marilyn Schwartz January 16, 1997

Arlene Kramer Richards began her presentation with a definition of primary femininity, a term that is utilized throughout her paper, and one that gives meaning and understanding to the anxieties and fears that plague women in regards to both the power and functionality of their genitals. The idea of primary femininity “implies that female development proceeds along lines that generate anxiety about damage and loss similar to the fears of castration which trouble males.” She classifies these fears in three ways: fear of painful penetration, fear of loss of pleasure, and fear of loss of procreative function; in the context of her verbal presentation, Richards highlighted only the first two of these, giving clinical examples to exemplify these struggles as they can occur in adult women. Richards centered her paper around a question of whether female genital fears are worth interpreting or whether seeing the issues as related to penis envy would be sufficient.

Using a poem by Rita Dove to emphasize her perspective, Richards emphatically expressed the belief that “a girl's sense of pleasure in her own genitals is the bedrock of her female identity.” She buttressed this sentiment with citations from earlier