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This is a significant, scholarly paper dealing with the most recent biological and embryological facts concerning female genital anatomy and physiology, with an attempt to relate these to significant freudian hypotheses concerning female sexuality. It is the author's contention that current research in biology demonstrates conclusively that the concept of initial embryonal bisexuality is erroneous; that all mammalian embryos, including human, are anatomically female during the early stages of foetal life; and that the female's relative lack of differentiating hormones during embryonic life renders her more sensitive to hormonal conditioning in later life and may lead to an enhancement of female sexuality later in life. The work of Masters and Johnson is reviewed. It is concluded that vaginal orgasm as distinct from clitoridal orgasm does not exist and that with full sexual arousal women are capable of several orgasms. The erotogenic potential of the clitoris is greater than that of the lower third of the vagina.
Sherfey states that the rise of modern civilization was contingent on the suppression of the inordinate cyclic sexual drive of women. She stresses that the major portion of psychoanalytic theory will not be changed as a result of these facts with the exception of those concepts on innate bisexuality, the 'rigid dichotomy between masculine and feminine sexual behavior', and the clitoridal-vaginal transfer theory.