Maud Allan

This is a hand-tinted photo of Maud Allan. It was taken by Reutlinger of Paris around 1908.

According to The Clitoris: Historical Myths and Facts in "The 1918 'Cult of the Clitoris' Case:

'Maud Allan [ a dancer enacting Wilde's Salome] had taken exception to the linking of her name with the heading "Cult of the Clitoris" [in Noel Pemberton Billing's journal Vigilante and sued him for libel]. What was implied here by the term "clitoris"? From late eighteenth-century through into the early twentieth century, one of the most consistent medical characterizations of the anatomy of the lesbian was the claim of an unusually large clitoris. Not only was the clitoris associated with female sexual pleasure separate from reproductive potential, but lesbians were assumed to be masculinized, and the supposed enlarged clitoris was one signifier of this masculinity. In presenting lesbians' bodies as less sexually differentiated than the norm more masculine - it was inferred that they were atavists - throwbacks to an earlier evolutionary stage and thereby "degenerates". It was held that progressive differentiation of the sexes was one of the hallmarks of evolutionary progress. An enlarged clitoris or the inference of deviant genitalia was also given as the signifier of black women's sexuality and of nymphomania. Lesbians, black women and nymphomaniacs were all grouped together as possessors of a 'primitive' sexuality. By the late nineteenth century, a number of sexologists were questioning some of these assumptions.... Many doctors, however, still held to the older belief.'

....

'But she was discredited still further through being deemed to have inappropriate sexological knowledge. Pemberton-Billing asked her if she was acquainted with the term "clitoris". She answered: "Yes, but not particularly"' He then informed the court that out of twenty-four people to whom he had shown the libel, only one, a barrister, knew what it meant. Dr Cooke said that he had shown it to fifty or sixty friends of his and none of them had known what it meant. (One hopes they were not doctors.) When Pemberton Billing called Captain Spencer as a witness, he was asked about the "Cult of the Clitoris" title. He replied that he had tried to find a title "that would only be understood by those whom it should be understood by". Spencer had telephoned a village doctor and was given the term "clitoris' and told that it 'was a superficial organ that, when unduly excited or overdeveloped, possessed the most dreadful influence on any woman, that she would do the most extraordinary things". He added 'An exaggerated clitoris might drive a woman to an elephant.".... "Of course, clitoris is a Greek word", announced Dr Cooke, "it is a medical term [...] nobody but a medical man or people interested in that kind of thing, would understand the term."'