It is one of the ironies of the emergence from the Dark Ages and the world renaissance of learning that, while it freed women from some of the darker fears born of men’s ignorance, it merely served to confirm others. Woman might no longer be stigmatized as a vagabond vulva or captious, capricious, capacious cunt; but she still came forth with all the dignity of one of the favorite freak shows of the Middle Ages, the acephalous monster exposed to public scorn at a fair.
