O: The Intimate History of the Orgasm

In 1558, an anatomist called Mateo Columbus discovered the clitoris, and so a whole new world of sexual pleasure began to be opened up. If progress was slow - Victorians still regarded the female orgasm as a form of hysteria it was steady, culminating in the present Golden Age. That at least is the official history. Here, Johnathan Margolis produces evidence to show that in other places, other times the secrets of the orgasm created almost unimaginable worlds of pleasure.