"Originally published in 2024 by Profile Books in Great Britain"--Title page verso

Procuring a Good Breast -- Finding the Clitoris -- The Disappearing Hymen -- Existing for the Sake of the Womb -- Conclusion: Our Bodies, Our Selves, Our History

"Breasts, clitoris, hymen, and womb. Across history, these body parts have told women who they are and what they should do. Although knowledge of each part has changed through time, none of them tells a simple story. The way they work and in some cases even their existence have been debated. They can be seen as powerful or as disgusting, as relevant only to reproduction or as sources of sexual pleasure. In Immaculate Forms, classicist and historian Helen King explores the symbiotic relationship between religion and medicine and their twinned history of gatekeeping over these key organs that have been used to define "woman," illustrating how conceptions of women's bodies have owed more to imagination and myth than to observation and science"--