an animal within an animal

I am so excited about these quotes I found from old Greek dudes about how freaky the lady-parts are. (I cannot remember where I found them, though, which is really frustrating me.) This first one refers to the theory (which has yet to be proven, so far as I know) that too little heat in the womb while a fetus is, you know, fermenting or whatever, prevents the body from being formed correctly, resulting in a lady-fetus. Oh, and there's a little intelligent design thrown in for good measure.

So too the woman is less perfect than the man in respect to the generative parts. For the parts were formed within her when she was still a foetus, but could not because of the defect in the heat emerge and project on the outside, and this, though making the animal itself that was being formed less perfect than one that is complete in all respects, provided no small advantage for the race; for there needs must be a female. Indeed, you ought not to think that our creator would purposely make half of the whole race imperfect and, as it were, mutilated, unless there was to be some great advantage in such a mutilation.

-Galen

And this one really needs no introduction:

In the middle of the flanks of women lies the womb, a female viscus, closely resembling an animal; for it is moved of itself hither and thither in the flanks, also upwards in a direct line to below the cartilage of the thorax, and also obliquely to the right or to the left, either to the liver or spleen; and it likewise is subject to prolapsus downwards, and, in a word, it is altogether erratic. It delights, also, in fragrant smells, and advances towards them; and it has an aversion to fetid smells, and flees from them; and, on the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal.

-Aretaeus

I have to say, boys, you don't know what you're missing. It is so much fun to have a little pet inside of you!

And, finally, this one's from good old Siggie, who's very like an old Greek dude, in so many, many ways:

The wish to get the longed-for penis eventually in spite of everything may contribute to the motives that drive a mature woman to analysis, and what she may reasonably expect from analysis – a capacity, for instance, to carry on an intellectual profession – may often be recognized as a sublimated modification of this repressed wish.

So, folks, there you go. Now you know the really real reason I have this urge to get educated enough to carry on an intellectual profession.