e who enroll themselves under the banner
of Venus must necessarily scale it), and even that is veiled from view in
the adult by the more or less bushy plantation of hair which grows upon
it. A triangle of varyingly precise definition is thus formed at the lower
apex of the trunk, and this would sometimes appear to have been regarded
as a feminine symbol.[80] But the more usual and typical symbol of
femininity is the idealized ring (by some savages drawn as a lozenge) of
the vulvar opening--the _yoni_ corresponding to the masculine
_lingam_--which is normally closed from view by the larger lips arising
from beneath the shadow of the _mons_. It is a symbol that, like the
masculine phallus, has a double meaning among primitive peoples and is
sometimes used to call down a blessing and sometimes to invoke a
curse.[81]

This external opening of the feminine genital passage with its two
enclosing lips is now generally called the vulva. It would appear that
originally (as by Celsus and Pliny) this term included the womb, also, but
when the term "uterus" came into use "vulva" was confined (as its sense of
folding doors suggests that it should be) to the external entrance. The
classic term _cunnus_ for the external genitals was chiefly used by the
poets; it has been the etymological source of various European names for
this region, such as the old French _con_, which has now, however,
disappeared from literature while even in popular usage it has given place
to _lapin_ and similar terms. But there is always a tendency, marked in
most parts of the world, for the names of the external female parts to
become indecorous. Even in classic antiquity this part was the _pudendum_,
the part to be ashamed of, and among ourselves the mass of the
population, still preserving the traditions of primitive times, continue
to cherish the same notion.

The anatomy, anthropology, folk-lore, and terminology of the
external and to some extent the internal feminine sexual region
may be studied in the following publications, among others:
Ploss, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI; Hyrtl, _Topographisches
Anatomie_, vol. ii, and other publications by the same scholarly
anatomist; W.J. Stewart Mackay, _History of Ancient Gynaecology_,
especially pp. 244-250; R. Bergh, "Symbolae ad Cognitionem
Genitalium Externorum Foeminearum" (in Danish),
_Hospitalstidende_, August, 1894; and also in _Monatshefte fuer
Praktische Derm