Encyclopedia on the Alchemy of Women Vol. II (eBook)

L

Labeling: Giving names, usually critical, to social behavior of an undesirable sort, thereby often making that behavior deviant by definition. A mediated response in cognitive thinking, specifically in problem solving and categorizing.[16]

La belle indifference: (beautiful indifference-French) Phrase originally used for a lack of concern for a person’s own physical disability. Seen in persons with hysteria who seem indifferent to the usual ideas associated with the neurotic state. Also manifested by patients with conversion disorders, possibly because the symptoms help to relieve anxiety and bring secondary gains in the form of sympathy and attention.[16]

Labia: Loose, hanging (as the lip), etc.. Gk lobos; E lobe. L labi, lapsum: lapse; labium, labrum: lip; lapsum: slip, begin to fall; totter under a burden; strive. labor, laborem: distress, hardship, work. laborare, laboratum: take pains. E labial, labiate, labium, labellum. labile, labret. lapse, collapse, elapse, prolapse, relapse. supralabial. supralapsarian: one who believes that God destined some to be damned, and some to be saved, before and regardless of the Fall of man; sublapsarian: one who believes that the Fall was predetermined; infralapsarian: one who believes that the Fall was permitted by God.

labio-, as labiodental. lava, lapsus calami, etc.; Also labor, laboratory; belabor; collaborate, elaborate.

Gc (some partly imitative), slab; slaver, slobber, slop, slup, slur, sleep: slacken, as the mouth often does in snoring slumber. slip, slide, slim. slum, slumgullion, slummock, slump. label. lap, lapel, lappet. lip; OED gives 5 columns to lip whence also liplabor, lipless, lip-read, lipstick. Perhaps labarum. limp, lump, lumpfish. From lump, lunch.

slum has recently been euphemized into ghetto by those interested in displacing blame. A slum is created by its inhabitants; a ghetto is imposed by those outside. ghetto is perhaps from It borghetto: small town; some suggest it is from Venetian getto: foundry, as in Venice, where a Jewish ghetto was established in 1516; though opened by Napoleon in 1797, it still stands, the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, with 10 Jewish families, Five synagogues, and a museum of Jewish art.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth

A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;

Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy marked him for her own.

-Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country

Churchyard (1751), the most popular

English Poem

Oh Sleep! It is a blessed thing,

Beloved from pole to pole.

To Mary Queen the praise be given!

She sent the gentle sleep from heaven

That slid into my soul.

[a felicitous phrase, that slid into my soul]

    -Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner (1798)[1]

Relating to lips. Though occasionally used in other senses (labia cerebri, edge of cerebral hemisphere overlapping the callosum; labia oris, lips or the mouth), more commonly refers to labia pudenda, the lips of the vulva, consisting of the labia majora (labia externa) or larger, more prominent outer lips and the labia minora (labia interna) or thinner inner lips.[16]

Labia Majora: The labia majora (singular: labium majus) are two prominent longitudinal cutaneous folds that extend downward and backward from the mons pubis to the perineum. Together with the labia minora they form the labia of the vulva.

The labia majora are homologous to the male scrotum. Labia majora is the Latin plural for big (“major”) lips; the singular is labium majus. The Latin term labium/labia is used in anatomy for a number of usually paired parallel structures, but in English it is mostly applied to two pairs of parts of female external genitals (vulva)—labia majora and labia minora. Labia majora are commonly known as the outer lips, while labia minora (Latin for small lips), which run alongside between them, are referred to as the inner lips. Traditionally, to avoid confusion with other lip-like structures of the body, the labia of female genitals were termed by anatomists in Latin as labia majora (or minora) pudendi.

Embryologically, they develop from labioscrotal folds. It means that they develop in the female foetus from the same previously sexually undifferentiated anatomical structure as the scrotum, the sac of skin below the penis in males. The same process of sex differentiation concerns other male and female reproductive organs (see List of related male and female reproductive organs), with some organs of both sexes developing similar, yet not identical, structure and functions (like the gonads - male testicles and female ovaries, like male and female urethras, erectile corpus cavernosum penis and prepuce in the penis (foreskin) and the corpus cavernosum clitoridis in the clitoris and (clitoral hood) and their frenula). But other male and female sex organs become absolutely different and unique, like the internal female genitalia.

The scrotum and labia majora develop to have both similarities and crucial differences. Like the scrotum, labia majora after puberty may become of a darker color than the skin outside them, and, similarly, also grow pubic hair on their external surface (the female genitals on accompanying photos are shaved to show their structure clearer). But, during sexual differentiation of the foetus, labioscrotal folds in the males normally fuse longitudinally in the middle, forming a sack for male gonads (testicles) to descend into it from the pelvis, while in the females these folds normally do not fuse, forming the two labia majora and the pudendal cleft between them. Female gonads (ovaries) do not descend from the pelvis, thus the structure of labia majora may seem simpler (just fatty tissue covered with skin) and of lesser significance for functioning of the female body as a whole than the scrotum with testicles for males. The ridge or groove remaining of the fusion can be traced on the scrotum.

In some cases of intersex with disorders of sex development male/female genitalia may look ambiguous for either gender with phallus too small for a typical penis yet too big for a clitoris, with external urethral opening in an atypical location, and with labia/scrotum fully or partially fused but without descended gonads in them. Undescended testicles, though, may also occur in otherwise generally healthy male infants.

The labia majora constitute the lateral boundaries of the pudendal cleft, which contains the labia minora, interlabial sulci, clitoral hood, clitoral glans, frenulum clitoridis, the Hart’s Line, and the vulval vestibule, which contains the external openings of the urethra and the vagina. Each labium majus has two surfaces, an outer, pigmented and covered with strong, pubic hair; and an inner, smooth and beset with large sebaceous follicles. The labia majora are covered with squamous epithelium. Between the two there is a considerable quantity of areolar tissue, fat, and a tissue resembling the dartos tunic of the scrotum, besides vessels, nerves, and glands. The labia majora are thicker in front, and form the anterior labial commissure where they meet below the mons pubis. Posteriorly, they are not really joined, but appear to become lost in the neighboring integument, ending close to, and nearly parallel to, each other. Together with the connecting skin between them, they form another commissure the posterior labial commissure which is also the posterior boundary of the pudendum. The interval between the posterior commissure and the anus, from 2.5 to 3 cm in length, constitutes the perineum. The anterior region of the perineum is known as the urogenital triangle which separates it from the anal region. Between the labia majora and the inner thighs are the labiocrural folds. Between the labia majora and labia minora are the interlabial sulci. Labia majora atrophy after menopause.[11]

The labia majora and the labia minora cover the vulval vestibule. The outer pair of folds, divided by the pudendal cleft, are the labia majora (New Latin for “larger lips”). They contain and protect the other structures of the vulva. The labia majora meet at the front at the mons pubis, and meet posteriorly at the urogenital triangle (the anterior part of the perineum) between the pudendal cleft and the anus. The labia minora are often pink or brownish black, relevant to the person’s skin color.

The grooves between the labia majora and labia minora are called the interlabial sulci, or interlabial folds. The labia minora (smaller lips) are the inner two soft folds, within the labia majora. They have more color than the labia majora and contain numerous sebaceous glands. They meet posteriorly at the frenulum of the labia minora, a fold of restrictive tissue. The labia minora meet again at the front of the vulva to form the clitoral hood, also known as the prepuce.

The visible portion of the clitoris is the clitoral glans. Typically, this is roughly the size and shape of a pea, and can vary in size from about 6 mm to 25 mm. The size can also vary when it is erect. The clitoral glans contains as many nerve endings as the much larger homologous glans penis in the male, which makes it highly sensitive. The only known function of the clitoris is to focus sexual feelings. The clitoral hood is a protective fold of skin which varies in shape and size, and it may partially or completely cover the clitoris. The clitoris is the homologue of the penis, and the clitoral hood is...