Miracle of Nature: 10 facts about the clitoris that you might not know
Text: Anastasia Travkina
The study of the human body has more than one thousand years: during this time we managed to visit the moon and discover black holes in space, but the real structure of the clitoris was discovered only twenty years ago. Moreover, 3D images of this body were first made only in 2009. The picture obtained by scientists not only turned the notions of female anatomy, but also put an end to reproductive rhetoric, in which the role of sex in a woman’s life is reduced to the continuation of the race. It's time to get acquainted with the clitoris.
Medicine has long been "against" the clitoris
Medical literature proves the scornful attitude of science to female physiology. Since the 2nd century AD, scientists from different countries have found the clitoris endlessly and "lost". Moreover, over the past three hundred years, thousands of references to penis operations have been accumulated, and practically none of the surgical manipulations with the clitoris, except for a few cases of skin disease or cancer. All these centuries, the question of the return of sensitivity to the clitoris, it seems, has not been confronted by scientists. At the same time, various female genital mutilation, designed to deprive a woman of orgasm - including the removal of the head of the clitoris - were distributed throughout the world and are found today.
Today, surgeons around the world are already performing operations that help restore the sensitivity of the clitoris to women who have undergone mutilation. However, until now, most textbooks, especially those published before 1998, suffer from the insufficiency of even elementary data on the clitoris, basically presenting it only as a head and ignoring the fact that the erectile tissue of the clitoris is ten times larger than what often presented on anatomical models in the offices of doctors and in books on anatomy.
Clitoris blew a reproductive picture of the world.
Until the 1990s, no one knew how the clitoris actually worked. Urologist Helen O'Connell from the Royal Melbourne Hospital conducted a study of the microinnervation of the clitoris using magnetic resonance imaging and in 1998 published the results. Needless to say, similar studies for men using MRI were done back in the 1970s. Only in 2005, the American Association of Urology published one of O'Connell's reports on the structure of the clitoris. Despite the striking results of research, the textbooks still did not contain a description of the structure of the clitoris or depicted it only outside. At the same time, whole chapters were devoted to the penis - the reproductive paradigm as it is.
The ancestor of scientific anatomy, Andreas Vezaliy, accused contemporaries who were looking for a clitoris in hoaxes and promoted the view that the penis and vagina are mirror reproductive organs intended for each other (and for reproducing the species). The clitoris broke this picture of the world no less than Copernicus, who undermined the geocentric model of the Renaissance. And in 2009, French researcher Odile Buisson and Dr. Pierre Folde unveiled the first ultrasound results of the stimulated clitoris and revealed a connection between the cavernous bodies and the sensitivity of the vagina. This revolutionary discovery put an end to the confrontation of the clitoral and vaginal orgasms.
The clitoris has only one function - to bring pleasure.
Obviously, the clitoris is not needed for procreation. Nor is it intended to urinate, contrary to the still existing myth: the urethra, along which urine flows, is located under it. Scientists can not figure out what evolutionary role played by the clitoris in the role of humanity, whether it is related to adaptation or reproductive function. While it is believed that the clitoris has only one, but very important work - to bring a woman pleasure.
Dr. Elizabeth Lloyd analyzed data from more than thirty different studies and concluded that 75 percent of women cannot reach orgasm during penetration without stimulating the clitoris. The world has already abandoned the idea of Freud that clitoral pleasure is a sign of immature sexuality. Women have long tried to impose the idea that they are supposed to have sex only for conceiving children. Today it became clear that the clitoris is the most important part of female sexuality.
The clitoris is much bigger than it looks.
On the question of what a clitoris is, most people will answer that it is a small tubercle in the upper part of the labia. However, this is only a smaller part of the clitoris - the rest is inside the pelvis. The head, visible above the labia and partially or completely closed by the skin of the foreskin, passes into the body of the inner clitoris. It diverges into two cavernous bodies - spongy organs, shaped like horns. They are similar to the cavernous bodies of the penis, but smaller in size. In the excited state, the cavernous bodies of the clitoris are poured with blood and tightly cover the vagina on both sides - this is where the pleasant sensations during penetration come from.
Clitoral bulbs located under the skin of the labia minora, when excited, are also filled with blood and cover the vaginal opening - then it expands, its sensitivity increases. Orgasmic spasms remove the blood from the bulbs, but if the orgasm does not occur, then the process of release from excess blood can last up to several hours.
The clitoris is essentially the same as a penis.
Anatomically, the clitoris is analogous to the male penis. The visible and most sensitive part of the clitoris is also called the head, as is the corresponding part of the penis in men. However, the female head, although many times smaller, is about two times more sensitive than the male head. There are about 4 thousand sensitive nerve fibers in the head of the penis, and all 8 thousand in the head of the clitoris. This explains the frequent difficulties in men with understanding how light stimulation can sometimes lead a woman to orgasm.
The sensitivity of the clitoris of different women varies depending on its size and how close the clitoris is to the skin. Direct stimulation can hurt women with an open and sensitive clitoris, and those with a large foreskin hood often do not experience the expected sensations. In the first case, you can just easier handle the clitoris, and in the latter, advances in medicine come to the rescue. Women perform an operation like male circumcision to free the clitoris from under the skin hood.
Clitoris erects
As mentioned above, the excitement causes blood to flow to the cavernous bodies of the clitoris: it swells and increases with the soft tissues surrounding it. This is called a clitoral erection. In some women, the erect clitoris is tripled, while in others it practically does not change size. The response of the clitoris to stimulation is much slower than that of the male penis: it is revived only 20-30 seconds after the onset of exposure. After orgasm, the clitoris gradually assumes its former size.
Clitoris can be very different sizes.
The size of the clitoris is determined by the genetics and the level of sex hormones. The clitoris and penis develop from the same embryonic tissue: what happens in the end depends on the sexual definition of the embryo. With increased production of male hormones, the clitoris can increase over a wide range, which can make it difficult to determine the sex of the embryo: this is why boys often predicted for ultrasound are born girls. The difference between the size of the penis and the clitoris in adults is due solely to the fact that the penis has the function of conveying the genetic material of a man, sperm, into the depths of the vagina, and the clitoris is not intended for penetration and can afford to be miniature.
Contrary to rumors, the size of the clitoris is not related to a woman’s ability to experience sexual arousal. In the most obvious cases, when the clitoris is approaching in size and shape to the penis, we can talk about the phenomenon of intersexuality - gender, not fitting into the opposition "man - woman". A significant increase in clitoris in adulthood may be due to hormonal imbalances, such as polycystic ovary syndrome. Clitoromegaly can also occur on the background of taking steroids (for example, athletes) or in transgender men on the background of hormone replacement therapy.
However, the clitoris can be of very different size - and at the same time remain within the normal range. It is possible to get an orgasm, regardless of the shape, size or color of the clitoris: the dominance of monotonous images on the Web is associated with the dictate of the porn market, and not the real state of affairs. Many women may feel insecure due to the fact that their genitals are far from the "canon". Brave girls struggle with this by laying out photos of their clits and studying other people's images: it helps to understand the variety of shapes and sizes.
Vaginal orgasm depends on the location of the clitoris
The first French psychoanalyst, Princess Marie Bonaparte, could not reach orgasm with her husband or with four lovers, but she easily orgasmed during masturbation. She did not reconcile herself with the state of things and conducted a large-scale study, measuring the vaginas of two hundred and fifty women in search of the connection between their device and the woman’s ability to enjoy penetration.
In a report in 1924, she brought out the so-called rule of thumb (in fact, this is the rule of one phalanx of the thumb). According to him, if the clitoris is located less than 2.5 centimeters from the entrance to the vagina, it is easy for a woman to experience an orgasm during penetration. The greater the distance, the farther away the frictions from the main nerve tissue and the more difficult it is to achieve a vaginal orgasm. In 2010, Dr. Kim Wallen and Dr. Elizabeth Lloyd published a detailed test report on the experiment Marie Bonaparte and confirmed her findings on the short path to orgasm.
Pornography does not teach how to handle the clitoris
Much of pornography shows clit manipulation as a very formal prelude or as a postcoital tickling, and not as the most important path to a female orgasm or a necessary part of penetration for many. Even those videos in which only the female team is involved give a misconception about the purpose of the clitoris. Sometimes it is rubbed as if they want to make a fire - in fact, it is often too rough. In general, learning from pornography is a bad thing: it not only ignores the psychophysical features of real people and their sexual practices, but also forms false ideas about the desires and needs of the participants in the act.
Female orgasm is not "harder" than male
It is widely believed that women find it harder to reach orgasm than men. From the point of view of the physiology of the female body is not so. According to the research of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, 45 percent of women, masturbating, could have an orgasm within three minutes - and this is no longer than the data of a survey of men. This means that the reason for difficulties in achieving orgasm with a partner is not a mysterious female physiology, but a lack of knowledge, experiments of a particular pair or group of partners, and psychological factors that prevent a woman from relaxing.
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