Sedes Libidinus, if you know what I mean

Name this body part. Go on, take a guess!

That, my friends, is the full structure of the female clitoris*--including the extensive internal parts. Yes, the clitoris has internal parts! Extensive ones! Am I the only one who didn't know this? I thought a clit was a tiny button there on the outside--the end. For 46-friggin'-years (many of them, to be fair, non-friggin' years), I've been walking around ignorant of my own damn anatomy.

I could choose to wallow in shame over this, but I'm not gonna be too hard on myself because a) I generally cut myself way too much a lot of slack and b) practically no one knows this stuff. 

We should have been learning about our extensive clititude way back in 1844 when Georg Ludwig Kobelt published his seminal (though that is undoubtedly the wrong word) clit research in Die männlichen und weiblichen Wollust-Organe des Menschen und einiger Säugetiere (The Male and Female Organs of Sexual Arousal in Man and some other Mammals). 

Kobelt discovered a bunch of highly useful info--that, ahem, science, would have been NICE TO KNOW--like: clitorises (the whole extensive lot) become erect when aroused, and have all sorts of parts that you (and by "you," I mean "me") never even heard of like crura, bulbs and other clitorally-related new words I will probably not be incorporating into my sexy talk. "Oh my God! My clitoral vestibule is sooo hot for you."

Although maybe I should be talking vestibules and such. If you're a guy and plan to be sliding your manhood into her sweet feminine folds, you actually do want her clitoral vestibule, as well as her two corpora cavernosa, to be hot for you. When these parts are erect, they'll tighten quite nicely around you.

According to the anatomical explanation in this article on the Museum of Sex blog which I could barely understand without consulting the drawing frequently:

Most of the clitoris is subterranean. The glans is connected to the body or shaft of the internal clitoris, which is made up of two corpora cavernosa. When erect, the corpora cavernosa encompass the vagina on either side, as if they were wrapping around it giving it a big hug! Near each of the crura on either side of the vaginal opening are the clitoral vestibules. These are internally under the labia majora. When they become engorged with blood they actually cuff the vaginal opening causing the vulva to expand outward. Get these puppies excited, and you’ve got a hungrier, tighter-feeling vaginal opening in which to explore!

If you're feeling sciencey, I highly recommend you have a look at Helen E. O'Connell's Anatomy of the Clitoris in the Journal of Urology. (Important caveat: article contains photos with such labels as "Fig. 2. Lateral view of dissected clitoris in fresh cadaver of 57 year-old post menopausal woman." Which, as a sentence, contains a surprisingly high amount of unpleasant imagery.)

"The tale of the clitoris is a parable of culture, of how the body is forged into a shape valuable to civilization despite and not because of itself," writes O'Connell.

In the oddly enjoyable article (Journal of Urology, who knew you were such a good read?), O'Donnell rails against the medical establishment for not providing decent diagrams and accurate info on clits--a "blinkered approach," she writes. (A blinkered approach that still exists.) She also describes the history of clitorical research with its ever-changing ideas about what goes on between a woman's legs, and the comical regularly that men throughout history have claimed to "discover" the clit, each one giving it names, culumella (little pillar), sedes libidinis (seat of lust) and landica (shhh, Latin profanity!)

In the 1500's, Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius disagreed with Falloppia (yes, he of the tubes) that "healthy women" had a clitoris and wrote: "It is unreasonable to blame others for incompetence on the basics of some sport of nature you have observed in some women and you can hardly ascribe this new and useless part, as if it were an organ, to healthy women." (On a related note: I can find no mention of a Mrs. Vesalius.)

So why isn't anyone bothering to tell us this stuff? It sure would explain a whole fuck of a lot and clear up the vaginal vs. clitoral orgasm debates, what a G-spot is, etc...  I mean, it seems like it's all just stimulation of various parts of the clitoris. Right? That said, I do think that orgasms feel different depending on what spot is being stimulated. An orgasm from the G-spot area, or cruca or whatever the fuck we're calling it today, really does seem deeper and richer to me than the more tinny, shallow feel of a clit only orgasm.

And...I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. I am writing to complete strangers (and worse, people I know) and describing the color and tenor of my orgasms. That, my friends, means it is so time for me to go today.

However, if you want to weigh in on matters orgasmic, bring it on. You know I like it when you talk like that to me.

xoxo
jill

* Is it CLIToris or CliTORis? According to Wikipedia, which offers audio pronunciations so you can hear the words, each is correct. So use them both as you please! Wikipedia also offers a pronunciation guide for the UK version, /ˈklaɪtɒrɨs/, which is completely non-helpful gibberish to me, and sadly, does not come with a corresponding audio version. Because my inner 5th grader would really really like to hear a crisp British voice intoning patiently, /ˈklaɪtɒrɨs/.

For more IBWMW info on orgasms (or, in light of new developments, possible misinformation):   

How to Have A G-Spot Orgasm

Did You Know There Are Three Types of Orgasms? Yes, Three.

In Search of the Elusive Third Type of Orgasm 

(images)

This is a rerun. Please direct further concerns to our customer service number.