New Anatomy Research

""If it is permissible to give names to things discovered by me, it should be called the love or sweetness of Venus," urged one of the great and immodest anatomical explores of the Renaissance {Renaissance in Europe, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.} Like Adam, he claimed the privilege of naming what he had been the first to see: that which was "preeminently the seat of women's delight." This Columbus, not Christopher but Renaldus, announced with much fanfare in 1559 that he had rediscovered the clitoris. ("O my America, my new found land!")

In 1905 Sigmund Freud rediscovered the clitoris, or in any case the clitoral orgasm, by inventing its counterpart. After four hundred, perhaps even two thousand years, there was all of a sudden a second place postulated from which women derived sexual pleasure. In 1905, for the first time, a doctor claimed that there were two kinds of orgasm and that the vaginal sort was the expected norm among adult women.

Both discoveries were and are controversial. Columbus's colleagues disputed his claim to precedence, arguing that the organ about which he made such a fuss either had been discovered by someone else or had been common knowledge since Antiquity. Freud's discovery generated an immense polemical {polemical - an argument or controversial discussion} and clinical literature. More ink has spilled, I suspect, about the clitoris than any other organ, or at least about any organ its size.

I shall no enter directly into these controversies. Instead I want to sketch the history of the clitoris in Western, predominantly medical, literature in order to make two points. In the first place, prior to 1905 no one though that there was any other kind of female orgasm than the clitoral sort. It is well and accurately described in hundreds of learned and more popular medical texts as well in a burgeoning pornographic literature. Thus, it is simply not true that, as Robert Scholes has argued, there has been "a semiotic coding {semiotics - the analysis of signs used in language} that operates to purge both texts and language of things [the clitoris as the primary organ of women's sexual delight] that are unwelcome to men." The clitoris, like the penis, was for two millennia both "precious jewel" and sexual organ, a connection not "lost or mislaid" through the ages, as Scholes would have it, but only - if then - since Freud. To put it differently, Master and Johnson's revelation that female orgasm is almost entirely clitoral would have been a commonplace to every seventeenth-century midwife and had been anticipated in considerable detail by nineteenth-century investigators. For some reason, a great amnesia in this matter descended on scientific circles around 1900 so that hoary truths could be hailed as earth-shatteringly new in the second half of the twentieth century.

My second point is that there is nothing natural about how the clitoris is construed. It is not self-evidently the female penis nor is it self-evidently opposed to the vagina. Nor have men always regarded clitoral orgasm as absent, threatening or unspeakable because of some primordial male fear of, or fascination with, female sexual pleasure. The history of the clitoris is part of the history of sexual differences generally and of the socialization of the body's pleasures. Like the history of masturbation, it is a story as much about sociability as about sex."

The above quote is from the article: "Amor Veneris, vel Dulcedo Appeletur"
Author: Thomas W. Laquer
Article Published in Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Part Three
Copyright: 1989 Urzone Inc.

Reinventing the Clitoris

It is not just men who have thought they were the first to discover the clitoris. I have read women's accounts of how they discovered their own clitoris, believing they were the only person to have one. Sometimes this discovery occurred while they were young, other times when they are grandparents. How is it possible that someone is led to believe they are the first to discover an external anatomical structure that has existed for as long as we have as a species? Especially given its sensitivity to touch!

If you have never heard of the existence of the clitoris, and you suddenly stumbled across one, while exploring your own or a partner's body, you would believe you were the first to discover it as well. A person can be led to believe they were the first to discover anything, if they are convinced no one else had done so before them. To create such a person, all you have to do is deny something exists, or simply act as if it does not. If and when someone does find it, they will be the first, or so they believe. Since our society acts like the clitoris does not exist, that means there are millions of people, male and female, who are potential discoverers of the clitoris. To hinder this discovery process, we make a woman's vulva off limits to her and her partner. If you cannot go into the forest, you cannot discover that which lies within.

We would like to fault doctors and medical professionals for not knowing, or making available, more information about the clitoris, but are they to blame? Before a person becomes a doctor, they are a member of their community and adapt the standards of that community, which adapts the standards of that society. If an entire society does not acknowledge the existence of the clitoris how then can a single doctor or medical professional? If a society does not permit the discussion of sex, can a doctor openly discuss a purely sexual organ? If a doctor cannot examine a woman's clitoris and ask her questions about how it functions, how is he or she going to learn about the clitoris? If by examining a woman's clitoris a doctor risks going to jail for sexual assault, for touching her "sexually," is he likely to do so? If the majority of cadavers available at medical schools are male, how many doctors will be able to study the anatomy of women firsthand? Even if a doctor wants to be an expert on the anatomy and function of the clitoris, there are many social barriers in place to prevent them from doing so.

With all of this in mind, the article titled The Truth About Women that appeared in the August 1, 1998 edition of the magazine New Scientist gave Dr. Helen O'Connell more credit than she warrants. This statement in not meant to diminish the importance of the information she did bring to light, even if she is not the first to do so. What this article does demonstrate is, how little the female authors knew about their own anatomy. Dr. O'Connell admits to the prior existence of much of the information she presented, in old French and German anatomy texts. Some of which are presented on this website.

In the medical journal that Dr. O'Connell's research results were first presented, she mentions how incomplete and inaccurate the information is on the anatomy of the clitoris in the majority of anatomy texts; which is unfortunately extremely true. If you look at Gray's Anatomy, the bible of anatomy, you can see that it hardly addresses the anatomy of clitoris in its text and illustrations. This is true for most anatomy books. The incomplete information presented in Gray's Anatomy is often copied word for word in later anatomy texts. With the passage of time, little new knowledge has been gained about the clitoris. The reason for this is, our society as a whole has deemed it inappropriate and unnecessary, since the clitoris serves no purpose, according Freudian thinking.

What Dr. O'Connell has to say about the accuracy is perhaps not completely true. The information presented in each of these old references is likely based on the dissection of a single female body. It has always been harder to acquire the bodies of women than men, especially young women. As a result, the information presented is usually inaccurate for the majority of women, at least the details. Dr. O'Connell found there was a lot of variation between the women she dissected, if she had based her research results solely on any one of them, her results would be considered just as inaccurate when compared to someone else's results.

What does Dr. O'Connell's research reveal or confirm about the anatomy of the clitoris and the surrounding structures?

The resulting photographs, shown below, provide an exceptional record of the anatomy of the clitoris and the surrounding structures. I'm guessing the originals that were submitted for publication were in color, based on a statement in the original article.

The erectile structures are usually much larger in premenopausal women. This means, the size of a woman's erectile structures are in part determined by hormone levels. An eighteen year old likely has a larger clitoris than a sixty-five year old.

The urethra is surrounded on three sides by erectile tissue. There is no erectile tissue between the vagina and the urethra.

It is perhaps inaccurate to consider the bulbs to be associated with the vestibule, as they are more closely associated with the clitoris and urethra.

The body of the clitoris is 1 to 2 cm. (0.39 to 0.79 in.) wide.

The body of the clitoris is 2 to 4 cm. (0.79 to 1.57 in.) long.

The body and crura of the clitoris have a "deep pink" vasculature.

The body of the clitoris projects outward from the pubic bone, versus lying against it as it is often shown.

The crura are 5 to 9 cm. (1.97 to 3.54 in.) long.

The bulbs are 3 to 7 cm. (1.18 to 2.76 in.) long.

The bulbs have a "deep blue vasculature."

They saw no evidence of the previously reported vestibular (Bartholin's) glands.

The dorsal nerve of the clitoris is "noticeably large," being greater than 2 mm. (0.08 or 5/64th in.) in diameter. It is visible to the naked eye.

Dr. O'Connell's newer research article published June 2005 can be read by clicking here.

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