4.3: Get Cliterate!

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Page ID: 167183

Susan Rahman with Nathan Bowman, Dahmitra Jackson, Lushtak, Remi Newman, & Prateek Sunder
California Consortium for Equitable Change in Hispanic Serving Institutions Open Educational Resources (CC ECHO)

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The medical field in Western Society began by looking at white male bodies, and everything else became an object of study in relation to that. This automatically normalized male white bodies and made female, intersexed, and non-white bodies “others”. In the case of sexual health, this is plainly clear in the lack of development in the study of the Clitoris, the pleasure center in the vulva, made up of the same erectile tissue as the penis.

When it comes to the wonderful feeling you get from an orgasm, erectile tissue rules (and we all have some)! As described in the earlier chapter on anatomy, when an infant in utero begins to develop, based on the genes and hormonal makeup of that fetus, then the erectile tissue takes shape. “We’re all made of the same parts, but in each of us, those parts are organized in a unique way that may change over our life span” (Nagoski, 2015 p 7). The area known as the clitoris is highly sensitive to both the external nub, but also the inner parts, so the entire vulva is a site of great pleasure mostly due to that underlying erectile tissue.

Australia’s first female urological surgeon and renowned sex researcher, Helen O’Connell, has done a great deal towards understanding erectile tissue on people with vulvas. Prior to her work, the deeper structures of the clitoris were not given much attention in medical journals, while its counterpart, the penis was. Her 2005 groundbreaking article, Anatomy of the Clitoris introduced many of us to the breadth and depth of the clitoris. Prior to her work, the clitoris was largely overlooked in medical studies and publications. Watch Dr. O’Connell discuss the clitoris and her work here: Get Cliterate | Professor Helen O'Connell | TEDxMacRobHS One of the most common misconceptions of the clitoris is that it is just the external nub visible at the top opening of the vulva. What is actually true is that the little nub that someone may see when they examine their vulva is just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg, and underneath the surface, it expands into a much larger organ worthy of its own notoriety. A debt of gratitude is owed to Dr. O’Connell for expanding the field. Better late than never!