You know that tiny feel-good button between a woman's legs? That’s the clitoris and, speaking figuratively, it's anything but tiny. In fact, it's a powerful organ of sexual pleasure that comes complete with a surprising number of fun facts. You'll be surprised by how much this tiny organ's got going on under the hood. Here's a list of our top picks. (For more amazing info, "Woman: An Intimate Geography" is a great resource.)
It's Exquisitely Sensitive
The
clitoris contains at least 8,000 sensory nerve endings. To put that
into perspective, the penis has about 4,000. That makes this tiny area
the most sensitive part of a woman’s erogenous zone. And while the
clitoris is quite small, its powerful sensations can spread across a
woman's pelvic area by affecting 15,000 other nerve endings.
It's Bigger Than You Think
Did
you know that Marie Bonaparte—great-grandniece to the Napoleon
Bonaparte— had her clitoris surgically moved? Not removed (thank
goodness), but moved. Closer to her vagina, that is. The reason was
simple. Like many women, she couldn't
orgasm from
vaginal sex. At the time there was—and still is—evidence that if the
space between the clitoris and vaginal opening is less than an inch, a
woman is more likely to be able to orgasm through penetrative sex
alone.
The sad part, for Bonaparte at least, is that the surgery didn't work.
Here's
what she didn't know: Only one quarter of the clitoris is visible. The
rest of it is inside the body, which means this organ can't really be
picked up and moved. The clitoris is made up of many different parts,
including the clitoral head, the hood the clitoral shaft, the urethral
sponge, erectile tissue, glands, vestibular bulbs and the crura (or the
clitoral legs). Only the clitoral head and the hood are located outside
the body.
It's a Lot Like a Penis
Yeah,
there's the whole "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" camp, but
in reality, men and women are a lot more alike than most of us realize.
Or, at least we start out that way. In fact, all babies, upon
conception, have the exact same genital tissue. At about 12 weeks, each
baby’s genitalia begin to differentiate into a penis or labia. So, in a
sense, the clitoris and penis are the same materials put together in a
different way. The clitoris has a glans, a foreskin (also known as the
hood), erectile tissue and a teeny-tiny shaft. It even swells when it's
aroused! Good thing it's mostly hidden—it saves the ladies from having
to measure and compare with their friends ...
It Grows
The
clitoris actually grows during a woman's lifetime. No, it isn't getting
stretched out from too much sexy fun. The growth occurs as a result of
hormonal changes in the body. When a girl’s puberty begins, the clitoris
will start increasing in size. By the time puberty ends, the clitoris
will be about 1.8 times larger. By the time a woman is 32 years old, the
clitoris will be almost four times as big as it was at the onset of
puberty. It doesn’t end there. After menopause, the clitoris will be
about seven times larger than it was at birth. Don't freak out: this is
still a very small area, so the change in size won't be very
noticeable. And hey, it might help to explain why
older women often report such hot sex.
It's Only There for the Sex
A
woman's body includes a number of super-hot erogenous zones, but you
might say many of those are sort of, well, incidental. Not the clit.
It's there for fun. Yup, that’s right. The clitoris is the only part of
the body designed solely for pleasure. So, while other body parts used
for sexual pleasure have at least one other purpose to them, your clit
is just there to get you off.
Every Female Has One
Birds
do it. Bees do it. OK, maybe not bees, but every female mammal has a
clitoris. However, we humans are one of the few species that has evolved
to actually use the clitoris for sexual pleasure. That doesn’t mean
female mammals cannot orgasm—many other mammals experience sexual
pleasure just as we do.
