Your Clitoris is 8 Inches

Your clitoris is 8 inches. It is *not* the size of a pea.

I’m admittedly embarrassed to have learned this when I was 36.

I view myself as knowledgeable about my health and sexuality and I *thought* I knew a lot about my vag. For example, my older sister and I overlapped at the same University (I was an undergraduate while she was in medical school studying to become an OB/GYN). I’ll never forget how she paraded into my apartment during my junior year and demanded that my roommates and I individually stand over a mirror because we *needed* to learn about and inspect our vaginas. We took turns going into the bathroom, while my sister sat at the threshold doling out instructions about how to stand, what to lift, what to look for… (FTR, I felt like I was going to faint).

So in 2016 when I read this article about France using “the world’s first open-source, anatomically correct, printable 3D clitoris” as a tool in sex education classes starting in primary school (!) I was stunned. Instead of growing up thinking of a clitoris as a hot little button (like I did), these French kids are going to think of clits as high-tech boomerangs. That’s a for reals paradigm-shift.

How did I not know of this before? The answers were obvious… the medical profession ignored this since it doesn’t affect reproduction, the male-as-default is centered in pretty much all discussions and representations of mainstream heterosexual sex because… you guessed it, patriarchy.

Clitoral Activism in 3 Parts

Thankfully Odille Fillod and other clitoral activists are proactively telling the truth about female bodies.

1. Documentaries

Take this award-winning animated documentary, Le Clitoris (2016), for example. In just 3 minutes and 16 seconds it cogently and comically illustrates everything I’ve stated above, and more.

2. Books

Dr. Emily Nagoski’s book, Come As You Are, is chock full’ o clitoral details and keeps reiterating how female and male genitals are made of exactly the same parts, just organized in a different way. Importantly, the clitoris, NOT the vagina, is the female equivalent to the male penis. It even gets erect like a penis, we just can’t see it since it’s inside our bodies. Which means that a clitoral orgasm (not a genital orgasm) is equivalent to a penile orgasm. This was news to me.

Dr. Nagoski underscores that intercourse is not a very effective way to stimulate the clitoris, while clitoral stimulation is the most common way to make female orgasms happen (80-90% of women who masturbate do so with little to no vaginal penetration, even when using a vibrator). Vaginal orgasms are the male equivalent to an orgasm from the prostate. An interesting fact that I learned from this book is that if one has frequent vaginal orgasms, it’s due to the distance between their clitoris and urethra. And why are many of us just finding this out according to Dr. Nagoski? You guessed it, patriarchy.

3. Jewelry

A fun way to become a clitoral activist is to sport some jewelry. This site makes clitoris inspired jewelry! I personally adore this bracelet.

How exciting! The heterosexual male-as-default (mis)representations of sex and sexuality are getting challenged! I hope this was as useful for you as it was for me

Is the 8 inch clit news to you? If not, when and where did you learn about it?