These "Cliterate" Studies Show How Clueless We Still Are About Female Pleasure
More women than men can't find the clitoris on a diagram, but my readers can…
A recent survey from YouGov found that 59% of men and 45% of women could not label a vagina or vulva correctly.
Right about now, my readers are shaking their heads in disgust. None of my brilliant science aficionados would ever fall prey to such folly. By now, you have been bombarded with enough of my bubble gum-colored anatomy illustrations to see clitorises, vulvas, and penises in your sleep.
You're welcome.
But…just in case we need another review… Here are a woman's genitals. Please note where the vulva and vagina are located in case you ever need to find one.
Now, let's stop and think about this lacuna in the population's scientific knowledge. Most men over 18 have had sex. Yet these same men can't identify where they stuck their penises? Odd.
But what is really maddening is almost half of the female participants couldn't label the vulva correctly. How the heck do you walk around with one and not know where it is?
I blame it on our education system. The average high school student only receives 6.2 hours of sex education. Teens spend more time binge-watching their favorite tv series than learning about their bodies. Even more alarming, 19 states require instruction to stress sexual activity only within marriage, and most sex education programs do not teach sexual pleasure — the main reason most people have sex.
In 2017, Dr. Laurie Mintz sought to educate the public on female pleasure with her best-selling book, Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters — And How to Get It. Her research has motivated other researchers to become "cliterate."
Unfortunately, the clitoris is still the lost Atlantis of the research world. It's magical. Tales of it exist. And we still can't find it.
The latest sex research proves just how clueless we still are.
Sex Study #1: Researchers don't know the difference between a vulva and a vagina either
A 2020 study from The Journal of Sexual Medicine asked women worldwide to track how long it took to reach orgasm and what activities most helped them get there. The women used a stopwatch and recorded their sexual activity for one year.
During that year, not one American woman's partner performed oral sex. More American women got their armpit licked than their clitoris.
*Note: Out of the 645 female participants, 57 were American.
I am officially moving to India.
But not so fast. There might be another reason American women are not getting oral sex (or at least reporting that they are not getting it). Perhaps women were confused when checking those boxes. It reads "licking/lite biting/sucking vagina."
Gentlemen, if you are licking her vagina, you are in the wrong spot. The labia minora…delightful. The glans clitoris, and surrounding area…pure heaven. Really, any part of her vulva…keep going.
But licking inside the vagina…naaaaaaah, we will pass and wait for a penis. (If you are confused, here is an anatomical review of the clitoris.)
Clearly, these sex researchers from one of our most prestigious science journals are deeply confused in 2020. We can only hope they meant "vulva" and not "vagina."
And yes, some women like the entrance to their vagina licked. But overall, the vaginal opening has fewer nerve endings. And thank god women were designed that way, or childbirth would be pretty hellacious.
Sex Study #2: Men who perform oral sex are less likely to be cheated on
In a 2013 study, researchers recruited 351 men in a committed heterosexual relationship and questioned their frequency and enthusiasm for giving oral sex. (Note: participants were W.E.I.R.D.)
The researchers found men performed oral sex as a "mate retention strategy," and lo and behold…it worked. Women who received oral sex were less likely to cheat than those who did not.
Well, duh.
But I understand why we needed this study. Researchers continue to sideline the clitoris's role in reproduction. Usually, the clitoris is defined as "the only organ whose sole purpose is pleasure." Ah, not exactly.
Follow my basic syllogism. Most women need oral sex to orgasm. The female orgasm is a mate selection tool. No orgasm. No reproductive selection.
Then she chooses the other guy, and your DNA ends up in the dirt with your decaying corpse instead of your future children.
Too harsh? Perhaps.
Obviously, bad sex is not the only reason women (and men) cheat. But for centuries, when men were sexually dissatisfied, they had affairs. News flash. Women stray for the same reasons.
Unfortunately, when men don't learn sex from science, they fill the void with pornography. The result is a lot of bad choking and pounding sex that might be a blast if you are a paid porn star but is not so fun for vulva owners.
Sex Study #3: Sex researchers finally mapped the nerve endings in the clitoris, and it's A LOT…
The myth that the clitoris has "8000 nerve endings" has been repeated since the 1970s. Unfortunately, no one knew the number of nerve endings. The 8000 number was calculated from a cow's clitoris, not a woman's.
Well, it only took decades of using bovine anatomy instead of human anatomy, but we finally mapped the nerve endings in the clitoris. And it is drum roll… 10,281 nerve endings.
But how and why researchers finally bothered to study the clitoris is a classic tale of how cis-gender women's sexual health is repeatedly ignored.
The research began with Dr. Blair Peters, a reconstructive surgeon specializing in gender-affirming care. Peters was studying phalloplasty — the surgery that uses flaps of skin to construct a penis. During this procedure, surgeons must cut into the nerves of the clitoris. Consequently, Peters needed to map those nerve endings.
Assistant Professor of Urology at the University of California, Dr. Maria Uloko contacted Peters with a common complaint among urologists and OBGYNs — Why hadn't anyone bothered to study the clitoris' nerve fibers?
So Uloko asked Peters if they could form a research team and finally count the beans in the jar. He agreed. And the rest is clit history.
Now, let's stop and consider how these research dollars were spent. It took needing to know how to turn a clitoris into a penis to finally study the clitoris.
To be clear, transgender men definitely need this research. This is not a zero-sum game. Gender-affirming research helps cis-gender research.
However, millions of cis-gender women have endured vulva pain and sexual dysfunction for decades, and far too few researchers have bothered to ask why. For example, 16 percent of women in the U.S. suffer from vulvodynia — chronic burning, stinging, and stabbing sensations that make you want to rip off your lady bits.
This research will help those women, but we need more.
Sex Study #4: Snakes have badass clitorises
If you think the human clitoris is hard to find, you should see how hard it is to find the clitoris on Eve's serpent. Researchers have long known snakes had hemipenes — a two-part penis — but couldn't find the clitoris. Mainly because they never bothered to look for it.
Recently, researchers found it. And it is badass. A snake has a hemiclitoris — a two-part clitoris resembling a swollen heart. Researchers suspect the snake's clitoris motivates Misses snake to copulate longer and more frequently. Another theory is that it acts as a mate selection tool. The boy snake with the studliest hemipenes gets chosen.
This research matters because if we are finally studying female animals' genitalia and the clitoris' role in reproduction, then maybe we might ask the same questions for women. Here's hoping.
Sex Study #5: Female ejaculation exists
A 2021 study finally tackled the question of whether women ejaculate or not. It found:
“After reviewing 44 publications from 1889 to 2019, it became apparent that clinical and anatomical studies conducted during recent decades provide substantial evidence in support of the female ejaculatory phenomenon.”
So let me get this straight… Women have been observing a milky fluid come out of them since time immemorial, and scientists are only now asking — hmmm…I wonder what this fluid is?
An older 2013 study found that roughly 10–54% of women ejaculate during orgasm, but I suspect that number is higher since the amount of fluid released is often less than a teaspoon. Either way, an observation can hardly be a "phenomenon" when it is this common. Nor is it a phenomenon when physicians first recorded it in 300 B.C. Thanks, Aristotle, for noticing the ladies had "semen."
And thanks, sex researchers, for coming to the same astute conclusion 2000 years later. Keep up the good work.
Even more ridiculous, a 2013 international survey found female ejaculation had "a positive impact" on women. Since female ejaculation typically happens during an orgasm, what did researchers think they would find? Women complaining about wet sheets? I wonder if we would ever waste precious research dollars studying whether a man's ejaculation had a "positive impact?" Asking for a friend.
Sex Study #6: Women who are knowledgeable about the clitoris have more orgasms
This study repeated an older 2005 study to measure if clitoral knowledge had improved in the last decade. (Spoiler: It didn't.) But this time, researchers asked a more salient question — Is there a correlation between more clitoral knowledge and more orgasms?
Now brace yourself for more starry-eyed epiphanies….
The study found that women who were more educated about their clitoris had more orgasms.
But there was a caveat to their findings. Cliterate women did not have more orgasms with partnered sex. They only had more orgasms through masturbation.
It makes sense when you think about it. No one learns how to tango by dancing with themselves. But it isn't only the men stepping on toes.
On average, female participants answered only 4.5 out of the 9 quiz questions correctly. So women scored 50%, or a big fat F, for failing basic anatomy. Even more disturbing, when women were asked to label the clitoris on a vulva diagram, more women than men couldn't find it (29% vs. 25%).
To be clear, the questions were not hard. Questions included; True or False?— "The clitoris erects when it receives increased blood flow (e.g., during sexual arousal)."
Of course, my savvy readers would answer true because they read my last article on female erections.
What's next in mind-blowing revelations? The Grand Canyon is a big hole? It is only if we can find it.
