Eduaction - Clitoris

Clitoris

It's an anatomical irony that perhaps only God could explain: The most sexually sensitive spot on most women's bodies – the clitoris – is positioned in such a way that it's often not directly stimulated during normal intercourse. It sits, snug and secret, concealed by the multiple lips of the labia and a hood of skin, on a mound high above the opening of the vagina. In most women, it can be found at the peak of the inverted V formed by the inner lips of the labia.

The late Dr. Alfred Kinsey called the clitoris "the phallus of the female," but you could just as easily call the penis the clitoris of the male. Anyway, a baby girl's clitoris is formed from the very same embryonic tissue that becomes the head of the penis in a baby boy. Both penis and clitoris are richly endowed with nerve endings, so they're exquisitely sensitive to the touch. They even look the same: The clitoris is a shaft, an inch long and a little skinnier than a pencil, with a gland (head) and a foreskin. The comparison really isn't so obvious, because most of the clitoris is tucked away in the soft tissue forming the wall above the vagina and is covered by a veil of skin called the clitoral hood. In some women, the head of the clitoris protrudes, like a tiny bud; in others, it is completely hidden. Its size can vary, too, but whether i-Cs large or small has nothing to do with how sensitive it is.

Clitoral Erection

During arousal, the clitoris becomes engorged with blood just as the penis does, swelling in diameter and (in some women, at least) also in length. Strangely enough, though, during the height of arousal the clitoris retreats demurely beneath its veil of skin rather than rearing up for the world to see, Eke a penis. It may even seem to disappear altogether, so that an ardent lover, eager to find it just when he wants it most, may search in vain.

What is the physiological purpose of the clitoris? The penis, its male equivalent, has a couple of purposes: to provide a channel for the discharge of urine and ejaculate and also to provide sexual pleasure. But the clitoris seems to have only one purpose: to give pleasure. When he speaks to women's church groups, Jude Cotter, Ph.D., a psychologist and sex therapist in private practice in Farmington Hills, Michigan, likes to tell them: "God wanted you to have an orgasm. How do I

know? Because He gave you a clitoris, and the only known purpose of the clitoris is to give sexual pleasure. It has no other function."

Hogwash from Dr. Freud

Yet for much of this century, the clitoris was regarded as much less important to a woman's sexual fulfillment than the vagina, largely because of the misbegotten notions of Sigmund Freud, turn-of-the century founder of psychoanalysis, and his followers. In Freud's view, the clitoris is a sort of vestigial, inferior penis, considered the centerpiece of sexual delight only by girls who discover it during masturbation and by immature, neurotic or frigid adult women who cannot break this fixation as they get older. What a woman should do as she matured, Freud taught, was learn to transfer the source of her sexual pleasure from the clitoris to the vagina. The only right and proper way for a mature adult woman to experience sexual pleasure was through vaginal orgasm - penetration of the vagina by a penis, without any additional stimulation of the clitoris.

This notion came to be known as the clitoral/vaginal transfer theory, and it drove lots of women crazy. Distressed that they still seemed fixated on the clitoris, legions of women sought the help of marriage counselors and therapists, who valiantly sought to transform their immature clitoral responses" into grown-up 4 1vaginal responses." But nothing worked, because the whole business, it turns out, is pure Freudian hogwash - a biological impossibility. A bed of nerve endings just doesn't jump from one place to another like that. For most women, the centerpiece of sexual delight is the clitoris, and it doesn't change no matter how old you get.

The Search for the “Magic Spot”

Still, in recent decades, there has been a continuing debate-often quite heated and usually tinged with one sort of ideological fervor or another- about the precise location of the "magic spot," the focus of female sexual arousal. Freud insisted it was the vagina. Dr. Kinsey, Masters and Johnson and others insisted it was the clitoris. (In fact, in an odd turnabout, it's the clitoris instead of the vagina that tends to get over promoted today, particularly by feminist writers and therapists.) More recently, other researchers have suggested that in many women, the most sensitive area is the "G-spot” - a dime-sized spot on the roof of the vagina, several inches inside the opening.

But the latest round of research suggests something even more interesting: that there's a wonderful diversity of sexual responses among women, and no single theory holds true for everyone. Shere Hite reports that 70 percent of the thousands of women who answered her questionnaires said they required some clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm - meaning, of course, that 30 percent of the women achieved orgasm some other way. Some women, it appears, are more clitorally sensitive, others are more vaginally sensitive, and neither one is right or wrong.

Finding the "Love Button"

Even though devotees of Freud have dwindled, many women still feel uncomfortable or embarrassed about touching their clitoris during lovemaking, says Lonnie Barbach, Ph.D., assistant clinical professor of medical psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. And many men feel they're somehow inadequate if their partner feels the need to stimulate her clitoris during intercourse. "There is a myth that it is somehow wrong to touch yourself while making love with someone else. An unspoken rule dictates that you only touch me and I only touch you, but we never touch ourselves," Dr. Barbach says.

But it's worth overcoming these preconceptions, because there are lots of women who simply can't reach peak arousal unless their clitoris is sufficiently stimulated. Take some time to help your partner locate - your "love button" precisely - preferably in a gentle, playful way. If it doesn't embarrass you, turn on a light to allow for a better look. Dr. Barbach even suggests that - if you can get over your modesty about it - a great way to show your partner precisely where you like to be touched is to allow him to watch you masturbate. That way, he can tell exactly where your clitoris is and in the future know how to pleasure you more precisely.

Probably the best way to stimulate the clitoris is go straight to the point and do it by hand (his or hers), or with a roving tongue. But there are also many ways to do it during intercourse as well. Dr. Barbach suggests trying the position that most closely resembles the position the woman uses when she is masturbating alone. Or a couple can try something described in old marriage manuals as "riding high" - any position in which the man rides up on the woman, so that his pubic bone rocks away against her clitoral region. Although this may not be sufficient in itself to trigger orgasm, it can get her partway there. Or he can penetrate her as deeply as possible and then, rather than thrusting in and out, rock from side to side or gently chum round and round. This stimulates the clitoris but allows him to last, since it doesn't cause an excess of ecstasy by rubbing too hard against the head of the penis.