The Clitoral Truth
by Audrey Ference
Dear Audrey,
Sometime in the last decade I read an article that detailed the ‘discovery’ that traces of a complete human male penis exists structurally folded into the normal human female’s anatomy. I was quite surprised to read about this, as it seemed a late date in the study of anatomy to discover such a thing, but on reflection it also seemed quite natural that a penis would exist in some form, in light of the existence of nipples on a male’s chest. I’ve misplaced that article. Can you point to any literature on this subject? Also, a possibly related question: what can you say about sensing the location of, and properly attending to, a “g” spot?
Ah yes, the sock theory of human anatomy, most famously espoused either by the character Gina from The Forty-Year Old Virgin or ancient Greek anatomist Claudius Galen. I couldn’t find the article you refer to, perhaps because it was lost when a fire destroyed the Temple of Peace — and much of Galen’s work — in 191.
It turns out there’s quite a little debate on the “girl is just an inside-out boy” school of genital thought. On the one hand, there are the “if you’d gotten within ten feet of a vag since your birth you would clearly see that that is not true” people. Their major pieces of evidence include the location of the pee hole and the fact that no amount of fucking will ever make a baby come out your dick.
On the other side are people like Rebecca Chalker, author of The Clitoral Truth: The Secret World at Your Fingertips, who said in a 2001 Salon interview that, “The clitoris is as extensive as the penis. In fact, the clitoris and the penis are almost identical in their parts. They’re just arranged differently. Up until about eight weeks of gestation, all fetuses appear to be female. Then, in fetuses with XY chromosomes, which designates them as male, testosterone kicks in and the parts are rearranged. In females the parts continue to grow into what is really an extensive clitoral system. So literally, the penis is a derivation of the clitoris, not the other way around, and they’re equal. It’s just that the penis is outside and can be easily seen.”
So there you go. You be the judge! Interestingly, at least to me, the only people for whom it is literally true that their vaginas are inside-out dicks are women who have undergone male-to-female sexual reassignment surgery. I guess the surgeons sort of scoop out the cock and make it into a hoo hoo. Neat, no?
Anyway, on to part two of the question. This Rebecca Chalker lady, who, frankly, seems much more informed about human anatomy than I am, so I’d be inclined to take her word for it, says that the g-spot is all part of the crazy ol’ lady sex organ that includes the clit and a bunch of other tissues and areas. The classic advice that you always hear for finding the g-spot is to stick two fingers in and make a “come here” motion, feeling along the top wall of the vulva, until you find a spot of ridged flesh. Klingon-like, those are her pleasure ridges.
For my money, the best way to find anything on a lady is to just get down in there and muck around. I mean, it’s going to be awkward anyway. May as well say fuck it and it explore, see what you can find. Who knows what kind of orgasm bumps and erotic topography you might stumble upon? Plus, every girl likes different stuff, as far as stimulating her organ goes — some people prefer indirect contact to certain areas, etc. — and so the “do that no not that no over to the left ok good” method is the one I recommend.
Sometime in the last decade I read an article that detailed the ‘discovery’ that traces of a complete human male penis exists structurally folded into the normal human female’s anatomy. I was quite surprised to read about this, as it seemed a late date in the study of anatomy to discover such a thing, but on reflection it also seemed quite natural that a penis would exist in some form, in light of the existence of nipples on a male’s chest. I’ve misplaced that article. Can you point to any literature on this subject? Also, a possibly related question: what can you say about sensing the location of, and properly attending to, a “g” spot?
Ah yes, the sock theory of human anatomy, most famously espoused either by the character Gina from The Forty-Year Old Virgin or ancient Greek anatomist Claudius Galen. I couldn’t find the article you refer to, perhaps because it was lost when a fire destroyed the Temple of Peace — and much of Galen’s work — in 191.
It turns out there’s quite a little debate on the “girl is just an inside-out boy” school of genital thought. On the one hand, there are the “if you’d gotten within ten feet of a vag since your birth you would clearly see that that is not true” people. Their major pieces of evidence include the location of the pee hole and the fact that no amount of fucking will ever make a baby come out your dick.
On the other side are people like Rebecca Chalker, author of The Clitoral Truth: The Secret World at Your Fingertips, who said in a 2001 Salon interview that, “The clitoris is as extensive as the penis. In fact, the clitoris and the penis are almost identical in their parts. They’re just arranged differently. Up until about eight weeks of gestation, all fetuses appear to be female. Then, in fetuses with XY chromosomes, which designates them as male, testosterone kicks in and the parts are rearranged. In females the parts continue to grow into what is really an extensive clitoral system. So literally, the penis is a derivation of the clitoris, not the other way around, and they’re equal. It’s just that the penis is outside and can be easily seen.”
So there you go. You be the judge! Interestingly, at least to me, the only people for whom it is literally true that their vaginas are inside-out dicks are women who have undergone male-to-female sexual reassignment surgery. I guess the surgeons sort of scoop out the cock and make it into a hoo hoo. Neat, no?
Anyway, on to part two of the question. This Rebecca Chalker lady, who, frankly, seems much more informed about human anatomy than I am, so I’d be inclined to take her word for it, says that the g-spot is all part of the crazy ol’ lady sex organ that includes the clit and a bunch of other tissues and areas. The classic advice that you always hear for finding the g-spot is to stick two fingers in and make a “come here” motion, feeling along the top wall of the vulva, until you find a spot of ridged flesh. Klingon-like, those are her pleasure ridges.
For my money, the best way to find anything on a lady is to just get down in there and muck around. I mean, it’s going to be awkward anyway. May as well say fuck it and it explore, see what you can find. Who knows what kind of orgasm bumps and erotic topography you might stumble upon? Plus, every girl likes different stuff, as far as stimulating her organ goes — some people prefer indirect contact to certain areas, etc. — and so the “do that no not that no over to the left ok good” method is the one I recommend.
