"We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal.
The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female
and spiritual plane..."
~ Audre Lorde
“Deeply female,” indeed…
So wrote the amazing and prolific scholar-social activist and black lesbian
mother, Audre Lorde in the 1960s in Harlem, New York. But while Lorde
was teaching us about “The Uses of the Erotic and the Erotic as Power,” (the
title of her eloquent, powerful, poetic manifesto on the critical strength and
erotic potential of women) very few spoke to us in the kind of clear
unambiguous language many of us back then needed to hear about our bodies.
After all, back in the
day, as they say, nearly all of what we knew about our bodies was what a
male-centered, or patriarchal culture wanted us to know. And the false,
destructive, minimizing narrative was clear: ours were bodies less capable and
less privileged than their own.
Ours were bodies that
needed to be controlled, needed to be harnessed in, needed to be trussed up and
regularly douched out, not touched by us, nor spoken about, nor remotely
understood. And ours were certainly not bodies for us to
enjoy, not the way males were encouraged to enjoy their parts, grasping,
jerking, panting, tensing, hurling themselves blissfully into stratospheric
orbit with clockwork regularity.
But not so for women.
Not so for well-bred, God-fearing females of the day, for whom wholesale
enjoyment of their anatomy would’ve sent them way over the line of decency. And
most every community influence emphatically told us so, including parents,
teachers, clergy and the like, the message being that exploring what was
between our legs might lead us straight to hell, or worse, send us crawling
back into the confines of our homes with an out-of-wedlock baby and our
prospects for a decent marriage, a decent future, in tatters and shreds.
But we wondered, and pondered, and wanted to ask questions. Wanted to know the whys and the hows of our bodies. Wanted to experience them. To touch. To smell. To taste. And many of us did, but mostly without the knowledge that would’ve empowered us to make safe, informed choices in the process.
Back then, just as now,
most of us were taught very little about what went on “down there” in that
mysterious, humid dark-land under our skirts. But occasionally in the course of
being, we’d stumble upon - fumble upon - something grand... and it wasn’t at all
where we thought it would be. You didn’t find it by probing way up inside of
you.
But it was definitely there… Something wild and rich and exquisitely special that could explode your very core and steal your breath away. Which brings me to the clitoris, the illustrious royalty of body parts, long misunderstood in all her amazing glory. Of course, nowadays, most women and their lovers know generally the what, why and wherefore of this not-so-tiny structure, tucked away beneath its fleshy hood, centrally above the entrance to one’s vagina. And I say not-so-tiny for very good reason. While lots of us think that when it comes to the clitoris, it’s a "what you see is what you get" sort of thing, absolutely nothing could be further from the truth.
Packed with an
unbelievable 8,000 nerve endings, the small button-like bulb that we can see
and touch and stimulate is connected to the shaft which is in turn connected to
a deep-seated, interior, nerve-rich clitoral structure with two long legs that
extend like an upside-down “V” embedded in the pelvis.
Created for nothing else
than to give its owner maximum, send-her-to-the-moon satisfaction, the entire
clitoral structure actually comes erect when we’re turned on, stiffening and
enlarging, its exquisitely sensitive head or “glans” igniting us with every
touch.
And so while lots of our naive male partners still expect us to "come" through vaginal penetration alone, the fact is, women weren’t constructed that way. And though legions of women absolutely enjoy the feeling of penetration and something-in-the-vagina fullness, for the huge majority of us, the clitoris is the fountain of our body’s pleasure response, the platinum standard, like a smooth Ferrari engine under the hood. It’s a fact pure and simple, “deeply female” and completely normal, whatever that term “normal” actually means.
Of course, like breasts
and hands, feet and noses, the clitoris comes in many lengths and sizes. Many
are nearly invisible beneath their hoods; others extend out and beyond the
vaginal lips, and for some particularly well-endowed women, the clitoris is
literally as long as an adult pinkie finger, plump and pink and clearly
visible, nestled inside panties or enjoying the air commando.
And wouldn’t you know
it? Ironically, in a society that prizes large breasts, the owners of large
clitorises often feel stigmatized and ashamed, erroneously believing that their
large, beautiful endowments are something to be hidden. "Mannish," as
some uninformed straight folk used to say. Sadly today, some of these women
resort to painful, disfiguring, minimizing surgery, paring their clits down to
a more ordinary, so-called “acceptable” size and in the process ruin their
ability to experience pleasure at all.
For a whole host of
reasons, this is unfortunate in the extreme. But as far as desirability goes,
for untold numbers of prospective lovers, both female and male, a
large, exposed clitoris, 3 inches and sometimes longer, is an absolute turn on
and completely, unequivocally, TOTALLY hot! For many, it’s often a case of the
larger the better and definitely something of which to be proud!
But large, small, visible or not, enough is enough. At the current time in our history, and whatever our cultural backgrounds, it's important to remember that whatever its shape and size, your clitoris, mine and all the collective clitorises on the huge expanse of the planet are completely, wholly and absolutely normal. Exquisite in their individual appearance, like fingerprints, they’re different on every one of us, and that’s a beautiful fact.
So relax. And enjoy it.
As often as possible, because you know what they say, use it or lose
it. The truth is that sometimes, particularly for older women, with hormonal
changes and the decrease in blood flow to our sex organs after menopause, the
clitoris can atrophy, or shrink down, and actually decrease in size.
Fortunately ever faithful, it still responds to stimulation even if this happens, but the characteristic bump, which is the glans, can become more difficult, if not impossible to feel. Clitoral atrophy can also happen through - you guessed it - lack of use. So whether we’ve got a partner or not, it behooves us to put our hands and our vibrators to work. Experiment and play. Let your clitoris know you love it because no matter its age and size, the royalty under the hood, pink and precious and “deeply female,” deserves active, reverent, abiding admiration. And for that, it rewards us extraordinarily well.
Fortunately ever faithful, it still responds to stimulation even if this happens, but the characteristic bump, which is the glans, can become more difficult, if not impossible to feel. Clitoral atrophy can also happen through - you guessed it - lack of use. So whether we’ve got a partner or not, it behooves us to put our hands and our vibrators to work. Experiment and play. Let your clitoris know you love it because no matter its age and size, the royalty under the hood, pink and precious and “deeply female,” deserves active, reverent, abiding admiration. And for that, it rewards us extraordinarily well.
photo credit: Jeanne Menjoulet <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/96925387@N00/40355995113">8 mars 2019 - Paris République</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">(license)</a>
photo credit: Giuseppe Martino™ <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/56801363@N04/31318550917">ACAB</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>
