Tip of the clitoral iceberg

io9: Humans have been studying one another sexually for thousands upon thousands of years. Yet for all that time spent diligently exploring one another’s anatomies, there remain many features of the human form that, until veryrecently, have gone uncharted — chief among them being the clitoris.

How recently are we talking? Try 2009. Yeah. Get ready, everybody — it’s time you were brought up to speed on some important features of the female anatomy.

Picture a clitoris in your mind. Got it? Now, what if I told you that what you’re imagining is just the tip of a much larger, internal clitoral iceberg — that the clitoris is actually much, much larger than what this sensitive bundle of nerve endings would lead you to believe?

Here’s a helpful sketch to help you paint a safe-for-work, anatomically correct picture of what I’m talking about, along with a brief description. Both are provided courtesy of Ms. M, who heads things up over on MoSex, official blog of the Museum of Sex:

The scientific name for the external “little button” or “bulb” [of the clitoris] is glans.  Not to be confused with glands, glans simply refers to a small circular mass.  This little structure contains approximately 8,000 sensory nerve fibers; more than anywhere else in the human body and nearly twice the amount found on the head of a penis… The fact is, though, that most of the clitoris is subterranean, consisting of two corpora cavernosa (corpus cavernosum when referring to the structure as a whole), two crura (crus when referring to the structure as a whole), and the clitoral vestibules or bulbs.

The glans is connected to the body or shaft of the internal clitoris, which is made up of two corpora cavernosa.  When erect, the corpora cavernosa encompass the vagina on either side, as if they were wrapping around it giving it a big hug!

The corpus cavernosum also extends further, bifurcating again to form the two crura.  These two legs extend up to 9cm, pointing toward the thighs when at rest, and stretching back toward the spine when erect.

Surprised? So was I.