Half the World Has a Clitoris. Why Don’t Doctors Study It? That’s the Question Behind a New Research Study.
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The world’s research papers on female sexuality may as well just stop, because what little research has been done on the topic has mostly been done by men. According to a new study—in the Journal of Urology—they can.
The reason? It’s because women are more likely to have what’s known as an intrinsic clitoris, which is a small piece of tissue that is believed to be involved in the production of vaginal lubrication.
It’s also because having an intrinsic clitoris doesn’t involve having a vagina, which means women don’t have to use a tampon or other menstrual product that can irritate or damage the sensitive tissue of the clitoris.
In other words, it makes sense that researchers would like to study the clitoris, and have been doing so for decades, as a large body of literature shows that the clitoris is related to sexual pleasure and women’s orgasms.
However, until now, the topic of female sexuality has been one that has been taboo in medical research, with the result that the best studies available came from men. When they’ve been done, the results have been largely negative.
In an effort to change that—and to make sure that women know that the clitoris isn’t a “disgracefully small thing” like some people have claimed—a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh is now publishing a study showing that the clitoris is the same size as the vagina in young women.
The study—published in the Journal of Urology—is by a team of researchers, led by Dr. David S. D’Alessio, who is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The research team—which had several hundred patients, ages between 13 and 26, participate in it—studied women’s genital sizes to see whether there was any relationship between clitoral size and sexual performance.
The researchers found a “statistically significant, but small, correlation between clitoral size and sexual desire,” D’Alessio told NBC News.
The team measured the clitoral size of the patients, using a series of
