From a recent scientific discovery about your clit’s legs (??), to the boners you don’t know you’re getting, here’s some info that will make you less clueless about what’s going on underneath your tights.
By Sophia Larigakis. Drawings by Maggie Dunlap.
Vaginas are everywhere lately. Have you noticed? They used to just be in Georgia O’Keeffe paintings and the odd medical textbook, but now they are in every. single. place. you look. You literally can’t walk a block without seeing seventeen artistic depictions of cunts (meta!) and fourteen pussy-shaped articles of clothing, candles, listicles (meta!) and/or pieces of food. Everyone and their cool grandmother has a sketch of labia majora hanging from their bathroom wall. Vulvas, frankly, are viral. In the non-scary sense of the term. And in the scary sense, too, I guess.
Despite pussy ubiquity, however, vulvas (the accurate term for what we colloquially mean when we say vagina; I’m using both terms interchangeably here) are shrouded in mystery. Those of us with them barely know what’s going on between our legs. And those without rarely possess the talent – or the patience – to learn what excites them. Does the commodification of the vulva mean we’re all going to start having better sex? Maybe. There may not be a direct correlation between pussy towels (frilly!) and defter clitoral stimulation, but getting to know your – or your partner’s – pussy is a straight shot to an enriched relationship to pleasure and your body.
Luckily for you (and all the cunts you know intimately), here are five things you probably didn’t know about your vagina – unless you are a doctor, or a particularly excellent Swedish sex toy company. I promise they are useful facts, and not completely pointless shit like “sharks and vaginas both contain squalene, a natural vaginal lubricant,” even though that’s true. Buckle up.
1) Your clit has legs
Ok, that makes it sound creepier than it is. Let’s try again. Up until SEVEN YEARS AGO the common understanding of the clitoris was that it was external genitalia only – in other words, people thought the clit was this lil button that sits at the top of your labia—the end. But since the first ever major study of the clitoris, way back in 2005 (scientists’ priorities are fucked up, guys) we now know that the clit has branches, or legs, that extend beneath the skin and down along the sides of the vulva. Here’s some advice: get yourself the new LELO SONA Cruise, a sonic massager that attends (with pulsing sonic waves!) to your WHOLE clitoris, newfound legs and all. (And FYI it’s now at a special intro price of $99 instead of $179—just saying.)
2) Clits get boners too
So can we stop gagging over the phallus already? Clitoral hoods are the foreskins of the clit. Clits get boners, too – blood rushes to their erectile tissue when you’re aroused. Penises have about 4,000 nerve endings, which sounds like a lot until you find out that clits have like 8,000. How many times did you just read the word clit, and how do you feel about it now?
3) Lots and lots of women do not cum from simple vaginal penetration
OK ok ok you probably already knew that. It feels important to mention, though, since the whole thrust-twice-ejaculate-and-then-sleep situation is not an uncommon sexual encounter between people with penises and those with vaginas. Stimulate the clit, babes.
4) ‘Blue balls’ aren’t just for people with balls
When sexually frustrated (did I mention the thrust-twice-ejaculate-and-then-sleep situation?), people with vaginas sometimes feel discomfort to the point of mistaking it for an STI or other kind of infection. It’s fucking blue balls, bitches—get a sonic clit massager and finish your goddamn self off.
5) The G-spot is maybe possibly not a thing
Or at least, not in the way you’ve been led to believe. It’s not just a cum button (if only), but it’s still a vaginal Bermuda Triangle of sorts. The old G-spot myth suggests that there’s a magical area a couple inches up into your vagina (front side) that, when stimulated, really makes a lady go wild. However, scientists now believe that what we all thought was the pearly gates of vaginal pleasure is actually probably just a special cocktail of clitoral, urethral, and frontal vaginal wall stimulation executed so perfectly as to produce what is sexily known as a “clitourethrovaginal complex.” So go on, get your clitourethrovaginal complex on, LELO sonic massager in hand.
This article was created in partnership with LELO.