i was masturbating and having orgasms long before i connected it with the word for orgasm.

i was having orgasms long before i knew there was a clitoris.

i was having sex long before i knew that the-thing-that-happened-that-felt-good when i masturbated was the thing people were talking about that was supposed to happen – or could happen – when you had sex.

And i had a fairly progressive mother – i knew all the actual facts of life long before most of my friends.  i just didn’t connect the dots on the whole orgasm thing.  Or know about the clit.

Unlike these French students, who are going to know more than i knew before yesterday.  Check out this article:  How a 3D clitoris will help teach French schoolchildren about sex.

Among the things from the article that i didn’t know is this:

“…pupils will learn that the clitoris is made up of the same tissue as the penis. That it is divided into crura or legs, bulbs, foreskin and a head. That the only difference between a clitoris and a penis is that most of the female erectile tissue is internal – and that it’s often longer, at around 8 inches.”

That is pretty amazing.  So really, the difference in male and female sex organs is that the male’s are external and ours are internal.  i have heard that said – literally that – but had thought they were talking about the vagina being inside us.  NOT the same thing at all.

And i would have said i thought the clit was kind of “outside.”  Even though i had read in recent years that what we think of as the clit is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, i had no idea.  And i’m feeling kinda cheated.  Remember, i’m 60, i have been having sex now for going on 50 years.

The rest of my life might have been different, f i had known 35 or 40 years ago what Odile Fillod, who did the clitoris sculpture, says:

“It’s important that women have a mental image of what is actually happening in their body when they’re stimulated,… In understanding the key role of the clitoris, a woman can stop feeling shame, or [that she’s] abnormal if penile-vaginal intercourse doesn’t do the trick for her – given the anatomical data, that is the case for most women.”

Also, this struck me.  According to the article, when Suzann Gage was looking for images of the clit, she found “that her best information came from medical textbooks of the 1800s – when anatomical drawings were done from cadavers. So images of the clitoris might have existed for a long time but, on realizing that it played no direct part in reproduction, the medical profession chose to ignore it.”  (Bold and italics added.)

That just figures, doesn’t it?

Ok, i won’t be bitter.  It’s too late in my life to be bitter, and i think it’s great for all those little French boys and girls that they’ll get to learn the rest of the story.  It’ll be at least another hundred years before it’s taught in schools here.  Sigh.  So i’m spreading the news as best i can.

The clit.  More amazing than you knew.

The image is also available as a pendant.  How cool is that?