{"id":391481,"date":"2026-04-10T11:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/391481\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T11:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:02:10","slug":"found-it-the-university-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/391481\/","title":{"rendered":"Found It! \u2013 The University Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cmystery\u201d shrouding the clitoris (its appearance, its function, its location) is much more sinister than the ironic cultural discourse surrounding it may suggest. The clitoris is one of the least studied organs in the human body<\/a>; this lack of research reflects and reinforces cultural taboos surrounding female reproductive anatomy and experience of pleasure. Although it is so crucial for the understanding of the bodies of almost half of the world\u2019s population, the clitoris has long been overlooked by medical and scientific communities, in part due to social stigma and deeply ingrained patriarchal structures. The clitoris only began appearing in standard anatomy textbooks in the 20th century, and has been absent in issues of Gray\u2019s Anatomy as recently as 1948<\/a>. Even in more recent anatomical diagrams, the clitoris is rarely depicted accurately scaled or in its full form, omitting the hood or legs that extend around the vagina.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seminal works from urologist Helen O\u2019Connell<\/a> had used magnetic resonance imaging to map the internal structure of female genitalia, revealing the clitoris to be at least double the size depicted in existing anatomical diagrams. Recent histological studies have shown that the innervation density of the clitoris is much greater than that of the penis (reports ranging from 6- to 15-fold)<\/a>. But the exact trajectory of clitoral nerves has been difficult to trace due to their embedded locality.<\/p>\n

A recent study by Ju Young Lee and her fellow research associates at the Amsterdam University Medical Center has overcome previous methodological limitations through the use of \u201cHierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography\u201d (high-energy x-rays), successfully mapping out the complex network of nerve structures inside the clitoris<\/a>. Their findings and the neuroanatomical map of the clitoris they have produced offer both an overdue anatomical foundation as well as a critical framework for clinicians and researchers, ultimately helping to combat the systemic gap in knowledge surrounding female genitalia. A similar level of knowledge concerning nerves in the penile glands has predated this research by almost 30 years.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Concretely, Lee et al. map five \u201ctree-like\u201d branches of nerves through the clitoris, which extend beyond the clitoral glans\u2013traveling towards the mons pubis, the clitoral hood, into labial structures, the vulva, and down the sides of the clitoral body. This innervation of the clitoral structure (primarily through the dorsal nerve and posterior labial nerve) suggests that the sensory network in the clitoris overall is farther reaching and denser than initially thought.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this research could impact a range of medical interventions and the way they can be performed<\/a> to avoid damaging sensitive tissue, ranging from episiotomies (incisions in the lower vaginal wall and perineum during childbirth), gender affirming or cosmetic procedures, surgeries treating vulvar cancer, and reconstructive surgeries for survivors of Female Genital Mutilation (which according to UN Women, 230 million people alive today have become victims of)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the study is yet to be peer-reviewed and has been limited to two postmenopausal donors, it does lay a foundation for more research expanding on anatomical variations and is a move towards a better understanding of female anatomy and pleasure.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cmystery\u201d shrouding the clitoris (its appearance, its function, its location) is much more sinister than the ironic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-391481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}