Get Cliterate

[Music]

there’s an old joke

what’s the difference between the

clitoris and a pub

every man knows how to find a pup

but is it men’s fault

there’s ignorance about an important

organ to women

today we’ll look at the basis for that

ignorance

research that’s changing the way we

think

and also the exciting news that men and

women alike

are getting cliterate

when i was studying to be a surgeon the

textbook we used

had a lot to say about the penis

the male urogenital triangle

took up four pages

then the female urogenital triangle

started off like this all the male

formations and structures are present in

the female

but modified greatly for functional

reasons

modifications we’re not modifications

i would try to educate the author of

last some of the quotes from the book

that got me going the essential

difference

is the failure in the female of midline

fusion of genital folds

lacking the rigid support of the

complete

perineal membrane of the male and

there are a few poorly developed

pit-like glands

said to be homologous with the prostate

more to the point the clitoris

which as a young woman i was very aware

of

from the inside was actually almost

completely emitted from the book

there was a book written about the

clitoris in 1866

by a british gynecologist dr isaac baker

browned

isaac becker-brown

his book is entitled on the curability

of certain forms of insanity

epilepsy catalepsy

and hysteria and females what was the

cure for this range of ailments

surgical removal of the clitoris

but it wasn’t just in the uk that this

operation was offered for this range of

problems it was in other parts of the

western world as well

elizabeth sheen a medical anthropologist

put it this way

the clitoris was so unimportant to a

normal woman

so as not to be missed if removed and

yet lurking

in its substance was the greatest threat

to female welfare ever known

intellectual and surgical

removal of the clitoris is part of our

cultural inheritance

in preparation for our final surgical

exams

as young urologists in 1993

i had the benefit of a tutorial

from professor john hudson a renowned

pediatric surgeon

who was talking to us about intersex

surgery

it was clear listening to him that he

really cared

about preservation of the dorsal

clitoral nerve and vessels

at the time of this surgery i found this

a real breakthrough and it gave me

great hope

i did ask him about becoming my

supervisor for

a proposed doctorate and

and he was a great supervisor

around that time in urology

and even today there’s been a lot of

focus in surgery

in prostate removal surgery on um

not harming the nerves to the penile

erectile mechanism

i did a literature search at that time

to see if there’d been similar work done

in females

couldn’t find anything and so we started

a research program mimicking the studies

that have been done

on male anatomy and then following the

nerves

by dissection all the way from the spine

forward

past the rectum cervix

on the under surface of the vagina wall

to the back of the clitoris

i had the benefit of access to

incredible and incredible archive of

fatal material

from the late professor douglas stevens

the doyenne of embryology

but having studied these fetal tissues

and the nerve studies

just increased my belief that the most

important study to do was the study of

the anatomy of the clitoris per se

having finished my training then in the

us i came back and started a new

research program

people asked me whether the

establishment was supportive

they really provided resources and

enormous expertise

to this work urology society awarded me

their highest

fellowship um

the royal melbourne hospital’s head of

surgery

gave me the assistance of an incredibly

gifted dissector in his own right and

photographer

rob plenter and the department of

anatomy

colin anderson professor colin anderson

just knew how to get a piece of tissue

that i was able to

obtain and he would photograph it at

exactly the right magnification

in exactly the right section to tell the

story of the anatomy

science is so much related to this

communication

communication piece and and medical art

complements that we have the benefit of

working with a great

medical artist in dr levine effy as well

so an example of the work

you can see in this dissection

so you can see the very large

dorsal clitoral nerves arising at the

pelvic side wall

and going up underneath the pubic bone

and then the same nerves you can see in

this whole histology section or

microscopic section

at the glands of the clitoris and you

can see there’s very large nerve trunks

in

in addition to the receptors for

vibration and light

touch

grace said in relation to these nerves

the female nerves they were very small

and supplied the clitoris

that was it anyway

that proved to be wrong the nerves were

very large at every age even in children

and they would stay large all the way

through

um even to that very sensitive tip of

the clitoris

i received in the mail recently this 3d

model from dr

e mulligan who is definitely cliterate

this may be a helpful way to um

understand the anatomy so

this is about life’s this is life size

but this is quite small

but it gives you the idea of the

clitoris tucking in under the bone as it

does

these arms or croura unite as they go

up under the bone

and then join to form the body of the

clitoris

they then the body takes a sort of

boomerang-like path

out under the bone and projecting into

the mons or

mound of the pubis ending in this

highly sensitive tip or glands of the

clitoris

these parts are called the bulbs

and they uh join together at what’s

called

the root of the clitoris where the four

organs

unite there’s also another

area that’s called the pars intermedia

and professor claire yang has done some

studies specifically on this

it has conjoined blood vessels to unite

all of these

parts and it’s immediately under the

skin

very important and anatomical area

one of the things that the lay public

have

coined is a concept of internal clitoris

which is pretty useful

actually so this is the only bit that

can be seen from the outside

the rest of it all being hidden from

view

in elderly cadavers in

young cadavers the clitoris

is a very substantial organ it’s

multi-planar and

one of the changes we see with age

is the these bulbs tend to shrink up

towards the other parts of the clitoris

it was an incredible gift from

all of these donors these selfless souls

um this donation of their

their body

when i was working in the us i had the

privilege of working for professor

edward mcguire himself a pioneer of a

new specialty female urology

one day he had a chance conversation

with

professor john de lancie a

guru international guru of gynecology

and

pelvic anatomy john had been

researching pelvic mr pelvic

mri studies

and he shot me an email saying ed says

you’ve been studying the clitoris we

think we can see the clitoris on mri are

you interested in collaborating

well let me think about that for about a

micro second

um anyway it was the

most incredible opportunity to be able

to combine

the dissection studies with this very

complementary

live anatomy that mri

brings norm eisenberg

the professor of anatomy at melbourne

uni and professor chris briggs and

others

added to these forms of anatomy

surface anatomy as they’ve done for

every other body part

in the development of their educational

tool anatomedia

people ask me has anatomy changed the

teaching of anatomy

and i would have to say our young

doctors and other health workers

at the university of melbourne have had

the opportunity to become

clitorate through the provision of anata

media

in 2007 working with norm eisenberg

we created a publication for the journal

of sexual medicine

where we aimed to bring together

anatomical concepts but for health

professionals more generally

but whilst maintaining that scientific

validity

there’s this crazy kind of cultural

concept of

vagina versus clitoris and

as though is one or the other where both

organs

are very important to female sexuality

this mri helps you to understand the

relationship between these

two organs so at the top the highly

vascular

or intensely blood supplied organ the

clitoris

you can see its components here the body

the bulbs all wrapping around

the upper aspect or into the

mons which is up here and here’s the

urethra which is sort of target-like on

mr and then the vaginal wall here

so the idea that they’re

completely separate organs is is just

wrong

and graze did say there’s no

relationship between the clitoris and

the urethra

which also proved to be incorrect

you can see again in this tv art from a

documentary forbidden pleasure

the relationship between these parts

clitoracy is gaining momentum

the clitoris is not as the so-called

father of anatomy visalia

said in the 16th century a new and

useless part

today we bring meaning to the word

cliteracy

by the power of science we’re empowering

women and men alike

yes the brain is where orgasm occurs

but it almost always occurs in the

presence

of clitoral stimulation it’s not that

orgasm can’t occur without clitoral

stimulation it’s just

very unlikely

but how wonderful for people to

understand these organs of pleasure

much more how great for the people who

own them

and for the people who love them

i’m going to show you some exciting

resources that just seem to be

manifesting this is

a box of clitorises that just arrived in

the mail

3d printed clitoris it

is amazing how technology is aiding

in this movement but then more

old-fashioned a little puppet

showing the labia majora menorah

the glands of the clitoris and the

internal parts of the clitoris

for educational purposes and this one

a model sent to me from some german

model makers showing the pubis on the

inside

the pink being the body and so forth and

the

bulbs in blue

journalist melissa fife won two awards

for her

work on getting cliterate in 2018.

hillary barrage wrote the most uplifting

book

hard to believe a book called female

mutilation could be uplifting

but she shares her vision for the steps

to end

female mutilation giving us great hope

there are many resources online

documentaries and podcasts

as long as great as as as well as great

books

to help in the movement of getting

clitorate

for the future of this movement i

visualize a world

where every person is cliterate where

schools provide accurate resources

every time where pornography actually

serves and helps

female sexuality and well where the

world

reflects upon the history of thousands

of years of trauma to

girls clitorises that commits to healthy

change and protection

against that mutilation where sex is

about mutual pleasure

not one partner pursuing and the other

resisting

celebrate getting clitorate