If you spend more than a few minutes perusing various sex subreddits, you will inevitably encounter posts from men and women wondering why their female partners or they themselves cannot orgasm from PIV alone. I’ve responded to my fair share of such posts to explain that the clit is there for a reason, but these attempts at education often fall on deaf ears.
It’s not surprising, however, that so many people seem to be ignorant about the role of the clitoris in orgasm when the medical community doesn’t even pay much attention to it. Medical textbooks devote pages to penises while barely mentioning the clitoris. Some doctors are trying to change that, though, including Helen O’Connell, who studies the clit precisely because it’s been overlooked by the medical establishment for years. Among other accomplishments, O’Connell discovered the clit’s true size and shape in 2005. In addition to the small external part that most of us are familiar with, it also extends under the pubic bone internally, forming a much larger wishbone or orchid-shaped organ (see the 3-D model in the link above).
O’Connell also studies the clit’s role in orgasm and believes that years of sexism and misinformation—especially in Hollywood movies and porn—has perpetuated the idea that most women come easily and nearly instantaneously from nothing more than a penis inside them. This “look! no hands!” mentality stems from “people want[ing] kind of a magical thing, where he gets off through penetration of the vagina and exactly what causes his joy causes her joy,” O’Connell says.
Whether people want to believe it or not, the clit is the ticket to orgasm for women. Even when orgasm is possible without touching the visible portion of the clit, it’s still being stimulated. If this information were more widely known and accepted, perhaps people would stop searching for other mythical types of orgasms and focus on the very real organ whose only purpose is orgasm.