Anatomy of the Clitoris

Hi everyone! My name is Audrey and I’m a trained peer educator for a sexual health clinic. It’s been a while since I’ve posted some education on here, so I figured I’d celebrate the holiday season by making a fun post about the anatomy of the clitoris😆

I’m also always available for free individual sex education chats. Feel free to message me to start a convo and/or ask a question!

Now here’s the post:

The clitoris is a structure of the genital anatomy that folks with vulvas have. Some people don’t even know it exists! Since its main purpose is pleasure for people with vulvas/vaginas, there is a strong stigma around the clitoris, leading to a lack of education about it. However, it’s important to know about, and it’s a much larger structure than you may think! Let’s look at all the parts:

🧶Glans Clitoris: The only visible portion of the clitoris that sits underneath the clitoral hood. It’s a small, bean shaped structure that’s full of nerve endings.

🧶Descending Clitoral Body: The erectile tissue that connects to the glans clitoris at the top and the ascending clitoral body at the bottom.

🧶Ascending Clitoral Body: The erectile tissue that connects to the ascending clitoral body at the top and splits into two branches (corpora).

🧶Crus Clitoris (plural: crura): The “legs” of the clitoris, also made of erectile tissue, that extend 5-9cm into the pelvis. They sit over the urethra and vaginal canal.

🧶Vestibular Bulbs: Two bulbs of erectile tissue, each located in between one crus and one side of the vaginal canal. They can double in size during sexual arousal, going from 3-4cm when flaccid to about 7cm when erect.

Fun fact: The clitoris gets erect during arousal - just like a penis! A diagram on the third slide from @the.vulva.gallery shows this. Clitoral erection is nowhere near as externally visible as penile erection, simply because of the smaller size and movement restrictions of the clitoris.

Another thing many people don’t realize is the sheer size of the clitoris and the number of parts it has! It’s not just the little nub that’s visible from the vulva - as you can see, there’s a lot more underneath and it’s pretty big! The last diagram shows the clitoris in the place it sits behind the vulva.