#cliteracy

Annoying clickbait title (but is it wrong?) aside, I love this article.

The clitoris, described as the only human body part that exists solely for pleasure, is not merely a little "button" hidden between a woman's legs, but rather a large, mostly internal organ many people don't know about, Wallace explains.

According to a 2011 post by Museum of Sex blogger Ms. M, the internal clitoris (highlighted in yellow in the images above) is a complex erectile structure consisting of two corpora cavernosa (that are said to wrap around the vagina when erect), two crura (erectile bodies that branch out from the clitoral body), clitoral vestibules or bulbs, and the clitoral glans (the part that you can see).

The blue bits are the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus and bladder (anterior to the uterus in the second picture).

In 1998, Australian urologist Helen O’Connell published a paper in the Journal of Urology describing the sheer scope and size of the clitoris. She wrote that the unerect clitoris, most of which is not visible, could be up to 9 centimeters long -- longer, as some have described it, than an unerect penis.

I love this paragraph because it mentions that the clit can become erect too. As far as I know, only feminist sex educators like Betty Dodson talk about the importance of arousal to experiencing pleasure. Would we expect men to regularly have sex without any attention to their genitals or even having an erection? Yet we don't even acknowledge that the clitoris needs attention too, not just for orgasm but to even experience any pleasure at all. Without arousal, stimulation of the genitals may feel like nothing or like you're being tickled.

"It is a curious dilemma to observe the paradox that on the one hand the female body is the primary metaphor for sexuality, its use saturates advertising, art and the mainstream erotic imaginary. Yet, the clitoris, the true female sexual organ, is virtually invisible," Wallace told Creem magazine earlier this year.

"Even in porn, the clitoris is treated as this optional, kind of freaky, 'wow he's doing her this huge favor' thing," she told HuffPost, adding that women often feel "embarrassed" to ask their partners to pleasure them. "It's insane to me that this is still happening in 2013."

Last year, during her tenure in the Art & Law Residency, Wallace started work on a multi-media project that she hoped would serve to challenge these misconceptions and to lift the veil on this enduring ignorance about the female body.

Aptly entitled "Cliteracy," the project, which is ongoing, includes Wallace's "100 Laws of Cliteracy," street art about the organ, as well as a "clit rodeo" that involves an interactive installment of a giant golden clitoris.

"Clit Rodeo"

With the help of sculptor Kenneth Thomas, Wallace created an anatomically accurate -- and rideable -- golden clitoris that debuted at the Wassaic Project Summer Festival in New York, earlier this month. The giant organ was the star of the "Clit Rodeo," an interactive performance that involved members of the public performing and dancing with the giant clitoris for prizes.

"[It was] an invitation for audiences to experience a space free from traditional shame, taboo and silence usually cloaking conversations around sexuality, particularly female genitals," said Wallace, who intends on bringing the "Clit Rodeo" to other parts of the U.S.