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Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

theguardian.com

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Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#81

Post by perfmode »

Fraterkes wrote: post #10

Dumb question, why do “sensitive” spots on the body need more nerves? Couldn’t you just have the normal touch-sensing nerves and map signals from specific spots on the body to stronger/pleasurable qualia in the brain?

Nerve density isn’t mainly about intensity, it’s about spatial resolution. More nerve endings per square centimeter means you can distinguish finer details of touch, texture, and pressure. The brain can’t invent spatial detail that isn’t in the incoming signal. Amplifying a sparse signal centrally would be like zooming into a low-res photo.

The brain does do some of what you’re describing though. The somatosensory cortex gives disproportionate space to certain body parts (the sensory homunculus). So there is central amplification, but it works on top of peripheral density, not instead of it. Without the dense nerve input, you’d basically have an on/off switch instead of nuanced sensation.

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#82

Post by lkey »

wahern wrote: post #17

> the clitoris did not even make it into standard anatomy textbooks until the 38th edition of Gray’s Anatomy was published in 1995. This seemed surprising, as it hews too close to an annoying meme in feminism and history generally, that people in prior eras were idiots. And it turns out to be wrong. The clitoris was in Gray's Anatomy until 1947, when it was removed by the editor Charles Goss for the 25th edition. See…

They weren't idiots. And one doesn't have to give Goss the benefit of the doubt, nor his successors. The ensuing 50 years of omission are a clear admission of what the goal was and is.

It is the year of our Lord 2026, men proximate to power are openly speculating about the removal of the vote from all women, the end of no-fault divorce, and laws to enforce a birth rate that increases the prevalence of white skin. None of these policy goals are interested in the clit, or indeed, any health care that doesn't directly contribute to the production of heirs.

So as you pointed out, this omission was done deliberately.

If one points this kind of thing out in a vacuum, you are labelled 'hysterical' or 'doing the annoying meme'. Your reaction of instant scepticism is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Everything is uphill and 'in doubt' until you find a source that's 'credible'. If no one 'legitimate' ever bothered to write it in a way you, a man, will hear it, then it's yet another harpy shrilling about imagined oppression.

You can imagine how exhausting such reactions are the nth time you have to delicately handle them.

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#83

Post by TacticalCoder »

Shank wrote: post #12

Page 7 [0] of the report seems to indicate that FGM reconstruction actually seems to have negative outcomes post-surgery. I'm surprised by this. I'm also shocked to see how prolific FGM is too (230 million women?!). [0]: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1...

> I'm also shocked to see how prolific FGM is too (230 million women?!)

And talk to any gyn doc in the west: it's happening among those communities in the west too (but on a lesser scale). In several EU western countries the most common gynelogical surgery act is re-building the hymen (so that the woman can pretend she's a virgin once she marries, often forcibly by her family). You may not have gyn doctors friend but I do. And midwives. And they know.

"... surveys show that the practice of FGM is highly concentrated in a swath of countries from the Atlantic coast to the Horn of Africa, in areas of the Middle East such as Iraq and Yemen and in some countries in Asia like Indonesia, with wide variations in prevalence. The practice is almost universal in Somalia, Guinea and Djibouti, with levels of 90 per cent or higher, while it affects no more than 1 per cent of girls and women in Cameroon and Uganda"

Now from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_on_female_geni...

"FGM is practised predominantly within certain Muslim societies,[13] but it also exists within some adjacent Christian and animist groups.[14] The practice is not required by Islam and fatwas have been issued forbidding FGM,[15] favouring it,[16] or leaving the decision to parents but advising against it."

Let's call a cat: of these 230 mutilated women, a vast majority are muslims. There are 900 million muslim women on earth and nearly 1/4th of them have been mutilated by their community.

Ponder this.

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#84

Post by wvbdmp »

IAmBroom wrote: post #54
wahern wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meme is that before [insert your contemporary period] people were so backwards that they would miss something like the clitoris entirely. The meme isn't that people and cultures were prejudiced or biased, but that they were prejudiced in an idiotic way. If you believe that's how prejudice works, then you'll be utterly blind to much contemporary prejudice. EDIT: Relatedly, The Guardian article sites the statistics…

> an act that lacks any negative connotations If you can imagine that forced genital mutilation without anesthetics lacks negative connotations, as long as it's "for her eventual pleasure". Good Lord.

It’s pretty clear that OP was referring to cunnilingus.

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#85

Post by chris_wot »

cheschire wrote: post #75
voxl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it communicates maliciousness not idiocy

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

It does occur to me that you can be both malicious and stupid at the same time.

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#86

Post by denkmoon »

JesseMReeves wrote: post #62
bondarchuk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To someone who is shocked at the prevalence of female genital mutilation in other cultures, the widespread acceptance of other types of genital mutilation in (probably) their own culture is an important piece of context, I'd say.

[flagged]

Whether removing the tip of your finger or the whole arm, the imposition on bodily autonomy is equal. It is a violation of your personal sovereignty at the deepest level.

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#87

Post by hammock »

Shank wrote: post #12

Page 7 [0] of the report seems to indicate that FGM reconstruction actually seems to have negative outcomes post-surgery. I'm surprised by this. I'm also shocked to see how prolific FGM is too (230 million women?!). [0]: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1...

>230 million women

500,000 in the USA. 98%+ in some other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_female_genital_m...

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#88

Post by davorak »

cheschire wrote: post #75
voxl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it communicates maliciousness not idiocy

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

> adequately explained by stupidity

What is the adequate explanation via stupidity in this case though? If there is one that sure maybe we should lean that way without further evidence.

Re: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

#89

Post by pron »

austin-cheney wrote: post #76
jychang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being removed for versions 25 to 38… honestly confirms the feminist narrative of some people being idiots, though. Like, imagine documentation on object oriented programming being removed because it offended some functional programming folks.

I am not aware of actual code removal but skirting in that direction there was a movement, just a couple years back, to replace words that had become more offensive than they were in the recent past. One example is renaming master to main . I am not stating any opinion for or against any words or terms in this context.

Somewhat on a tangent, but when people talk about offensive language in the context of cultural criticism they don't mean terms that cause the people who hear them to be offended but things that may diminish the value of some people in the eyes of the people who hear them. I.e. something is offensive, in this sense, to some group X not if people in group X are offended when they themselves are exposed to it but if people who hear it may come to devalue people in group X. Whether it actually does or does not is another matter. In that sense, the discussion of the clitoris in an anatomy book is not offensive in the same way as the term master, but its absence is. Its inclusion could be offensive in the sense of scandalising some people who see it, but it's not the same sense.
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