Absolutely! Or the hand. It's an organ system. There are parts that can be seen and felt, and there are parts that cannot be seen. There's erectile tissue, for example, that fills with blood during sexual response. There are two parts that look like the wishbone of a chicken. And there are two large bodies of erectile tissue called bulbs, directly under the inner lips. There's the urethral sponge, the spongy erectile tissue that surrounds the female urethra, just as it does in the penis. This is the location of the so-called G spot. There are also three layers of muscle underneath it all, and the muscles are critical in causing the spasm of orgasm. There are blood vessels, which bring the greater blood flow to the clitoris, and there are nerves, which carry the sensory signals between the clitoris and the brain and back.

Why is it that so many women, who are, after all, the owners of the clitoris, don't know this?

It's not just that women know so little about the clit -- the medical profession knows little about it also. The reason is that women's sexuality has been devalued in various ways over time. The ancient Greeks knew precisely that women's and men's genital anatomy was similar. Aristotle wrote about it, and Claudius Galen, the most famous physician of the Greek era, said that women are just men turned inside out. Galen's works were the gold standard of medical understanding up to and throughout the Renaissance. In fact, in the 17th century, midwives recommended that women have orgasms to help them get pregnant, for general health and well-being and to keep their relationships healthy.

Ah, this is where you have unraveled a whodunit.

Yes. In the 18th century, around the time of the French Revolution, when women began to demand some measure of social and economic equality, we suddenly see women's sexual response and anatomy and orgasm begin to be downplayed. For the first time, the leading philosophers and physicians of the day classified women's sexuality, and their ability to menstruate and become pregnant, as a disability. From then on we see parts of the clitoris being left out of medical illustrations -- literally erased -- or being ascribed to the reproductive or urinary tract. All except for the little pea-size glans.

It sounds like a clit conspiracy, or maybe a coverup.

Yup. In the Victorian era, we see the first debate about whether orgasm for women is even necessary. And then Freud came along and said that the clitoris is a child's plaything, and the vagina is the focus of mature women's sexuality. Freudianism gripped the view of women's sexuality almost throughout the 20th century.

You want women to understand that the clitoris is really the key player in women's sexual pleasure. So is the vagina dead? Is it irrelevant, over?

As I say in my book, sex is not about the vagina. But no, we can't just forget about the vagina. It provides this nice, tight, warm little pocket that is designed to promote male orgasm, and therefore pregnancy, and therefore the carrying on of the species. But the vagina does not work that well for women in terms of giving the clitoris the kind of stimulation that it needs.

When it comes to clits, does size matter?

No, the size of the clitoris doesn't matter in being able to experience sexual response.

Are lesbians closer to the clitoral truth than heterosexual women are?

I think so. Because sex has been totally defined through male standards, lesbians have slipped under the radar, and they've been able to teach themselves and discover for themselves what feels good and what works in sex. Throughout history, lesbians have been ignored -- or their existence has been denied. So they've existed in a secret world where they developed their own standards and sexuality.

In your book, you dive right into the controversy over female ejaculation.

The world is divided into two camps: those who believe it happens, probably because they've experienced it themselves or they've seen it occur in their partners, and those who don't believe it happens. I've found references to female ejaculation in the first sexual advice books that were written in China, in 500 B.C. The phrase is "Her vulva floods." You see these metaphors throughout history. So I thought, "This is ridiculous. We have this long history of references to female ejaculation. We have a lot of research that was initiated in the 1980s." I just put it all together into a single chapter. Some women produce gushes of fluid; others produce little dribbles or drops; some produce none. I do not want to hold up female ejaculation as another performance standard for women, or say that it's something men have to elicit in order to be successful. I just want the subject cleared up.

Why do you say that people should stop focusing so much on orgasm?

Orgasm is one of the possible outcomes of sexual activity. It is not the only successful outcome.

Isn't that going to be a hard sell?

It is. Look, sexuality in our society has been defined entirely through the male standard: stimulation, erection, ejaculation. But there's another way to do it, and it's the oldest way in the world. Sexuality is the foundation of tantra and Taoism, which [are among] the world's first religions. The focus was extended sexual sessions that were seen as leading to enlightenment. Women's sexual response was highly valued, and men had to learn ejaculatory control so that women had a chance to have as many orgasms as they wanted. A man failed if he did not provide a woman with the opportunity to have the sexual pleasure she wanted. There are other ways to practice sex that benefit everybody, women and men.

You say in your book that men today need to learn some form of ejaculatory control. I read that and I thought, "Yeah, this is going to go over really big."

I totally agree that it's the toughest sell on the planet, and I don't really know what we're going to do about it. But men are really missing out on great pleasure. For women and men, learning full-body sexual response can be mind-blowing, orgasm or not. And it often results in a knockout orgasm for men and multiple orgasms for women, not to mention deeper intimacy.

But what about the good old-fashioned quickie?

There's definitely a place for that, too. You might call those "maintenance orgasms." It's really like junk food or fast food. I guess they're OK. I mean, you gotta eat, right?

Private Life Romance, relationships, and the personal side of Table Talk