The Clitoral Awakening | Louisa Lorenz | TEDxUniGoettingen

When I was 24 I came across an article online on Facebook that a friend had posted and it was from the Museum of Sex in New York the title was The Internal Clitoris Now this alone was intriguing but what made me really curious was My friend's comment had been posted and said amazing. I didn't know that so I'm generally interested in female sexuality as I guess every 24 year old feminist clicks the link to see if I can learn something new and that day or so. Five years ago I began a journey that brings me before you today because I learned something new and it truly changed my life.

Most people are familiar with the term clitoris, but most people still have a very distorted idea of ​​what the clitoris really is. This is because it is often confused with this small but Enosh part which is above the vaginal opening at the top right where the inner lips meet and yes this is the clitoris so don't worry but let me tell you that you haven't seen the end. Because this is just the tip of the iceberg, the clitoris is actually around 9 to 12 centimeters long, so before we get even deeper into this, just to make sure we're all on the same page, I'll give you a quick introduction to the anatomy of the clitoris when a baby is born it is around week 10 to 14 that the genitals develop and this is made from the same tissue of the same origin this is called the genital tubercle which is seen at the top and then with the penises the tissue this erectile tissue goes outwards and forms the shaft and for all those who have a vulva the erectile tissue goes inwards and forms the clitoris and for some people it is even something in between because nature does not really conform to expectations social of what exactly the genitals should be like, yes, so it's basically the same thing, just organized differently, as you can see here in the picture, this is the clitoris, this whole red body is the clitoris and the only part you can see from the outside is the top, which you see there, at the top of the image below, which is the urethra, this is where you urinate and then the vagina and then down at the bottom, the anus, so that all this red body is inside so you can see it from the outside and if you've ever seen a clitoris or if you have one and you think where it starts and then you think that all the way back to the anus is actually a pretty long way, so This is a pretty big thing, yeah, and this is what you can only do. feel inside you can't see it from the outside now when i was 24 i had never seen a picture like this i didn't know any of this it wasn't in my biology book i wasn't told about this in my sex ed class i grew up in a pretty liberal home but my Parents didn't know this and neither did my friends.

They talked to me about fertilization and conception and told me how to prevent it. I read about sexual practices in a variety of women's magazines, so I think it seemed like I was quite educated about sex, but still no one had been interested in telling me what my clitoris is like and this really bothered me, it was a shock to me when I found out about this at the beginning. I really couldn't. Admitting to myself that this was new information because it didn't fit my self-image at all. That I was someone who didn't know what the clitoris looked like in my mind.

I grew up in the Western world where women were equal and people were educated. and I started having sex and I emancipated myself. I had a vibrator, for God's sake, so without knowing what a clitoris is like, yeah, I couldn't deal with it. I think my first solution was to simply suppress that this lack of knowledge existed and I stumbled. This information was facilitated by the mysterious ways of the internet and social media but for the moment I felt overwhelmed by the information but in the back of my mind of course I was still curious and I think the universe just kept sending me content about the clitoris a while later I discovered an artist on Tumblr, her name is Sofia Wallace, so for those of you who don't know, Tumblr is a blogging website, so more social media, she is a photographer, but she also makes the clitoris is fine and on Tumblr.

I discovered this in her art, she expressed something that I had felt inside all the time but couldn't identify, namely that it was a great injustice that no one had told me about the clitoris, so this is just an excerpt from her work democracy. without literacy it's a fallacy, let that sink in for a minute and it took me a long time with this, after a while I started to realize that not knowing about the clitoris wasn't just about me or my personal sex life, it spoke of what still exists. injustice in our society when it comes to gender equality and talked about the way we subtract pleasure, especially female pleasure, from our sexual education and also talked about the way we teach people to look at women's bodies. women, that is, seeing them for less than what they really are, that bothered me a little and once I realized that I bought a book and then another book, I went to workshops and started talking to people about this , I began to educate myself on this topic as much as I could.

In 2016 I even wrote my bachelor's thesis on the cultural history of the clitoris because it bothered and fascinated me that there were so many myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings about this organ that had ultimately also shaped and influenced my life and it took me a long time. work is actually not yet an ongoing process to free myself from this doubt and misconception about my body that society and education had planted in me. I experienced the difference that knowing about the clitoris made to my sense of independence and autonomy and in the Since I first learned about this, the information was really difficult to understand.

Now I at least had an idea of ​​what the clitoris looks like, but I didn't really understand it. I didn't understand the proportions, how big it is, I mean, really. As you have seen in the image, there is no significant difference in size between the penis and the clitoris and I think this is something that surprises people the most. I mean, of course, penises come in all shapes and sizes, and so does the clitoris, but because this body of erectile tissue is basically the same thing, just like I said, organized differently, there's not a huge difference. between the two and most people don't know, so I didn't understand that at first, it took me a long time to really understand it, but once I understood it.

I became more aware of what I was learning, my first reaction was: "OMG, it all makes sense now, I finally understood why this feels good and maybe this other thing doesn't feel as good even though everyone tells me which should feel great but it doesn't and let me tell you, vaginal orgasms don't exist and everyone knew that until Freud came along and yeah pretty much after that for everyone so understanding genital anatomy really helped me understand my body and that baffles me. Sexual education still today we only talk about erections and ejaculation and orgasm when we talk about the penis and when we talk about other genitals the only thing I hear is eggs and conception and maybe if no one is ashamed to say it menstruation and also It bothers me that I still In every women's magazine I can see a section of 100 sex tips in one and 99 of them are about seducing men or how to become a better and more exciting lover when, in my experience, the best way to become a good lover is knowing your own body. first and then be willing to invest time and energy into getting to know your partner's body as well and then the other two sex tips are probably about the mysterious G-spot, which isn't really mysterious at all because the G-spot is just your prostate, which it is part of your internal clitoris, which you might have known if you had learned about it in school along with eggs, conception and menstruation, which we don't know about because of my own experience and because so many people came to me to share the knowledge that I had acquired on the clitoris.

I felt compelled to create a space for people of all ages and genders to catch up on this knowledge and talk about how it makes them feel because if we refuse to teach people about the entire anatomy. of the clitoris we prevent people, especially those who have clitorises, from reaching their full potential not only in bed but in the world; We are complicit in making them feel and appear inferior by not talking about their power and lying to them about their abilities. keep them small so it's 2018 this knowledge has been around for centuries there's really no excuse not to teach this and often people say oh we don't teach this because we don't want to give you ideas now let me ask you something think about the brain this wonderful organ that has allowed As our species becomes what we are today and controls our entire lives, we cannot see it from the outside, but much of our human identity is shaped by the fact that we know it is there. and we know how it works, so imagine someone saying "oh yeah, the brain isn't going to teach that in my biology class, you know, I could give them ideas, maybe they'll start to think it would be scandalous, no one would say that, but still That's how it is." exactly what we do to the genital anatomy and not only do we hide this knowledge from people, we also make them feel ashamed for not knowing it, so tonight I shared my

clitoral

awakening

story with you and, for me, learning about the clitoris has men and knowing my worth in a world that constantly tries to tell me I'm less than that.

Before I end this, I would like to ask you to think back to the time when you first learned about the internal clitoris and think about what it means to you and you. how it made you feel and maybe if you had your

clitoral

awakening

today in this very short time I encourage you not to be ashamed for not knowing it but to see it as a springboard for change for yourself and for society thank you