It’s wild that we’ve reached 2026 and are still playing catch-up when it comes to understanding women’s sexual anatomy and sexual pleasure. Also, it’s time for orgasm equality!
Ladies, drop everything and plan a romantic evening tonight, or have your vibrator on standby. Why? Because today is International Female Orgasm Day. Yes, really!
It began as an initiative launched in 2007 in the town of Esperantina, Brazil, by José Arimateia Dantas Lacerda. He realised his wife hadn’t experienced an orgasm and decided it was time to sexually satisfy her (about time!) and encourage other men to satisfy their wives. A city councillor, he drafted a proposal, approved by the city council, to establish Día Internacional del Orgasmo Femenino (International Day of the Female Orgasm). A bouquet for José!
International Female Orgasm Day is now celebrated in countries including Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Norway, and spreading further afield. The purpose is, of course, celebrating and trying to bring about female orgasms. And it’s also an opportunity to challenge taboos about women’s sexuality, encourage open discussions about female sexuality and our bodies, and our right to sexual pleasure. Can we make it a national holiday, please? While we’re at it, how about a new hashtag: #youcomefirst?
We’ve written about the orgasm gap before – men orgasm more than women do, because penises don’t always do the trick for women. Between 80-95% of women don’t have orgasms from intercourse alone. 80% of heterosexual women have faked orgasms, and 5-10% of women have never experienced them at all. Oh, and generally, women need 10-20 minutes to experience orgasm. And 70% of female orgasms are due to clitoral stimulation.
Oh, and don’t let ageing stop you! Of more than 3000 women interviewed for a 2024 survey by the Kinsey Institute and Cosmopolitan, 20% said that getting older made their orgasms more satisfying than in their younger days. The survey also found that almost 40% of the respondents over 60 were just as horny as they’d been 10 years before.
Due Respect!
In ancient Greece, ‘kleitorís’ means ‘little hill’. In 1545, the French anatomist Charles Estienne called the clitoris the “shameful member”. In 1995, in the 38th edition of Gray’s Anatomy (the reference book on human anatomy, not the TV show), it was introduced as just “a small version of the penis”.
Now that ‘little hill’ is finally getting due respect. Scientists at Amsterdam University Medical Center have released the world’s first complete 3D map of the clitoris’ internal nerve network – something that, surprisingly, took around 30 years longer than equivalent mapping of the penis. Well, maybe not that surprising given the scant attention medicine has paid to women’s bodies historically.
Rachel Strevens, a qualified sexologist, sex coach and educator based in Auckland, thinks this mapping took way too long.
“While researchers were busy charting the sensory nerves of the penis back in the 1990s, the clitoris was apparently left off the to-do list. We’ve been to the moon. We’ve decoded the human genome. We put a supercomputer in everyone’s handbag. But a complete map of the most nerve-dense organ in the human body? That, apparently, could wait.”
“Well finally, the wait is over.”
She explains the research released in April. “Scientists at Amsterdam University Medical Center used a particle accelerator – yes, the kind of machine that sounds like it belongs in a Marvel film – to create the world’s first complete 3D map of the clitoris’s internal nerve network. Every branch. Every pathway. In extraordinary detail.”
The clitoris is bigger than you think. Much bigger.
“Here’s what most of us were never taught: the clitoris is not that small external nub from your Fifth Form health class diagram, if you were lucky enough to get even that. That little visible tip? Just the beginning. The full organ extends deep inside the body – a complex, branching structure with more than 10,000 sensory nerve fibres, and potentially six times more nerve density than the penis. Six. Times.”
“The researchers traced five major nerve trunks fanning out toward the surface in what they described as a tree-like pattern – extending further than anyone had previously realised.” Earlier models assumed the nerves faded out near the surface. “They don’t. They keep going.”
Rachel says that this doesn’t just rewrite the textbooks. “It lays the foundation for an entirely new understanding of female pleasure. One that scientists, educators, and clinicians can now begin to build on.”
“Think of it this way: if you don’t know where the wiring runs, you can’t understand how the lights turn on. For decades, our knowledge of how the clitoris actually functions – how it responds, where it’s most sensitive, how those sensations travel – has been based on incomplete and in some cases just plain wrong anatomical information.”
So, familiarise yourself with that map!
“It won’t rewrite your sex life overnight – but it will rewrite what we know, and that knowledge will flow through to education, medicine, and yes, eventually the bedroom.”
Bigger = Easier to Find?
The clitoris is bigger than it was thought. Does that make it easier to find? “No. Because the new research maps the internal nerve network, not the external visible part. But let’s be honest – with even basic anatomy education, the clitoris should not be hard to find.” If not, give your partner that map.
“If you believe the self-reported figures in a survey, 92% of Kiwi men reporting that they know where the clitoris is. Fantastic.”
“However those same men also reported knowing where the G-Spot was at a higher rate than NZ women knew where their own G-Spot was. Personally, I’m a little sceptical of those self-reported figures. The work I do talking to men also suggests that while most men have a general understanding that the clitoris is ‘somewhere around there’, they’re often still not entirely sure of the actual anatomy.”
Why might that be?
“In decades gone by, the clitoris was left off anatomical diagrams and models completely, which provides a reasonably valid excuse for our historic lack of knowledge. That excuse doesn’t really hold up anymore.”
Rachel says not just knowing where the clitoris is, but knowing what to actually do with it, “requires curiosity, communication, and a genuine interest in your partner’s pleasure”.
Why Did Mapping Take So Long?
Rachel explains the background. “The lead researcher, Dr Ju Young Lee, was refreshingly direct about it: there is a societal taboo around female sexuality, and that taboo has actively blocked scientific investigation. Female sexual anatomy has been underfunded, understudied, and in some cases literally removed from medical curricula. The complete internal structure of the clitoris wasn’t even confirmed until 1998 – when an Australian urologist named Dr Helen O’Connell proved, via MRI, that the whole thing was far bigger and more complex than anyone had acknowledged.”
Rachel says we’re catching up, slowly. “And this research matters beyond the bedroom – it has real implications for pelvic surgery, childbirth, gender-affirming care, and reconstruction after female genital mutilation.”
So What’s Next?
“For women: stop apologising for what your body needs. You are not complicated. You are not difficult. You are the owner of the most neurologically rich pleasure organ in existence, and you deserve a partner who finds that genuinely fascinating.”
“For couples: get curious. Not performatively – genuinely. The couples I work with who have the most satisfying sex lives aren’t the ones who think they’ve figured it all out. They’re the ones still asking questions. Still exploring. Still laughing about the things they didn’t know.”
So how can you, well, celebrate International Female Orgasm Day? Dr Laurie Mintz – a psychologist, sex therapist, professor emerita, and author of Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters And How to Get It – shared these tips in a Psychology Today article. Here’s a summary of them:
- Think Sex-Positive Thoughts When You Aren’t Having Sex. Good sex begins in your mind. Specifically, it’s important to become aware of any conscious and unconscious sex-negative thoughts you may have (e.g., “sex is for my partner and if it’s good for him, it’s good for me”; “masturbation is bad”) and replace these thoughts with contrary sex-positive thoughts (e.g., “I deserve pleasure as much as my partner,” and “masturbation is a healthy human activity”).
- Practice Sex In Which Your Orgasm Is As Central As Your Partner’s.
- Don’t Think At All When You Are Having Sex. During sexual encounters, it’s critical that you turn off your thinking brain. Many women are distracted by thoughts during sex including about if they look attractive, or if they smell good, or if they are taking too long to orgasm, etc. Orgasm requires a complete and total focus on the sensations of the moment.
- Use Good Sexual Communication. What a woman needs can vary from one sexual encounter to another. Thus, it’s key to learn to communicate both verbally: (“faster”, “slower”) and non-verbally (like moving your partner’s hand).
- Practice Self-Love. (fairly self-explanatory)
If you’re looking to up your O-Game, here’s a few premium options that will do the job *nicely*
Pretty Love Interesting Wand Massager, Gold $239.99 (also available in a smaller size)
With over 10,000 nerve fibres to work with, a wide head covers a lot of ground. 5 speeds, 7 vibration patterns, premium silicone, USB rechargeable — comes in full and mini sizes to suit.
We-Vibe Sync 2 Couples Vibrator, Pink — $299.99
Worn during sex to stay on the clitoris hands-free sexologist Rachel Strevens calls this kind of shared exploration key to great sex. App and remote controlled, so “faster” and “slower” are just a tap away.
Womanizer Premium 2, Raspberry — $429.99
As seen in Katy Perry’s Woman’s World. Pleasure Air Technology stimulates without any direct contact — the same non-contact response researchers were mapping in the clitoris’s nerve network. 14 intensity levels, waterproof, two head sizes included.
Have a good evening!
__________________________________
About the Author:
