Mostly internal, homologous to much of the penis
Among amniotes this female sex organ is built for pleasure more than any other single job. In humans the vulva’s peak erogenous focus is typically here: only the glans shows—about pea-sized—while most erectile tissue stays hidden. Developmentally it matches much of the male penis.
Human anatomy lists glans, a body of two corpora cavernosa, prepuce, root, and a frenulum beneath the glans. Size and sensitivity vary widely. Sexological and medical debates have circled accuracy, inequality, and orgasm physiology; cultural silence often leaves people knowing less about this structure than about male counterparts, a gap education can shrink.
Dictionaries trace Neo-Latin clītoris to Greek kleitorís, “little hill,” perhaps linked to kleíein “to shut/sheathe,” and related to kleís “key”—folk etymology that ancient anatomists treated the organ as unlocking female sexuality. Whatever the linguistics, the developmental point is clearer: shared embryonic pathways yield homologous erectile structures across sexes.
For years its microscopic structure went understudied because it was dismissed as rudimentary, yet research shows its tissue reaches into the front wall of the vagina. The glans, from the Latin for acorn, is a densely innervated cap usually the size and shape of a pea, set off from the body by a ridge called the corona. Behind it the body bends at an angle, with an internal ascending part near the pubic symphysis and an external descending part felt through the hood; its paired corpora cavernosa hold most of the blood during erection and correspond to the penile shaft. The root sits in the perineum, where the crura spread in an upside-down V to attach along the pubic arch, alongside the vestibular bulbs, whose spongy erectile tissue swells during arousal. A 1992 study put total length of glans plus body at about 16 millimetres on average, and size shows no clear link to age, height, weight or hormonal contraception, though women who have given birth may measure larger. It grows from the embryonic genital tubercle when testosterone is absent.
Source: Clitoris
