WOMEN: THE EXTERNAL GENITALS II.
The size and appearance of normal labia minora vary greatly. They are rarely symmetrical. Skin colour ranges from pink to dark purplish-brown. They may be smooth or wrinkled and often have an irregular, fluted edge. One or both may protrude beyond the outer lips.
It was once believed that protruding labia minora were a result of masturbation. This is of course nonsense: it’s our genes that make them the shape they are. However, many women fear that their labia minora are abnormal: too long, too wrinkled, too asymmetrical, the wrong colour and so on. This worry may have arisen because in the past, oversimplified diagrams showed the labia minora as small, neat, smooth and symmetrical; because most women have never seen any other woman’s genitals to know that these parts vary as much as the features of our faces; or because of guilt from sexual pleasure resulting from touching the labia.
Going back to where the labia minora meet in front: if you pull back the fold you’ll find the clitoris, a small knob of tissue a bit bigger than a match head. Sometimes it’s hard to see the first time you look. Press down against your pubic bone under the hood of the labia. You’ll feel a pleasant sensation and probably feel the tiny knob of tissue become firmer. That’s the clitoris.
The clitoris is the equivalent of a man’s penis, with a tiny glans and shaft. The hood formed by the fold where the labia minora meet is equivalent to the male foreskin. The clitoris, like the penis, is composed of erectile tissue that fills with blood and becomes hard during sexual excitement. The skin of the labia minora and the clitoris are richly supplied with nerves that make them very sensitive to touch.
Now look at the area between the labia minora. This is covered with a smooth, moist, pink membrane and is called the vestibule. It contains two openings. In front, towards the clitoris, you’ll see the opening of the urethra – the tube that connects the bladder with the outside. You pass urine through this opening. It often has a slightly wavy, pouting edge.
Behind the urethral opening is the entrance to the vagina, called the introitus. This opening is partly covered by the hymen, a thin membrane that extends in from the edge of the introitus. It has one or more openings in it. If you’ve never had sexual intercourse, the opening(s) may be smallish and the hymen easily seen. After sexual penetration by the penis, the inner margin of the hymen becomes stretched or torn so that the opening is bigger. The hymen becomes much more torn when your first baby is delivered, so that the opening of the introitus becomes much larger and only a few tags of the hymen remain at its margin.
In the groove between the labia minora and the introitus, towards the back, you may see a tiny puncture on each side. These are the openings of Bartholin’s glands, which are buried within the labia majora near the perineum. These glands are about the size of a pea, but they are quite soft so you can’t usually feel them unless their ducts become blocked or they become infected. During sexual arousal, Bartholin’s glands secrete a fluid that contributes to lubrication of the introitus.
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