> the clitoris did not even make it into standard anatomy textbooks until the 38th edition of Gray’s Anatomy was published in 1995.
This seemed surprising, as it hews too close to an annoying meme in feminism and history generally, that people in prior eras were idiots. And it turns out to be wrong. The clitoris was in Gray's Anatomy until 1947, when it was removed by the editor Charles Goss for the 25th edition. See https://projects.huffingtonpost.com/projects/cliteracy/embed... Indeed, the clitoris had been depicted in Classical medical books.
Why it was removed--and stayed removed for nearly 50 years--would make for an interesting story about mid-century culture, if not for a cynical throwaway comment, though it seems nobody knows Goss' actual motivations.
ElijahLynn 55 minutes ago [-]
Ironic, from reading the article it actually takes a while to find the research...
Page 7 [0] of the report seems to indicate that FGM reconstruction actually seems to have negative outcomes post-surgery. I'm surprised by this. I'm also shocked to see how prolific FGM is too (230 million women?!).
Dumb question, why do “sensitive” spots on the body need more nerves? Couldn’t you just have the normal touch-sensing nerves and map signals from specific spots on the body to stronger/pleasurable qualia in the brain?
yorwba 19 minutes ago [-]
Having more independent samples helps filter out noise. If you had individual sensory neurons with outsized influence, then misfiring of such neurons would also have outsized influence.
Fraterkes 18 minutes ago [-]
This makes a lot of sense, thx!
furyofantares 8 minutes ago [-]
Sounds plausible at least, but I think the question isn't necessarily making a valid assumption. Why do men have to have nipples? Why is our retina installed backwards? Why do sinuses drain upwards? It's just a path evolution took, it doesn't jump to some optimal design.
technothrasher 3 minutes ago [-]
Correct, though interestingly apropos to the discussion is that sex is one of the ways evolution is able to get around local maximums.
nine_k 19 minutes ago [-]
Fingers, for instance, not only have higher sensitivity, but also much higher spatial resolution due to the more dense nerve network.
I can't tell why other areas may have needed higher spatial resolution; maybe it was evolutionary important in the past, and remains today. Or maybe just adding more nerves due to a random mutation correlated with better reproductive outcomes due to a stronger signal, or higher sensitivity, so more nerves are present for no other reason.
throwaway27448 43 minutes ago [-]
Perhaps encoding "software" is more expensive in terms of codons? So it's cheaper/more likely to "implement" physically.
codeduck 1 hours ago [-]
To make the obvious comment: It took so long because they had to find it first.
thebeardredis 20 minutes ago [-]
"Guardians of the Clit"
whatsupdog 1 hours ago [-]
Giggity.
lentoutcry 2 hours ago [-]
Done 30 years ago for penile nerves
1 hours ago [-]
51 minutes ago [-]
58 minutes ago [-]
mock-possum 1 hours ago [-]
Seems like a boon for bottom surgery
Rendered at 17:49:53 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
This seemed surprising, as it hews too close to an annoying meme in feminism and history generally, that people in prior eras were idiots. And it turns out to be wrong. The clitoris was in Gray's Anatomy until 1947, when it was removed by the editor Charles Goss for the 25th edition. See https://projects.huffingtonpost.com/projects/cliteracy/embed... Indeed, the clitoris had been depicted in Classical medical books.
Why it was removed--and stayed removed for nearly 50 years--would make for an interesting story about mid-century culture, if not for a cynical throwaway comment, though it seems nobody knows Goss' actual motivations.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1
>>> PDF with the images
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1...
[0]: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1...
I can't tell why other areas may have needed higher spatial resolution; maybe it was evolutionary important in the past, and remains today. Or maybe just adding more nerves due to a random mutation correlated with better reproductive outcomes due to a stronger signal, or higher sensitivity, so more nerves are present for no other reason.