In this video, we're going to be going over clitoral anatomy. So the clitoris is richly innervated and because of that, it contributes hugely to female sexual arousal. And as you may recall, the clitoris is homologous to the male penis. So these stem from similar embryonic tissues and although they go on to form very different-looking structures, they're going to have very similar functions as you will see in just a second. And just like we did in our video on the penis, we have put little blue boxes around all the homologous structures. So this right here is a clitoris. If you've never seen one, it can be a little bit odd-looking, but the clitoris is honestly kind of like an iceberg. So it has a little tiny exposed tip and then it is much larger beneath the surface, as you can tell.

So we are going to start here because you've actually already seen this part, in our video on the genitalia, and that is the glans of the clitoris. So that is homologous to the glans of the penis. This is sometimes also called the head of the clitoris and this is just the exposed portion that you can actually see from an external view. And then to kind of help orient you to the rest of the image we've included this little outline of the external genitalia as well. You can see surrounding that glans we have the prepuce of the clitoris homologous to the prepuce of the penis or the foreskin. And then right here, we would have the labia minora approximately. And then within that, of course, is the vestibule. And then within the vestibule, we have the urethral orifice where urine exits the body as well as the vaginal orifice right there. So just to kind of give you an idea of what you're looking at there.

Alright. And then here and here on either side of the clitoris, we have these paired erectile bodies, and those are the corpus cavernosa. And these are homologous to the corpus cavernosa of the penis, so they're going to become engorged with blood and quite rigid during sexual stimulation. And then moving on down here and here we have the crus of the clitoris homologous to the crus of the penis and again same function, so these will kind of help to anchor the clitoris to the pelvic floor muscles to stabilize the entire structure. And then finally here and here we have the bulbs of the vestibule, and those are made up of erectile tissue. They are homologous with the bulb of the penis and they're going to engorge with blood during sexual stimulation. And what that does is it's actually going to kind of push the urethral orifice shut which prevents any bacteria from entering the urethra to help prevent UTIs, and then that engorgement also helps to kind of grip onto the penis or whatever has been inserted into the vagina, which can contribute to both female and male sexual arousal.

And you may have noticed that there's no direct homologue of the corpus spongiosum, and that's just because we don't really need one here. So remember, in the penis the corpus spongiosum is erectile tissue that maintains a kind of spongy texture to help keep the urethra open, but here in the female anatomy, we don't really have the same need. In fact, we want the urethra to close here, so there is not a super clear direct homologue to that structure in the clitoris. And then finally, I will leave you with one fun fact, which is that, to give you a sense of how richly innervated the clitoris is, our best estimate is that the glans of the clitoris, that little exposed portion, has about 10,000 nerve endings in it. And to give you some context, your entire hand has about 18,000. So that gives you a really good sense of how sensitive the clitoris is and why it adds so much to female sexual arousal. Alright. So that is our lesson on clitoral anatomy, and I will see you guys in the next one. Bye bye.