Discovering and Knowing Your Own Genitals
Begin with clean hands and body. Using a hand mirror, examine your external genitalia. Become familiar with what is ‘normal’ for you. There can be medical benefits from this also. Once you are familiar with yourself, you will be able to notice changes that may need medical attention. You can bring these to your physician for attention long before your next gynecological examination.
The female’s external genitals include the labia majora (the outer lips), the labia minora (the inner lips), and the clitoris. What you see, when you took at your genitals before you open the outer lips (the labia majora) are the mons pubis, the soft part above the clitoris that is covered with pubic hair, and the thick outer lips the labia majora, which are also partially covered by hair. If you have never given birth to a child, your outer lips probably meet in a closed fashion at the center or midline of your genitals, providing protection for the inner lips, the urinary opening, and the vagina. In women, who have borne children, it is common to find that the trauma of childbirth has inter-children, it is the neat fit of the outer lips at the midline. This change in the midline makes a difference in the changes that occur when the out lips are apart during sexual arousal. With a hand mirror in one hand, use your brother’s hand to spread the outer lips apart to examine the rest of the external genitalia. Look for the clitoris. The hood, which covers the shaft flows down to form the inner lips.
The shaft is a miniature penis-like cylinder located under the hood with the glans or head being the only part exposed. Even the glans may not be easy to locate. For some women the glans, or tip, of the clitoris may tend to hide under the hood and the hood may seen like the point, at which the Inner lips join.
The tip of the clitoris is particularly sensitive to any touch. In fact, rubbing the glans may actually be painful to you. Many women report that the most pleasurable place to receive stimulation is around the clitoris, not directly on it. You may want to touch various points around and on the clitoris, not necessarily for the purpose of stimulation, but to learn where the best feelings occur for you. This would be helpful to communicate to your parts to enhance your lovemaking experience. We will talk more about this when we got into the enhancement of lovemaking. The discovery of where pleasure points are for you and where you tend to experience pain is crucial to communicate to your partner for the enhancement of your love-making.
Intense pleasure and pain are closely related in our bodies. Those areas like the clitoris, which are loaded with nerve endings are most receptive to pleasure and for the same reason, most receptive to palm. It is difficult for your husband to be able to differentiate where, how much and what type of pressure feels good. He does not know this by instinct. If you learn this for yourself, you can show him and can guide his hand to demonstrate the most pleasurable pressure and touch. This can do away with much of his guesswork and add to your pleasure. Selfdiscovery comes first, before you try to show or demonstrate. Adding another person introduces some level of tension and/or excitement which may hinder the initial learning that needs to take place.
Before, we move on to further selfexploration, we want to say more about the clitoris. This physiological data will be particularly important, if you think that men are by nature more sexual than women, or that God created men to have deeper sex feelings than women. May be you have underlying feelings that a woman is to be the passive recipient of the man’s sexual desire. Women were created with vaginas as a receptacle for the sperm and seminal fluid of the man, you may reason, should this not make the man a passive receiver of the mares aggression, rather than an active participant and giver?
The presence of the clitoris counters this attitude. The clitoris is the only organ in the human anatomy designed solely for receiving and transmitting sexual stimuli. Physiologically, that is its only function. The woman, not the man was created with the clitoris. The penis is the equivalent organ for the man, in that it is composed of similar erectile tissue with, spaces that fill with blood and become engorged, when stimulated, making the organ larger and finger. However, the penis serves many other functions. The fact that the clitoris in the woman is unique in its function of receiving and transmitting sexual stimuli is confirmation that God intended women to be intensely sexual beings not just ‘vaginal’ as recipients of the mans sexual expression.
This is an important concept to consider. It often affects, how couples make love, how a woman feels about herself as a sexual being, and how the man relates to the woman sexually.
Moving on with your hand-mirror exploration, let’s talk about the location of the urinary meatus (opening). The urinary meatus is not part of the sexual anatomy, per se, but its proximity makes it important to locate. It is found right above the vagina, or, for some women, It may actually be in the opening of the vagina. It may look like a little pimple. It is the opening to the urinary tract that leads to the urinary bladder and on to the kidneys. It is free of any microorganism and it does not carry germs or transmit diseases.
The other two openings the woman has in the genital and perineal area are the vagina and rectum. The vagina is the largest opening, you see. In contrast to the urinary system, the vagina does have micro-organisms present. The microorganisms present in the vagina are not diseaseproducing micro organs (germs). Rather, their function is to ward off infection and to keep the vagina, in a healthy state. Therefore, the vagina is considered a clean passageway, when there is no infection present.
Some of us have tended to think of our genitals as dirty. That was also probably what view made into the message, “Don’t touch.” It might also be a response to the important and necessary sanitary practice of washing after toileting. It is important for us to note that the need for washing after going to the bathroom is not because of the possibility of the genitals contaminating our hands, but rather because of the rectum. The rectum is highly contaminated. It is loaded with potentially disease-producing micro-organisms. When you wipe after toileting, it is important to wipe from front to back, from the urinary meatus to the rectum, to avoid contaminating the vagina and the urinary system. If you a woman, who tends to suffer from frequent vaginal or bladder infections, begin to note your wiping habits. You may be carrying disease-producing microorganisms from the rectum to the urinary bladder and vagina.
There are other facts about the vagina that may affect sexual attitudes and habits. In a healthy state, the vagina maintains its own acid-base balance. This is another mechanism, which helps fight off infections and enhances the process of impregnation. Because of these functions of the normal balance within the vagina, douching is not recommended unless so directed by a physician for a specific health problem.
Pc Muscle Conditioning (Kegel Exercise)
The vagina is the most important anatomical structure for intercourse. It is often referred to as the ‘organ of accommodation’; that is, vagina is a muscular passageway very changeable in size. It can tighten or expand to receive any size penis during intercourse. It can even expand to deliver a baby. This ability of the vagina to tighten or expand can be enhanced by exercise, and the same exercise will also increase the vagina’s sensitivity to sexual stimulation and its responsiveness. The muscle to be exercised is the pubococcygeus (PC) muscle. It is the same muscle used to start and stop urination. You can identify the correct muscle by sitting on the toilet with your legs spread apart. Start urinating, then stop urination for about 3 seconds and then start again. Do this several times, before you are finished emptying your bladder. If you can do it easily, you probably need to tighten and relax this muscle only about 25 times a day to keep it in a good condition.
And work up to 200 times a day. When the muscle is sloppy, it may take a great deal of concentration to tighten and hold for 3 seconds before relaxing. As it develops better tone, you can do the exercise anywhere, at any time and no one will even know. Its often helpful to associate tightening the PC muscle with some other daily activity, such as waiting at the grocery checkout counter, stopping at red lights, ironing, washing dishes, taking notes at the board meeting, typing, or whatever happens to fit your life style.
Experiment with tightening and releasing the PC muscle during an actual intercourse experience as well. This will be particularly helpful, if you are not aware of feelings in the vagina after entry.
One more characteristic of the vagina is that it lubricates during arousal as well as at other times. This lubrication is a normal response that occurs shortly after birth and continues throughout life. It may lessen after menopause, in which case a woman may need to use a water-based lubricant before entry can comfortably occur. Lubrication is an involuntary response of the body. By that we mean it is something over which you have no control. Lubrication can best be described as beads of perspiration along the walls of the vagina. It may occur when you are in a relaxed state, with or without any obvious sexual stimulation. For example, the Masters and Johnson research shows that normal adult women lubricate every 80 to 90 minutes while asleep.
Now, back to the self-examination of your genitals. To examine the vagina, we would encourage you to use a lubricant such as K-Y Jelly, Lubrifax or Nonlanolin Allercreme lotion. After lubricating your forefinger, insert it into the vagina as far as the second knuckle and slowly follow the wall of the vagina all the way around.
You might think of the opening of the vagina as a clock, with the top of the vagina, the point nearest the clitoris, as the 12 o’clock location. When you follow the wall of the vagina, start at some point on the clock and put varying degrees of pressure on the wall of the vagina with your finger at each point of the clock. As you do this notice the sensation.
Identify any differences in feeling at the various places within the vagina. For example, identify any areas that are particularly sensitive to touch and seem to trigger either a painful feeling or a pleasurable feeling in this process. Some women for whom intercourse has always been painful locate a specific tear or irritation of the wall of the vagina that needs medical attention to promote healing. Alleviating the pain will enhance the intercourse experience.
Other women have found that a certain area of the vagina is much more responsive to sexual stimulation. If a position is assumed that tends to place the penis in more direct contact with that area of the vaginal wall, this discovery can enhance sexual feelings during sexual intercourse. For example, some women find that stimulation at the 4’o clock and 8 o’clock locations provide the most pleasurable vaginal sensations. Assuming the lateral position during intercourse will allow the penis to provide more intense friction of the 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock areas of the vaginal wall.
This concludes the self-discovery exercise for women. If this has been difficult or uncomfortable for you, we would encourage you to repeat the process several times in the future, until you have a sense of ease with your genitals.
Women: Know What’s Inside
Now that you’re familiar with your external genitalia, let’s look at your internal sexual organs. you will see the ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes and vagina. The ovaries look like large almonds and are located one on either side of the uterus below and behind the fallopian tubes. They produce some of the sex hormones that affect the whole menstrual cycle. Primarily, however, they produce the ova or eggs for reproduction. The egg is usually released fourteen days before a woman’s menstrual period. It is carried by the fallopian tubes to the uterus, where it is implanted if it becomes fertilized. Or it is discharged from the body with the menstrual flow, if it does not become fertilized. This process begins in puberty and ceases during menopause.
The uterus, or womb, is a pear-shaped organ located between the urinary bladder and the rectum, as you can see in figure. In its normal position, the uterus is flexed towards the front of the body, pointing forward and slightly upward. If you have been told you have a tipped uterus, this probably referred to a uterus, which is retroflexed or flipped back toward the backbone. Less frequently, a tipped uterus may be anteflexed or tipped too much toward the front of the body, putting pressure on the urinary bladder and thus causing the feeling of needing to urinate frequently. A retroflexed uterus is likely to cause momentary.
A woman complained that she was not enjoying the sexual experience. She did as many different things as she could to avoid her husband’s approaches. Though, she used to become very aroused, as time passed she was less and less responsive. From further questioning, we learned that she was almost completely inactive after entry—because “it hurts!” The pain she was trying to avoid occurred when her husband was highly aroused and timating deeply. She confined that her physician had told her she had a tipped uterus. By some shifts in positioning and exercising, she learned that this pain can be avoided. She was feel to begin to enjoy the sexual experience without pain.