Discussion

Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time

codeduck: To make the obvious comment: It took so long because they had to find it first.

mock-possum: Seems like a boon for bottom surgery

ElijahLynn: Ironic, from reading the article it actually takes a while to find the research...https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1>>>https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1...

Fraterkes: 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?

Shank: 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?!).[0]: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712572v1...

yorwba: 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: This makes a lot of sense, thx!

nine_k: 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.

thebeardredis: "Guardians of the Clit"

hosteur: This should be the story link.

furyofantares: 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.

wahern: > 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.

Mordisquitos: Not a dumb question. The shortest (and at a glance unsatisfactory) answer is because it works, and therefore it evolved that way.Consider that for a feature to be evolutionarily selected for two things have to be true:1. It must increase the fitness of the organism that carries it, i.e. the likelihood of its carrier having descendants as compared to non-carriers ( or be a side effect of another feature that improves fitness enough to be a net positive )2. It must be inheritable.One such a feature has reached dominance in a given population, as long as it continues to be important for fitness it cannot really be deprecated in favour of an alternative from scratch, even if that alternative is arguably better.That's why, for instance, vertebrate ocular nerves connect to our retinas on the inside of our eyeball, resulting in us having a blind spot. Cephalopods, on the other hand, evolved their eyes independently the "reasonable" way, connecing their nerves from behind the eyeball. Our hacky solution for the blind spot? Let the brain hide it in software. There's no way a vertebrate could mutate from scratch for its optical nerve to connect to the retina from behind without causing absolute mayhem in embryonic development.Going back to your question, some spots of the body being more sensitive than others became critical for evolutionary fitness long before nervous systems were complex enough to generate conscious qualia, let alone enough for them to be consistently involved in decision making. Furthermore, mapping of specific nerves to intensity of feeling on the CNS would imply complex hardcoding of something which is much easier to solve with "this place important, have more nerves", and maybe would even conflict with the fitness benefit of a CNS with enough neuroplasticity to learn anew during the development and lifetime of an organism.So, in summary, the solution of having more nerves where it matters is simple, good enough, and has no reason to be rolled back in favour of a radically different alternative.

Fraterkes: I don’t know about “idiots” but bias towards women was obviously real and prevalent. Treating the idea that that might have influenced medical literature as a “meme” is slightly bizarre to me.

luxuryballs: “Hey Jarvis…”

turkey99: Male genital mutilation is very common

Fraterkes: Asking “why” questions about our body / evolution often (not always) gives informative answers. As in the example you gave: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-purpose-of-ou...

telesilla: Respectfully, this article is not about the male experience, it's okay to talk about women without putting men in the story.