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    QUIZ SHOW QUESTION NO. 1: What is the clitoris attached to?
    SHORT ANSWER: Its roots.
    LONG ANSWER: In most illustrations, the clitoris is drawn as a small red curve, which trails off inside the folds of skin near the top of the vulva. Any woman who’s touched herself knows this couldn’t be right. I can feel that my own clitoris is firmly attached and not some tiny floating pebble. The clitoris is, in fact, firmly attached, deeply rooted around the vulva like a wishbone. It has eighteen separate parts to it, which Rebecca Chalker, author of The Clitoral Truth outlines in her book. This may be a little inflated because she and the Feminist Women’s Health Center count the blood vessels as separate parts. But no matter how you add it up, the clitoris is far more extensive than meets the eye.
    QUIZ SHOW QUESTION NO. 2: What’s the difference between a clitoris and a penis?
    SHORT ANSWER: The clitoris is MORE FUN.
    LONG ANSWER: The penis and clitoris are more similar than different. The clitoris and penis have the same superstructure. Most of us know that all embryos start out female. Around the seventh or eighth week in utero, if the fetus is going to go male, the clitoris extends outside the body to become a penis. What might have become a vulva closes and develops into testicles.
    The penis also houses the male urethra and is a sperm delivery system. So, while it’s fun for play, the penis has serious work to do. The clitoris, on the other hand, has absolutely no practical purpose other than pleasure, and quite a bit of pleasure at that. It has four times as many nerve endings as the head of a penis, making it much more sensitive and responsive to the slightest stimulation.
    The clitoris is the only human body part—male or female—that is solely for fun. Eve Ensler—creator of the renowned play The Vagina Monologues —has done a great job of pointing this out to thousands of people around the world. I’m trying to do my part too. We women are possessors of a tremendous source of pleasure, and yet so many of us discount it or ignore it. If men had clitorises, they’d never get their hands out of their pants. Doesn’t the idea of penis envy seem absurd when you think about the sensitivity, specialization in pleasure, and compact neatness of the clitoris?
    QUIZ SHOW QUESTION NO. 3: Does clitoral size matter?
    SHORT ANSWER (AS IT WERE): No.
    LONG ANSWER: Size is a hotly debated subject regarding penises. But I’ve never heard a group of women (or men) swapping opinions on the pluses and minuses of having a big or small clitoris. Maybe if men couldn’t compare with each other they wouldn’t worry about it either. I was surprised, as you may be, to find out that clitoral size and shape varies just as widely as penis size. No two are alike. I found a book called Feminalia by Joani Blank that is a color photo collection of vulvas of all sizes and shapes. One after the next, page after page of photos, like any art book—but not the kind you want to take on the subway or bus. It is fascinating to behold the diversity. Some clitorises are visible, and some aren’t anywhere to be seen at all. The variations of labia range from small and pink to large, dark, and almost ruffled. Most women are asymmetrical, and you can see that the terms “labia minora” and “labia majora” are misnomers. Just because they are “inner” lips doesn’t mean that they are completely inside the “outer” lips. Very often the inner lips poke beyond the outer lips.
    Brief digression: Last year, I met a plastic surgeon at a party in New York who is starting to do a brisk business in the field of labial surgery. This surgeon’s clients want their labia altered to be symmetrical, tidy, and uniform. I was shocked at this unnecessary mutilation of the most intense bundle of nerve endings in the human body—all predicated on ignorance. These women must think they’re abnormal and ugly. How would they know they