Before making a detailed description of woman's sexual apparatus, I should like to make a preliminary observation which can help you to understand the sexual nature of woman. It is this: that while women are capable of having true sexual gratification in the same sense and with the same intensity as men, they have one important difference in their responses. The man, when he is aroused, feels the sexual desire directly in his genitals. A woman's first sexual sensations are not usually genital but are felt over her entire body, on her skin surfaces, everywhere; this is followed by sexual excitation in her genitals, and this is an important fact for both men and women to understand. Ignorance of this fact has given rise to many misunderstandings between the sexes, for of course it makes the woman somewhat slower in reaching the moment when she is ready for intercourse than the man is. It must be taken into consideration by both parties to an act of love.
A woman's genital apparatus is both internal and external. The external genitalia are called the vulva when they are referred to all together. The most obvious part of the vulva is the part we called the major (or sometimes outer) lips, which enfold the rest of the genitalia. If these lips are parted we see two smaller lips; these are called the minor lips and have a very high degree of sexual responsiveness. Even in books for laymen the Latin words are often used for these two organs: labia majoris and labia minoris, which mean, simply enough, the major lips and the minor lips.
The labia majoris also contain within their folds the rest of the external genital structure of woman. Here we find the clitoris, the vestibule, and the urethra, or opening to the bladder.
The clitoris is by far the most important and most widely misunderstood part of the external genitalia. It lies immediately above the top fold of the labia minoris and is a little
