Why Doesn’t Anyone Talk About Clitoral Erections?
Women get hard-ons and ‘morning wood’ just as much as men
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Women get boners too. Yes, I said it. Men don’t have a monopoly on erections.
Most men — and even some women — are unaware, but thanks to an often-neglected thing called the clitoris, women (and others with clitorises, such as trans men and some AFAB non-binary folks) get erections when they’re aroused.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been hearing about men’s boners nearly every day of my life. About erectile dysfunction. About treatments for erectile dysfunction, like Viagra. About morning wood. About unwanted or inappropriate erections. About pleasurable erections. About erections being revealed to unsuspecting women as a form of sexual harassment. It never ends.
I’m glad that people feel comfortable talking about all that openly, but where’s the balance? How often do we hear about clitoral erections?
Essentially never.
Since our culture is oriented around the male gaze, male desire takes center stage. Meanwhile, female desire has become nothing more than an afterthought. And sadly, because of our socialization, tons of women (like myself until recently) are not attuned enough to our own arousal to be aware of this fundamental aspect of our sexuality.
Accordingly, men have claimed erections as their territory. A close male friend once told me, “men will never understand what it’s like to get a period. And women will never understand what it’s like to get an erection.”
But let’s set the record straight — women do understand what it’s like, because we literally do get erections.
So what is a clitoral erection?
The process behind clitoral erections is relatively similar to penile erections, the ones we constantly hear about.
Just like the penis, the clitoris is filled with erectile tissue that hardens during arousal and relaxes after an orgasm. It also hardens frequently during sleep, resulting in a female equivalent of “morning wood.”
Since most of the clitoris is internal (it’s about four inches long on average), most of the erection is not…
