Not the actual clitoris. (Although those are really, truly great.)
I'm talking about the website, the-clitoris.com. (NSFW, but not gratuitously so.)
I stumbled across it this morning, doing some research for my new book, A Little Patch of Sunshine. I'm at a part of the book where the main character, Sunny, who's from a very conservative family, is just starting to really sexually awaken. She's a bit of a late bloomer in her late teens, and while she has masturbated, she doesn't really know what she's doing, yet.
Thankfully, she's got someone she can trust to help her learn all about it.
I'm thankful too - I've got friends helping me write this book who talk to me all the time about their own sexuality, history, and life experience. This is good, because writing from the perspective of a teenage girl is pretty tough when you have never been one. I get by with a little help from my friends.
But sometimes I do need additional resources. So this morning I went looking for, and found, the clitoris. I was looking for sites about how to talk to teens about masturbation (of which there are many, of varying degrees of quality). On a parenting messaging board I found the following post:
Re: Explaining masterbation to my daughter
Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:31 pm
Show her to www.the-clitoris.com great personal stories from people of all ages, she won't feel embarrassed ands its sensitively done :
Now the girl in question that needs masturbation explained to her is a fictional character, but she is a sensitive sort, and easily embarrassed, so this looked like it was just what I needed. I checked it out.
It's amazing. There's so much good information there, for anyone and everyone. I've known for years now that the vagina is just really one part of the vulva, which is really the right word for "the whole business down there." But I didn't pay much attention to or know much about the vestibule.
I love that in learning information to teach a character, I'm learning, too.