Abstract
The bulbo-clitoral organ is, such as we have seen previously, provided with a significant innervation. The sensory somatic fibres form a very important contingent in this innervation. They also make it possible to permanently inform the overlying nerve centres of any stimulus occurring at the level of this organ. Very specialised and specific receptors (“corpuscles”), positioned at the ends of some of these sensory fibres, receive the stimuli corresponding to “sensuous sensations” and transmit them to the nerve fibres, which convey them to the sensitive and specialised cerebral areas. Nerve endings are extremely numerous at the level of the bulbo-clitoral organ, especially the glans, which explains the extreme sensitivity of the latter. It should be noted from the start that although the clitoral glans has the same number of sensory “terminations” and genital corpuscles as the penile glans, assessed at around 8,000, the density of these receptors, with respect to the size of each of these organs, is 50 times higher for the female glans. This means that the sensitivity of the clitoral glans is extreme compared to that of the male glans, which is already very high!
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Notes
- 1.
This hypersensitivity is an element, which must be taken into account by a male partner during the prelude to a sexual act, as certain women support direct clitoral stimulation very badly as it generates a truly painful sensation when it is intended to provide pleasure!
- 2.
It is Filippo Pacini (1812–1883), an Italian anatomist, who first described the lamellar corpuscles. However, they had already been observed by Abraham Vater (1684–1751) (a German anatomist)!
- 3.
The lamellar corpuscles have an extreme sensitivity: they are capable of perceiving slight skin deformations (of around a few microns). They are also very sensitive to high-frequency vibrations (around 300 Hz) but have a “vibratory range” from 30 to 1,500 Hz, which is well known by “sex-toys” designers!
- 4.
Two types of erogenous areas are observed in women (R.K. Winkelmann):
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The specific erogenous areas, which are areas whose stimulation produces the strongest sensations and which are necessary to generate an orgasmic reflex: prepuce, clitoris, vulva, perianal skin, labia, oral cavity and breasts (areolas and nipples, which also contain lamellar corpuscles and bulboid corpuscles).
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The non-specific erogenous areas include cutaneous areas with many non-specific receptors and whose simple stimulation can generate sexual excitation with intumescence but which is not sufficient to generate an orgasmic reflex: sides of the neck and nape of the neck, armpits, internal surface of the arms, lateral walls of the thorax, internal surface of the thighs, infra-umbilical area, inguinal region, perinea, fingers, toes, scalp, etc.
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- 5.
A slightly different classification was established per H. Jaëger: This author describes 5 types but, on the one hand, his type 1 concerns corpuscles organised in a bundle, comparable to Meissner’s corpuscles, and on the other hand, his types 2 and 3 are comparable to Yamada’s type-2 corpuscles. Finally, his type 4 is identical to Yamada’s type 3 (corpuscle placed in the middle of conjunctive fibres without their own capsule). Lastly, Jaeger isolates a type 5, which he calls the “interposed corpuscles” or intermediate corpuscles, thus named due to the fact that the nerve fibre does not end there and penetrates them to become the terminal fibre of another corpuscle.
- 6.
This multi-innervation concept has been discussed by certain authors, including J.F. Tello “due to the difficulty of distinguishing if they are separate fibres or branches from the same fibre”.
- 7.
In addition to this theory of nerve substance concentration, there is another particularly interesting theory (made by F. Sfameni), whereby the function of each bulbous corpuscle would be to modify the stimulus received by the peripheral free nerve endings, to which it is connected, and transform it into a sensation of pleasure. The granular substance of the corpuscles would contain, for this purpose, an endocrine secretion, produced by the nuclear syncytium, and would therefore play a major part in this modulation of the sensory message.
- 8.
According to D. Perhaps Ohmori, “corpuscles organised in packs may be responsible for the sensations produced by friction or sliding, circumstances which occur with the greatest intensity in the external genitals”. For our part, we believe that the possibility of spontaneous orgasms occurring during sport exercises, such as pedalling on a bicycle or climbing a rope, is due to the extreme abundance of genital corpuscles at the level of the clitoris associated with the corpuscles (scattered but present) of the external genitalia. An interesting study concerning “sexual pleasure induced during exercise (PSIE) and possible orgasms induced during exercise (OIE), in a group of women of all ages”, was published recently and concluded that these situations were very frequent. The authors (D. Herbenick) have called this type of orgasm, induced by exercise, “coregasm”.
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Di Marino, V., Lepidi, H. (2014). Sensory Corpuscles. In: Anatomic Study of the Clitoris and the Bulbo-Clitoral Organ. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04894-9_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04894-9_9
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