Most diagrams of the clitoris are wrong. The visible part — the glans — is roughly the tip of an iceberg. The full organ extends back into the body, branches around the vaginal canal, and is roughly the size of a small pear when fully aroused.

What you can see

The glans is the most visible part, usually 3–8mm across, located just below where the inner labia meet at the top. It is protected by a hood of tissue and contains roughly 8,000 nerve endings — twice as many as the head of the penis.

What you cannot see

The crura, or "legs," extend back into the body for about 5–9cm on either side. The bulbs sit on top of the vaginal canal and swell with arousal. This is why "internal" and "external" stimulation are not really separate things — they often activate parts of the same organ.

Why this matters

If you have ever wondered why one toy works and another does not, the answer is usually that the working one is touching more of the full clitoris than the one that does not. Wands, for example, reach the bulbs. Air-pulse toys often focus only on the glans. Different tools, different jobs.

A note on accuracy

The full anatomy of the clitoris was only published in a peer-reviewed journal in 1998, by Australian urologist Helen O'Connell. If the diagram in your high-school biology textbook looked sparse, that is why — most textbooks have not been updated.