On the occasion of World Women’s Rights Day, it is clear that French women still know very little about their intimate anatomy.
- In France, more than 1 woman out of 3 has never observed her intimacy.
- 24% of French women admit that their first masturbation did not take place until around 18 years old and over.
Even today, there is a real taboo around women’s bodies, and female intimacy is only too rarely highlighted. “In art? While statues or paintings of naked men fill museums, women’s sex is usually hidden. From an educational point of view? Even school sulks at it, to the point that some textbooks don’t even mention it. , content to step up to the course that we would have liked to have had in high school. In the media? It was not until 1998 that the first survey on the clitoris appeared”, Terpan Prevention analysis, based on figures from a new survey.
The reasons for this taboo
In France, more than 1 woman out of 3 has never observed her intimacy. 35% of respondents said they had never seen their clitoris, and another third only once or twice. The reasons for this taboo? “This is not beautiful”, “I didn’t feel the need to watch it,” or “I did not dare”, explain the women in the survey.
On the other hand, 4 out of 5 women know how to locate their clitoris. 53% of them declare having discovered it anatomically, and 43% have identified it as an object of pleasure.
A lack of teaching of female anatomy
Concerning masturbation, 24% of respondents admit that their first experience took place only around 18 years and over. They are today 45% to have experienced their first masturbation between 13 and 14 years old, 17% between 15 and 16 years old, and 14% between 16 and 17 years old.
For the pollsters, these figures are explained by a lack of teaching of female anatomy. “The representation that we have of the female sex is mainly through porn”, recalls Kamal Yahiaoui, president of Terpan Prevention. “A kind of clitoral obscurantism still reigns today. While the male body and its anatomy benefit from an assumed exposure over time, the female body and its intimacy remain hidden”, concludes Kamal Yahiaoui.
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