International Clitoris Week Is Just Around the Corner

In a world that often seems like one big penis party, the clit is a many-splendored thing—and a marginalized one, too. This locus of female pleasure has more nerve endings than any other human body part, but it still doesn't enjoy the cultural currency of your average wang. Maybe Clitoris Week will change that.

Clitoraid, an anti-female-mutilation group, is sponsoring something it calls International Clitoris Week. Kicking off next Monday with a series of events in its homebase of Las Vegas, it aims to encourage more women to openly explore their sexual identities through "educational lectures, art exhibits, songs and dance, or a 'girl's night' of sharing," says Clitoraid spokeswoman Nadine Gary.

Think of it as a vagina dialogue that shoots higher. It's admittedly gimmicky, she tells HuffPo:

Gary has experience doing offbeat awareness campaigns like Go Topless Day, which protests laws that prevent a woman from going topless and "Swastika Rehabilitation Day," which was designed to remove the Nazi stigma from the ancient symbol.

"We found that whenever something has an 'awareness day,' it makes it more comfortable to talk about," she said.

Future International Clitoris Awareness Weeks will be held the first full week of May, which just happens to be National Masturbation Month.

Well, we all know how Gawker feels about masturbation. We're equally fond of women taking ownership of their sexual feelings. And who knows? Maybe a little awareness could rub off on those poor simple guys who fancy themselves clit commanders, too.

[Image by Jim Cooke]