Sex Roles, Vol. 43, Nos. 11/12, 2000 Kept Under the Hood: Neglect of the Clitoris in Common Vernacular 1 Shirley Matile Ogletree 2 and Harvey J. Ginsburg Southwest Texas State University Even though the “clitoris” is the organ homologous to the “penis,” this term may not be commonly used as the female counterpart to the penis. We con- ducted three studies to examine the usage of terminology for female sexual anatomy. In the first study 57 books in a university computer database for “sex instruction” were examined for the inclusion of terms such as penis, clitoris, vagina, vulva, and uterus. Penis was mentioned more often than ei- ther the clitoris or vulva in these books. In the second and third studies we investigated the terminology used by college students as well as their sex- ual attitudes and knowledge. Participants in the studies were Euro-American (76%/76%, Study 2/Study 3 respectively), Hispanic (18%/14%), and African American (4%/7%); students reported that they were overwhelmingly taught vagina as the female counterpart to the penis. Believing that the inner portion of the vagina is the most sexually sensitive part of the female body correlated with negative attitudes toward masturbation (Study 2) and agreement with sex myths (Studies 2 and 3). The “clitoris” is the female sexual organ homologous to the “penis.” How- ever, clitoris may not be used in common vernacular as the counterpart to the penis. Allgeier and Allgeier (2000) suggest that because the clitoris’s only function is for sexual pleasure, parents have no other reason to discuss the clitoris. In their human sexuality textbook, Allgeier and Allgier reported that in 1994 only 14% of students in a human sexuality class had heard 1 Parts of this research were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association in Albuquerque, NM, April, 1999 and at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Human Development, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, April, 2000. 2 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas78666. 917 0360-0025/00/1200-0917$18.00/0 C  2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation