LAS VEGAS, April 30 – With this year’s Clitoris Awareness Week (May 3-10) about to begin, a statement released today by U.S.-based organization Clitoraid announced the first two recipients of its new "Clitoris Awareness Award."

“With this award, we honor two wonderful artists who have greatly contributed to public awareness of this widely unknown and often vilified human organ, the clitoris,” said Brigitte Boisselier, PhD, president of Clitoraid and spokesperson for the International Raelian Movement.

"Penelopi Jones has brought elegance and beauty with her artistic representation of the female sexual organ, and we’re proud to offer her design in our online store to raise funds for our humanitarian operations. We hope many women will wear it proudly and thereby help provide regained sexual pleasure and dignity for sexually mutilated women. Their clitoral functioning can now be restored thanks to our services.”

Boisselier explained that Clitoraid is a Nevada-based charity that offers free clitoris repair surgery to victims of female genital mutilation (FGM).
In Burkina Faso, Africa, Clitoraid will soon open the world’s first hospital to offer free surgical repair surgery to any woman who wants it.

FGM is still prevalent in many places around the world.

"There are more than 160 million women alive today, with 500,000 in the United States alone, who have been deprived of a part of their clitoris,” Boisselier said. “Their lives are full of pain and feelings of inferiority.”

Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi is the other recipient of the new award.

“Along with her courageous depictions of the vulva in her art displays, Ms. Igarashi has designed a "Manko-Shan" (precious vulva) logo for us,” Boisselier said. “For this innocent artwork, she is facing a jail sentence and steep fine because public display of female genitals is illegal in Japan, even in artworks.”

Boisselier said an animation of Megumi Igarashi’s Manko-Shan cartoon will kick off Clitoris Awareness Week as Clitoraid members and fans organize parties, forums and conferences worldwide to honor and celebrate the inner and outer beauty of the clitoris.

Clitoris Awareness Week Animé



Penelopi Jones' ClitoRing


Megumi Igarashi

This provocative little anatomical form, mysterious yet oddly familiar, is a subtly stylized representation of a thing we all know, yet may know surprisingly little about. Until very recently both science and culture have misunderstood and often ignored all but the very tip of it. Penelope Jones' ring, illustrate the newly rediscovered internal structure of the clitoris. (see sonogram photo below)The sensitive little button at the top of a woman's vulva is just the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath the surface is vastly more complex and fascinating. It contains eight thousand nerve endings at the tip that permeate through this greater internal structure, then connect to fifteen thousand more, suggesting that even vaginal orgasms are technically "clitoral." Over a lifetime a clitoris will increase in sensitivity and size seven times. The "wings," called the bulbs of the vestibule, hug the vaginal canal, composed of erectile tissue, they become swollen during arousal. The two "arms," the crura form a wishbone-like shape. We like to think of them as a tuning fork, a device for sending and receiving vibrational energy, possibly for exploring the resonant structure of the universe.

Penelopi Jones has hand crafted these jewelry objects as a fun and elegant conversation piece to help you illustrate to your lovers and friends a greater understanding of the miraculous structure of the internal clitoris. The artist was selected to receive the first Clitoris Awareness Award for her creation.

May this ClitoRing serve you as a talisman for extraordinary orgasms!

Clitoraid will soon offer the ring is a fundraiser for it humanitarian endeavor, in the meantime, please feel to visit Penelopi Jones.




Sonogram of the complete anatomy of the clitoris

LAS VEGAS, April 27 – “Next month, we'll be launching our third annual International Clitoris Awareness Week, May 3-10,” said Nadine Gary, Clitoraid spokesperson. “We invite women worldwide to defend, explore and rejoice in their right to sexual pleasure.”

Although Clitoraid focuses on clitoral repair surgery for women suffering effects of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), its central mission is to raise public awareness.

"In some African countries, 98 percent of the women have had their sexual organs mutilated,” Gary said. “They will never experience sexual pleasure unless they have the surgery that Clitoraid is offering to do right now for free in Burkina Faso, and soon in many other countries. But there is also a mental mutilation component, one that almost all women worldwide suffer from after being told for centuries that sensuality and sexuality are dirty.”

Clitoraid was the vision of Rael, founder and spiritual head of the Raelian Movement.

“He wrote 'Sensual Meditation,' a book emphasizing the importance of pleasure for men and women, and he pointed out that repression of sexual pleasure is damaging to our fulfillment as human beings,” Gary said, adding that women have born the brunt of that repression.



“The clitoris is a magnificent organ that has been ignored, vilified, made taboo, and even considered sinful through antiquated, patriarchal religious teachings,” she explained. “It’s time to give it the attention it deserves as the only organ with an exclusive sexual pleasure function!”

Gary said it’s easy to see why Western women still experience sexual guilt.“Not that long ago, 'nymphomania' was considered a disease, and masturbation was thought to cause blindness and premature death,” she pointed out. Doctors even believed that sexual arousal destroys a woman’s mental balance!”

The clitoris, boasting the most nerve endings of any human organ (8,000, against 5,000 in the penis), was declared the source of the purported problems. The original sonogram image of the internal clitoris, depicted in yellow.



“In 1865, the president of the British Medical Society recommended clitoral excision to cure illnesses like epilepsy and hysteria,” Gary said.” And scientists didn’t fully research the clitoris until recently. Dr. Helen O’Connell, an Australian urologist, mapped it completely 8 years ago, using an MRI device.”

Clitoraid is inviting women to organize special events on Clitoris Awareness Week. “They should celebrate their sexual beauty,” Gary said. “Sexual expression brings self-esteem and inner balance, so let's celebrate the clitoris without shame or guilt!”

The most joyful celebration is expected to take place in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where a group of FGM victims is celebrating surgically restored clitorises, thanks to Clitoraid. “They’re experiencing sexual pleasure sensations for the first time!” Gary exclaimed.

Clitoraid volunteer surgeons Dr. Marci Bowers and Dr. Harold Henning, who flew to Burkina Faso for our first medical humanitarian mission there.

Clitoris Awareness Week Animé


b]Clitoris Awareness Week[/b]

by Masami Narita, head of Clitoraid in Japan.

Clitoraid was invited to the phallus festival of Kanayama shrine at Kawasaki in Kanagawa prefecture, near Tokyo, on Sunday 5th April.

Kanayama shrine’s festival is becoming more famous every year with its big phallus paraded on the “mikoshi” (portable shrine). So, it is generally nicknamed “Kanamara matsuri” (phallus festival). Recently, not only Japanese but many foreign tourists visit there.

Before this festival, we sent a letter to the shrine owner asking to participate in the event though anticipating their refusal since it is illegal to display a vulva in public in Japan. But, surprisingly, Head Priestess Nakamura welcomed us. According to the Priestess, although Kanayama shrine is dedicated to both penis and vulva as symbols of harmonious couple, fertility or prosperity, the media and the public only focus on the penis display.

In fact, while at the festival, the Priestess told us about the dedicated vulva statue which is found inside the shrine’s sanctuary but is closed to the public, because the vulva statue was “too realistic” and some visitors were too shocked to see it. In contrast, the phallus statue is on open display inside the shrine’s ground where everybody can see and touch it.

The Priestess is also a friend of the youngJapanese artist, Rokudenashiko who is currently awaiting trial and a possible jail sentence in Japan for displaying her extensive vulva art work, and who made Clitoraid's vulva logo. Once again, in Japan, the public display of female genitals, even in art, is forbidden. Our participation aimed not only at raising awareness regarding the taboos that surround the vulva and the clitoris but also to renew our support to Rokudenashiko. We are sure that the Priestess welcomed us partly because we both support Rokudenashiko.

On the day of the festival, to our surprise, we found ourselves in the spotlight like Hollywood stars with our Clitoraid vulva signs. Even though it rained, the shrine was packed with worshippers and foreign tourists, and many people paid attention to us and took our photo. Especially, the poster of Rokudenashiko’s logo illustration which caught people’s eye. We were interviewed about Clitoraid and Rokudenashiko by several Japanese and US media.

We were so thankful to Head Priestess Nakamura for allowing us to join the street parade. The staff of the shrine was friendly to us, and we received cheers from street side spectators. Among them, a Canadian woman cheered passionately for us, saying that “I know Dr. Marci Bowers [Clitoraid's volunteer surgeon}! I met her several times! You are really great!” It is to be noted that the Priestess and her Priest father are also involved in stopping FGM.

The parade was peaceful and joyful, we enjoyed a lot and we look forward to participating again next year with a giant display of a vulva artwork along side the penis statue and end the taboo and discrimination of the female genital organ.