This widespread lack of clit knowledge is exactly what inspired 24-year-old Laura Kingsley to help get the word out about the elusive female body part. How? By drawing anatomically-accurate clitorises on the ground all over the world. Her awareness campaign and Instagram account, called Clitorosity, is aimed at teaching the world all about the clitoris. "We learn about our lungs, our ovaries, our fallopian tubes, our kidneys, but we don’t know as much as we should know about the structure of the clitoris," says Kingsley, who is based in New York City. "But it's so important because it helps us understand female sexuality, which has traditionally been more oppressed."
The idea all started while Kingsley was still in college, when it struck her that "in our culture we get so many sexual messages: We’re encouraged to have sex in everything from ads to magazines to movies, but we don’t have conversations about real anatomy." In response, she started conducting sex-ed talks on campus, focusing on the clitoris.
"What struck me was how surprising and empowering and enlightening learning about the actual structure of the clitoris was. From that, I kept thinking I wanted to do more," she says."I started thinking about how I could get people to engage, and that’s when I came up with the idea of drawing clitorises on the street, so people would see them.”
Her very first drawing took place last October, in NYC’s Washington Square Park. (Kingsley also dressed up as a clitoris for Halloween that year!) It was simple and straightforward. Kingsley, along with the help of some supportive friends, drew the vibrant illustration on the ground, captioned it “Be curious about the clitoris,” and waited for reactions.
“A lot of people came up and asked me questions, which was really exciting, because I had no idea how people would respond,” she says. “People were curious, people were talking to us about it, and many were shocked they had no idea about this part of their body.”
According to Kingsley, “How am I this old and I didn’t know this was in my body?” is actually one of the most common reactions she gets, closely followed by “It looks like an octopus.”
But very few people actually know what it is right away, says Kingsley. “I didn't have anyone guess what I was drawing right away until my 20th drawing.” That happened while she was in New Orleans, and a man who was on a run took one look at the image and stated: “It’s a clitoris.” When she said he was the first person to identify it so quickly, he shrugged and replied: “I went to med school.”
This article originally appeared on Women's Health