At first, it’s unclear what you’re looking at. It’s a screenshot, an extreme close-up of a pert, pink thing that looks almost like an inverted bunny rabbit wearing an infinity scarf. Is it a tongue poking out from between two pale pink lips? No, too small. A snail? No, not slimy enough. Suddenly, you zoom out and realize: That’s no snail — that’s a clitoris, and it’s goddamn enormous.
The clit in question is one of many displayed on r/GrowYourClit, a 23,000 member-strong subreddit featuring spirited discussion and advice for people pursuing clits of Hulk Hogan-esque proportions. For some, a permanently engorged clitoris can help assuage gender dysphoria, appearing similar to the head of a penis and even lending itself to light penetration. But the majority of r/GrowYourClit’s membership is committed to something else — pure pleasure, hypothetically achieved by making one’s clitoris more prominent and, thus, more sensitive. Though every clitoris owner in the bunch has a slightly unique motivation, they share one common mantra: The bigger, the better.
Per the subreddit’s FAQ, noticeable clitoral growth “requires dedication and perseverance.” The process takes a few different forms, with the most popular methods involving either topical or oral androgens, typically testosterone. Androgens are the hormones known for their role in biologically male reproductive traits, and redditors claim that they offer the most powerful effects, producing results in a matter of months or, in some cases, weeks. According to the FAQ, androgens can “produce a clit in the 1.5 to 3 inch range before hitting a genetic limit which varies between females.” For extra growth, individuals can employ a method known as “vacuum pumping” using a designated clitoral pump, which has been known to add around half an inch of clitoral surface area.
While the pump isn’t the fastest way to blast one’s clitoris into turbo mode, it’s often the only option for individuals who can’t get their hands on hormones. Andie, a fairly active r/GrowYourClit member who hasn’t yet been able to try androgens, says that’s largely because she lives in the U.K., where residents struggle to find National Health Service doctors to prescribe hormones “unless you’re transitioning or it’s deemed medically necessary.” She also isn’t interested in scoring unregulated hormones on the black market, a process that she says “scares the life out of [her].”
She adds that her dysphoria — she refers to it as “penis envy,” as do many other members of the subreddit — is the driving force behind her clit-growing interests. “I’m a cisgender woman, but I’ve always had penis envy, for as long as I can remember,” she tells me. “I just feel very strongly that a part of me is missing down there — like even though I can stimulate my clit, I never actually reach it. That, and I like how blunt and obnoxious a dick is aesthetically, and I’d really like my own. It’s hard to put into words, but symbolically, it fits who I am and how I experience sex.”
Still, she doesn’t feel that her dysphoria is acute enough to warrant browsing the black market and “snatching” the limited supply of hormones from individuals urgently seeking gender affirmation.
Meanwhile, other redditors have no qualms about snapping up hormones where they can find them. Rachel, another cisgender woman, says she scored a topical testosterone cream “through a lucky chance” (though she declined to share where). She first entered the clit-growing realm seeking to improve the “intensity and frequency” of her orgasms, as well as her overall arousal levels. “My husband and I are kinky, and it seemed like a fun prospect for us to try,” she adds, noting that they’re both happy with her progress. “I’ve definitely seen an increase in size of my clitoris that persists even when I’ve been off the T [testosterone] for about six weeks, so I’m happy about that.”
She didn’t mention whether or not the increased clitoral girth improved her pleasure; however, other redditors are clear that testosterone increased their clitoral sensitivity, if only temporarily.
Dysphoria aside, Andie also sees the practical appeal of a mammoth, impossible-to-miss clit. “I didn’t ‘find’ my own clitoris until I was in my late teens, just before I had my first sexual partner,” she says. “Whenever I hear jokes about how men can’t find the clit, my first thought is, ‘Well, I had my share of trouble, too, with however-many-thousands of nerve endings connecting it to my brain.’”
Rachel and Andie represent two distinct perspectives in the clit-growing communities, but their shared focus on increased pleasure drives home what clitoris owners have been screaming for years — namely, the importance of clitoral stimulation in pursuit of orgasm. A 2017 study published in The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found that nearly 37 percent of cisgendered American women required clitoral stimulation to experience orgasm — still, it’s not like dudes are particularly known for Indiana Jonesing their way under the hood. Somehow, failure to “find” the clitoris remains a topic of discussion, granting meme status to the legions of careless men who allegedly fail to locate it. Enter this community of people attempting to increase clitoral size and sensitivity to fail-proof proportions.
Interestingly, hormone-driven clitoral growth is far from the only possible measure to improve clitoral sensitivity. Metoidioplasty, or the surgical creation of a penis using one’s existing genital tissue, is a less-invasive alternative to phalloplasty that some see as the next step up from hormonal clit growth. Not everyone seeking metoidioplasty does so in pursuit of gender affirmation, though. Recently, a cisgender woman underwent the procedure to create a micropenis, ostensibly to enhance her sexual pleasure.
According to Michael Ingber, a urologist and sexual health specialist, there are a few other options for those uninterested in hormonal or surgical interventions. Ingber cites Votiva, a “radiofrequency energy treatment” that he says can help improve vaginal laxity, sexual pleasure and incontinence. Ingber’s clinic also offers platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection into the clitoral hood and around the vagina. “This is where we take your own stem cells from your body, isolate them and inject them in an area in need,” he says. “For the vaginal injection, this improves sexual pleasure and arousal, and I’ve had patients claim their orgasms are longer lasting and better than ever.”
Ingber adds that, while his patients have plenty of options for clitoral growth, he doesn’t see a problem with using androgens. “There are dozens of studies evaluating the use of exogenous testosterone in women,” he says. “Testosterone has been studied for hormone replacement in women who have low libido. As I mentioned, it’s off-label, which means the FDA doesn’t recognize it as a valid therapy — but many of us physicians feel it’s safe and can prescribe it to patients. While testosterone isn’t FDA-approved in the United States, sexual health specialists like myself consider the use of this hormone to be generally safe.” Of course, while androgens are generally safe, they do come with side effects like hoarseness or deepening of the voice, unnatural hair growth, acne or oily skin and unusual hair loss.
So, hormonal clit-growing is safe, increasingly popular and, if the enthusiastic devotees within r/GrowYourClit are to be believed, capable of making a real impact on practitioners’ sex lives. With this in mind, it’s worth asking: Is Big Clit Energy the new Big Dick Energy?
Indeed, it seems there’s an entire cottage industry for people who have big clits, people who want big clits and people who enjoy staring at big clits. Pornhub currently has more than 23,000 videos tagged under “big clit,” and fans of the look can find entire lists of specific porn actresses with clits in the three-to-four centimeter range. There’s also a separate subreddit entitled r/BigClit, which seems to be the porny alternative to r/GrowYourClit. It’s full of NSFW redditors bursting with a certain swagger that you just don’t see in the demure pussy community. These are big, bold clitorises, and you couldn’t miss them if you tried.
The performative nature of r/BigClit is, at times, in contrast with the earnestly inquisitive membership of r/GrowYourClit, which could raise another question: Who are big clits for, anyway? In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter. Between the cis women who enjoy packing a little extra girth, the exhibitionists who get a kick out of tantalizing clit-loving redditors and the choice few taking T in pursuit of gender affirmation, the members of both subreddits are having a blast flicking their gargantuan beans.
If you’re safe, healthy and turned on, go ahead and grow, baby, grow.
Lillian Stone
Lillian Stone is a freelance humor writer and reporter. She has two thoughtless little dogs and writes jokes from her Chicago apartment where the theme is Grey Gardens, But Sexy.
