Barry Komisaruk

“Sexual Response in the Human Female,” popularly known as the “Kinsey Report,” generated an international sensation in 1953, revolutionizing the way society thinks of sex. One particular statement in the book regarding the cervix, however, has been misinterpreted leading to a misconception that persists today.

As the most common route for arriving into the world, the human vagina has, of course, existed for as long as there have been people. Despite the name, however, it’s not so much a “sheath” – the Latin meaning of “vagina” – as it is a muscular tube of varying shapes and lengths, contained unseen within the pelvis. The vagina is actually a hardworking organ in its own right, with its own ecosystem.

Barry R. Komisaruk Barry R. Komisaruk Correspondence Corresponding author. Affiliations Department of Psychology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ 07102, United States Search for articles by this author Eleni Frangos Eleni Frangos Affiliations National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, United States Search for articles by this author This paper is only available as a PDF. To read, Please Download here.