Screencap via Google
VICE recently published two articles that happened to reference the female prostate. This caused quite a stir in the comments section, with several readers left incredulous at the authors’ seemingly poor grasp of human anatomy. The general message was, “Women don’t have prostates. VICE sucks now, etc.” Instead of starting a flame war on the so-called ins and outs of the female anatomy, we asked Kara Crabb if she wanted to respond by writing her own guide to the female prostate. Here it is.
Videos by VICE
One of the great things about having access to the internet is the unbelievable wealth of information that exists, literally, at the touch of your fingertips. As a person in the 21st century, in North America, I use search engines to learn about things that I’m curious about on a daily basis. One thing that I’ve wondered about in the past is whether or not females have prostates. I was curious about this because I heard that fluid excretes from “G-spot” stimulation, but I also heard that it secretes from a gland homologous to the male prostate. Ultimately, I just wanted to optimise my body’s potential for having fun.
Screencap via Google
I will use this example (my curiosity about reproductive anatomy) to show you how to type words into an internet search bar for the goal of acquiring new information.
1. FIND A SEARCH BAR
Usually people can find this intuitively, but if you haven’t had much experience with technology, or if your brain works in a different way from the rest of civilisation’s, it might be a little more difficult. Search bars seem to be available as soon as you open an internet browser. They are usually located at the top right side of the window. I use Google Chrome’s toolbar because I like the colours, layout and monopolisation of virtual behaviour – but it’s up to you! As long as you can use a keyboard (or speech-recognition programme), you can do it!
Screencap via Ask
2. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’D LIKE THE SEARCH ENGINE TO LOCATE
This part can be a bit tricky. Since search engines use your language to sift through a massive archive of text, there can definitely be miscommunication challenges to overcome. What if I wanted to learn about a concept that I didn’t know the right word(s) for? What if I wanted to learn about sexual determination in foetal development but all I knew were the words “girl”, “boy” and “baby?” I probably wouldn’t get the search results that I wanted, because I’m a fucking idiot – but maybe I would get something close enough to start my long and intensive journey toward personal betterment.
Screencap via Google
3. THINK ABOUT WHAT SOURCES YOU SHOULD TRUST
Arguably, you shouldn’t trust any source, because everything is a lie and human perception decieves us continually – but for the sake of culture, let’s pretend we need to assume certain characteristics about reality in order to participate in verbal dialogue. Who or what should I trust?
Well, based on what I know from being alive, “science” is something my culture values, and most science experiments are conducted at universities, so I think I should trust the studies of researchers from universities.
Screencap via Google
4. TRY USING AN ALTERNATIVE SEARCH BAR
If you realise that you’re getting boring results, try typing words in other places. Since it’s 2014, we have access to a lot more interesting platforms for text mining. I like Ngram Viewer because it searches text from publications throughout history. Here you can see that the term “Skene’s gland” was likely invented around 1890.
Screencap via Google
Here you can see the term “prostate” was being used in publications even before 1800.
Screencap via Google
I think this shows an interesting quality of modern medicine. At least one century after the gland was acknowledged in males, the homologous gland was acknowledged in females. It wasn’t until 2001 that it was finally accepted as the same thing.
Let’s mine some more things!
Here we can see that public interest in “female ejaculation” has decreased over time, but boasts regional interest in Kenya. What does this mean? Do males control the world? What was it called before it was called “female ejaculation?”
Screencap via Google.
Here we can see that “Skene’s gland” has been of interest only in the United States and, out of the last eight years, pretty much only during 2013. I think this means women have been crushed by Western medicine for too many centuries, but who am I to judge? I’m just a blogger on the internet.
One last note: It’s important to realise that the internet is a gift from the universe. Just like the human prostate, it should be shared by everyone – no matter what sex – and milked relentlessly until we can no longer function. It’s easy to type in something dumb and get a quick result from a shitty website that will infect your computer with viruses, but the more thorough and considerate your search inputs are, the better rewards will come from this magic metaverse.
More from Kara Crabb:
A Bluetooth-Enabled Vibrator Made Me Reconsider Sexual Intimacy
