Venus Complete: Recognition of and Respect for the Urethrovaginal Gland and its Function

This article is about women and girls and the potential for major changes. I begin with two premises: first, the urethrovaginal gland (UVG) and its secretion, amrita, are critical elements of being a human female; and, second, there is a genetic underpinning to the robustness of UVG activity and its contribution to sexual satisfaction. The anticipation is that, in addition to facilitating women’s sexual satisfaction both through raising awareness and identifying geneticbased pharmaceuticals, we might also modestly enhance medical care and biomedical research endeavors relevant to human female sexual anatomy and physiology. However, there is substantial, almost uniform ignorance, reticence and untoward prejudice among medical professionals-both clinicians and researchers-that has compromised innumerable girls and women. Most important has been the ubiquitous incorrect presumption that the only fluid to pass through-or issue from-the female urethra is urine. The source of the other important urethral effluent, amrita, is the UVG (sometimes known as the Skene gland), but the UVG has most often been considered a fiction, a myth or irrelevant. Thus, its secretion, amrita, has similarly been considered a fiction, myth or irrelevant. Only one venue has openly acknowledged and exploited amrita: the adult movie industry. However, such endorsement predictably added to the rationales for making light of or ignoring this aspect of femininity.