"I walk around with a secret" - The 'grow your clit movement' has arrived

We’d like you to meet a person named Kristie. Kristie is a 34-year-old mother of two and make-up artist living in Phoenix, Arizona. The way she tells it, a drug dealer saved her sex life. Kristie and her husband, married since 2017, had a tough time during the baby years. Pregnancy and breastfeeding made Kristie’s libido crash. She wanted to want sex. She missed it. But she just wasn’t feeling it on her own.

She visited her gynaecologist, who didn’t offer much guidance. The doctor referred her to a private sexual-health specialist, but Kristie couldn’t afford the treatment. So she took matters into her own hands. Kristie found someone online who would sell her what she’d been googling for weeks: a hormonal remedy, whispered about on internet forums, that she wasn’t legally allowed to acquire at all.

She spent $150 (around £125) in Bitcoin on a one-month supply of an anabolic steroid cream. The active ingredient? Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the potent chemical cousin of testosterone and a popular black-market substance among bodybuilders. Kristie was determined to bulk up in a very specific way – by enlarging her clitoris.

She began by applying a small amount of the cream with her fingers twice daily. In under a week, Kristie’s clitoris was plumper and more sensitive. Orgasms were suddenly easier, arriving after just 20 minutes of stimulation rather than the full hour previously required. Each climax was more intense too, originating from what felt like deep within, radiating in waves through her entire pelvic zone. Five months later, her clitoris continues to tingle with growth. ‘I feel like a 14-year-old boy wanting to hump everything I see,’ she says.

The notion of optimising the human body for some desired benefit – brighter moods, genius brainpower, a healthier gut – has fuelled trends such as cryotherapy, UV light boxes and keto diets. Now, led by a phalanx of online enthusiasts, the biohacking boom has come for the clit. In public forums such as the subreddit Grow Your Clit – which some 39,000 people have joined since its founding in 2019 – members share anecdotal advice. Many members post close-up images for reference.

On kink social networking sites such as FetLife, where Kristie first learned about clit enlargement, users share similar stories, cataloguing their experiences with testosterone and DHT. The medical specialists Cosmopolitan spoke to for this story say they too have noticed an uptick in patient interest of late.

Sophi Gullbrants

Online clit cultivators identify as straight, queer, gay, cisgender, trans, non-binary, monogamous, unpartnered polyamorous, kinky and vanilla. Their personal goals vary as widely: some seek a larger clit as a solution for low arousal or barely-there orgasms. Others self-medicate growth for gender dysphoria. For many, enlargement isn’t a treatment at all but an aesthetic choice.

Some people are able to obtain hormones through doctors. But, like Kristie, others are compelled to break the law by scoring drugs on the black market and assessing dosages on their own. Certain moralists might click their tongues and wonder, who should really be using these medications? But the spirit in this community is that everyone’s reasons are valid. You could even ask the bigger question: why should anyone have to explain their reasons when it comes to their own bodies?

To be clear, the clitoris is more than a nerve-rich button near the pubic bone. That’s just the visible part, called the glans. The organ extends inches into the body in a winglike formation, its entire structure responsive to arousal cues. Genetics is the main determinant of size, says Marci Bowers, a gynaecologist and surgeon in California specialising in gender-affirming procedures. Naturally occurring testosterone – the amount your body makes on its own – might play a role as well.

There’s no question that synthetic testosterone and related hormones – creams like the one Kristie used applied to the clit or gels and injections administered elsewhere on the body – can size up a clitoris by binding to its receptors and increasing blood flow. (Testosterone is a well-known driver of libido. A task force of 11 medical organisations, including the US Endocrine Society, even has clinical guidelines for using it to treat low sexual desire.)

But intimate satisfaction isn’t solely dependent on clit size. Right now, for example, there’s no scientific evidence that an enlarged clitoris develops additional nerve endings. What is possible, though, says Meera Shah, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic (which oversees US reproductive health centres in New York state), is that a greater surface area may make certain sensations – the blood rush of arousal, physical touch – more noticeable.

Better understood are the potential side effects that come with taking testosterone – thicker body hair, thinning hair, acne, a deeper voice, ovulation issues and high cholesterol, among others. Soon after she tried DIY-ing her DHT, Kristie experienced heart palpitations, a weird sense of rage and insomnia, which prompted her to scale back. ‘I wasn’t dosing myself correctly,’ she says.

Doctors, including Dr Bowers and Dr Shah, advise against using non-prescribed testosterone. ‘You have to get the right balance for it to work,’ says Dr Bowers. ‘It’s about threading the needle in terms of side-effect tolerance versus an intended benefit.’ Through trial and error, Kristie settled on a dose that feels good, and she’s okay with the deeper voice and additional body hair. ‘I identify as gender-fluid and non-binary,’ she says. ‘A lot of women in the community would be bothered by a voice change or hair growth, but personally, I don’t mind.’ In the clit-growing world, certain side effects aren’t universally viewed as good or bad. (Some users want a cute little 'tash.)

Sophi Gullbrants

All this points to another reason clit enlargement may be gaining ground: notions of masculinity and femininity are undergoing a cultural remix. ‘We’ve expanded our definitions of what it is to be a gendered person,’ Dr Bowers says. ‘Who’s to say what is a feminine ideal? Who’s to say what’s a masculine ideal? Maybe coming to the middle a bit is attractive.’

After all, a bigger, more prominent clit, a physical change that may feel ultra-feminine to one person, can feel just as affirming to a non-cis person. Rachel, 33, is trans and non-binary, and after two and a half years on low doses of testosterone, prescribed by a doctor, their clitoris is now large enough to produce visible erections. ‘It’s basically a tiny penis,’ says the Arizona-based PhD student, who describes their outward appearance as female-normative. ‘It’s exciting. I walk around with a secret, and I get to share it with the people I want to share it with.’ Plus, Rachel notes, ‘getting blow jobs is great.’

When Betty*, 30, stumbled into the Grow Your Clit community, she was intrigued. Orgasms had always eluded her, but she’d found pleasure in other ways. Still, could a larger clit make her sex life better? She decided to find out, at first assuming that testosterone would be easy to access. But doctors didn’t know what to do with a patient like her – young, healthy, cisgender, with nothing really amiss, and she was passed from specialist to specialist. The first doctor rejected her reasons. So did the second... and the fifth. ‘I found that most of these providers were for postmenopausal or perimenopausal women who were having issues with their natural hormones.’

Last March, after months on a waiting list, Betty got an appointment at a trans health clinic in Pennsylvania. The provider didn’t demand she ‘prove’ her need. Instead, Betty was counselled on the potential effects, then allowed to decide for herself whether it met her needs. Betty opted in and got an $80 (£67) three-month supply of testosterone that’s since grown her clit enough to make contact with her husband’s penis during sex. One of the first orgasms she had in this way was, well, memorable. ‘I could see my clitoris pulsate,’ Betty says. ‘It blew my mind.’ Although fortunate, Betty also situates herself on history’s timeline of women who’ve faced medical gatekeeping about their own anatomy. ‘It feels like when people used to say, “Sorry, you can’t get a hysterectomy. You don’t have three children and your husband won’t approve.”’

Sophi Gullbrants

Cases such as Betty’s highlight the need for broader access to qualified care, to avoid creating burdens for clinics that cater to marginalised patients. (At least one practice that treats gender-diverse patients has posted on the Grow Your Clit forum recommending that cis women should go elsewhere.) And experiences like Kristie’s point to the need for more awareness in the health system, to avoid any medically unsupervised complications.

With her own health centres, Dr Shah advances an approach that respects patients’ desire for hormones – for clit growth and other purposes. ‘They know their lives better than I do,’ she says. ‘I trust that they know what they want in order to thrive.’

With enough time, hormonal clitoris tweaking could become as normalised as other biological upgrades. ‘Coffee, diet, grooming: everyone in the US is biohacking,’ Rachel says. ‘I hope that anyone who wants to try hormones can try them, for whatever reason. Theoretically, that makes access better for everyone.’

Your UK need to know Intrigued? Here’s how things look over here...

Would I be breaking the law?

Definitely. In the UK, testosterone (in all its forms) is a controlled substance and its possession is illegal – unless it’s prescribed by a doctor for personal use.

How easy is it to get DHT?

Historically, DHT gel, sold as Andractim, is used in the UK to treat childhood hormone disorders in boys. It will likely be a struggle to get it legally, outside of that intended use.

What about testosterone gel?
Testogel or Tostran is prescribed as a treatment for trans men, for cis men with testosterone deficiencies or to treat low sex drive in menopausal women.

Is there an alternative?
If you want a bigger clit to improve your sex life, invest in a (totally legal) clit pump. These bad boys increase blood flow to your clit, resulting in added sensitivity and temporary growth.

Don't forget...
Black-market options are unregulated and potentially dangerous. Whether it’s low libido or gender identity, speak to your GP or a qualified counsellor or sex therapist about your concerns.