Function
They secrete mucus to provide vaginal lubrication. Bartholin's glands secrete relatively minute amounts (one or two drops) of fluid when a woman is sexually aroused. The minute droplets of fluid were once believed to be important for lubricating the vagina, but research from Masters and Johnson demonstrated that vaginal lubrication comes from deeper within the vagina. The fluid may slightly moisten the labial opening of the vagina, serving to make contact with this sensitive area more comfortable for the woman.
Read more about this topic: Bartholin's Gland
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Uses are always much broader than functions, and usually far less contentious. The word function carries overtones of purpose and propriety, of concern with why something was developed rather than with how it has actually been found useful. The function of automobiles is to transport people and objects, but they are used for a variety of other purposes—as homes, offices, bedrooms, henhouses, jetties, breakwaters, even offensive weapons.”
—Frank Smith (b. 1928)
“The mother’s and father’s attitudes toward the child correspond to the child’s own needs.... Mother has the function of making him secure in life, father has the function of teaching him, guiding him to cope with those problems with which the particular society the child has been born into confronts him.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)