Camel toe is a slang term that refers to the outline of a human female's labia majora, as seen through tightly fitting clothes. Due to a combination of anatomical factors and the snugness of the fabric covering it, the crotch and pudendal cleft may take on a resemblance to the forefoot of a camel.
The causes of the camel toe effect are not always obvious. Camel toe commonly occurs as a result of wearing tight fitting clothes, such as shorts, hotpants or swimwear – particularly when the labia majora are hairless and the pubic hair cannot help to mask the underlying shape of the mons.
Some fashion analysts have identified clothing design as a cause, rather than its size. Camel toe may be exacerbated by garments with a tight central seam that serves to divide the labia majora.
Uncleft "bulges" are more often visible. The degree to which a woman's mons pubis protrudes depends on a number of factors, including body weight, distribution of adipose tissue and genetic variation in anatomy.
In men, the equivalent to "camel toe" is male organs showing through clothes at the crotch, which has been referred to as a "moose knuckle".
Famous quotes containing the words camel and/or toe:
“Alas, alas for Hamelin!
There came into many a burgher’s pate
A text which says that Heaven’s Gate
Opes to the rich at as easy rate
As the needle’s eye takes a camel in!”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“Mr. Alcott seems to have sat down for the winter. He has got Plato and other books to read. He is as large-featured and hospitable to traveling thoughts and thinkers as ever; but with the same Connecticut philosophy as ever, mingled with what is better. If he would only stand upright and toe the line!—though he were to put off several degrees of largeness, and put on a considerable degree of littleness. After all, I think we must call him particularly your man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)