The G Spot?

In various ancient texts there were mentions of what are now referred to as the “G spot” and “female ejaculation”. In more recent times the topics weren’t really brought into the public arena until the late 70’s, when a young law student, Josephine Sevely, published a list of references to female ejaculation she found in medical books. A few years later, in 1981 Dr. Edwin Belzer and his proteges published a case study of a female ejaculator at a university in Nova Scotia. (1)

Controversies about the G spot and female ejaculation got stirred up in 1982 when the book The G Spot—and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality was released. It was written by Alice Ladis, a licensed psychologist, Beverly Whipple, an RN and sex educator/counselor, and John D. Perry, an ordained minister, psychologist and sexologist. The authors told of “new” kinds of orgasms, of “female ejaculation” (virtually unheard of in the mainstream at the time) and of a major “new” erogenous zone which they themselves coined “the G spot” which could bring untold pleasures. The book made quite a splash—literally.

When the G-spot book came out, I personally was very interested in what it had to say. The information would be of great value in my profession as a sex worker and as a sexual enthusiast. Just as I was reading the book, Dr. Perry, one of the G Spot‘s authors, called me on the phone! He’d heard that I had done some movies where I might be ejaculating and wanted to find clips to show in his lectures. I told him that I didn’t know if I was ejaculating or not. I asked him if he would come to my apartment for lunch, and teach me, and some of my girlfriends, about the G-spot and female ejaculation.

Dr. Perry discussed the information in his book over the lunch I served at my apartment in New York City. Then I asked him if he’d show me exactly where my g-spot was, as I didn’t know, even after reading his book. I laid back on my bed, friends gathered around, he inserted his finger inside my vagina and pinpointed my g-spot. My first thought was’Oh, I know that spot well. It is a totally familiar feeling, I’ve felt it virtually every time I’d had sex.’ My second thought was’is that all there is? What’s the big deal?’

Before Perry’s visit, I was familiar with my g-spot and female ejaculation” but not in a conscious way. I integrated Perry’s information with my own personal experience. After his visit I was more aware of the potential pleasures, there were now some scientific experiments to clarify my experience, plus the renowned expert in the field confirmed my exact G spot location.

In John Heidenry’s book What Wild Ecstasy—the Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolution, he wrote about the historical impact the book The G Spot had. “The sighting was announced in a slender volume entitled The G Spot and sent thousands of women probing their vaginal walls, and tapping for orgasmic tremors.” (2) The G spot became the talk of talk shows, headline news and sewing circles everywhere.

Not all folks were as receptive to information about the G-spot as I was. Some men felt threatened by women being able to ejaculate, afraid they wouldn’t be so special any more. Men might feel inadequate if they couldn’t find a woman’s G spot and make her ejaculate. Women might feel inadequate if they didn’t know where their g-spot was, or if they couldn’t ejaculate. Some sex researchers and medical doctors took issue the whole thing, saying it was anatomically impossible for women to ejaculate. Lesbians, who had been aware of the “g-spot” and had simulated many of them for ages, felt ripped off as the book became a huge best seller and it’s authors got the credit (and the big bucks) for it’s discovery. (Dr. Perry admitted to me that it was a group of lesbians that had originally told clued the authors in to the magic spot in the first place and had interested them in doing the research.) The Tantra community said that the G spot and female ejaculation were written about in their ancient texts and sex manuals, and they felt they deserved some credit. Some feminists objected to a part of female sexual anatomy being named after a man—gynecologist Ernst Graffenberg who researched it in 1950. There were some women who did find their G spots but were dismayed to find that it did not bring them any pleasure. In fact it felt uncomfortable to press it, or stimulate it, or it simply felt like they had to urinate. Many women reported no sensation at all. The G spot was illusive, and it’s existence difficult to prove.

Sex researchers Master’s and Johnson’s responded to the G spot controversy in their book, On Sex and Human Loving; “Recently there have been claims that a region in the front wall of the vagina midway between the pubic bone and the cervix has a special sensitivity to erotic stimulation. Called the G spot, it has been described as a mass of tissue about the size of a small bean in the unstimulated state. When stimulated the tissue purportedly swells to the size of a dime or larger. Ladas, Whipple, and Perry, authors of a book about the’G spot,’ state that examinations of more than 400 women identified the’G spot’ in each one; they explain that it has generally been overlooked in the past because “in it’s sexually unstimulated state, it is relatively small and difficult to locate, especially since you can’t see it. This explanation does not fit the findings of a subsequent research project in which Whipple herself participated in which the’G spot’ could be found in only four out of eleven women, nor does it coincide with our studies at the Masters and Johnson Institute, where less than 10% of a sample of over 100 women who were carefully examined had an area of heightened sensitivity in the front wall of the vagina or a tissue mass that fit the various descriptions of this area. Another recent study, by Alzate and Londono, also was unable to find evidence supporting the existence of the’G spot,’ although many of the women studied showed signs of erotic sensitivity in the front wall of the vagina. Thus, at the present time it seems that additional research is needed…” (3)

Masters and Johnson also considered female ejaculation an “erroneous but widespread concept.” (4) So did Shere Hite, who reported that only fifteen of her three thousand respondents in the Hite Report claimed to ejaculate. (5) Many people just plain didn’t believe there was a G spot or that women could ejaculate.

On the other side of the controversy there was some enthusiastic and positive response. Women, who for years had been told they had urinary incontinence, some even considering painful surgery to’correct’ it, could now feel proud of the fluids they gushed during sex. Lots of women and men started enjoying the erotic qualities of the “ejaculate” whereas before they were squeamish when they thought it was urine. Plenty of women did find their G spots and had intensely pleasurable experiences and even had G spot orgasms. Some people found that doing a G spot massage could facilitate sexual healing and help heal past sexual trauma. Some folks touted the G spot as a way to help bring anorgasmic women to orgasm. Many women felt empowered, that they were reclaiming and relearning this long lost sexual response.

Another controversial point was the question of whether the G spot was a homologue of the male prostate. The G Spot book commented on it’s own criticism; “This controversy goes back to ancient Rome, where Galen, a physician writing in the second century AD, raised the question and voted yes. But William Masters, commenting on the Perry and Whipple research in April 1981, insisted that the word prostate is not appropriate. We tend to believe that the area of the G spot includes a vestigial homologue of the male prostate, despite the fact that many physicians state that it has no known urological or gynecological function. A significant difference between the two is that the male prostate gland is more highly defined and more uniform in size, shape and location that the G spot. Nevertheless, women and men may be more anatomically alike than was previously conceded.” (6)

Is the female ejaculate like male ejaculate? A college text book reads, “In view of the homologous nature of Grafenberg spot tissue and the male prostate, we might speculate that the female ejaculate is similar to the prostatic component of male seminal fluid (Zaviacic and Whipple, 1993) This notion has been supported by research in which specimens of the female ejaculate were chemically analyzed and found to contain high levels of an enzyme, prostatic acid phosphates characteristic of the prostatic component of semen.” (7)

Slowly over the years more research was done and discoveries were made. The female ejaculate fluid was tested by various sex researchers; Dr. Michael Perry, by Dr. Gary Schubach, and others. Videos were made on the subject. The Mitchell Bothers made a porn movie called Graffenberg Spot and Deborah Sundahl made How To Female Ejaculate, where she inserted a speculum sideways to show viewers her urethral sponge. Corpses were dissected to find paraurethral glands. Etc.

Fifteen years ago, when I started teaching women’s sexuality workshops, I asked how many women knew where their g-spot was. Only one or two women in twentyfive would raise their hand. A few months ago, at the same workshop at the same place, about %80 raised their hands. Over the years, more and more women found their G spots and the whole concept has become very much a part of the female sexual consciousness.

On the web site libida.com, which caters to young women, their “sex librarian” Dr. Dr. Van Kirk-Veon writes, “At this point plenty of research has confirmed the existence of the G-spot and a woman’s capability to ejaculate. Regardless of the controversy, ample personal accounts, physical demonstrations, chemical analysis, and physical exams have established the existence of these phenomena.”

These days, when women ask me if it’s worth learning to ejaculate, I answer that it is. But expect to do extra loads of laundry.

END.

 

FOOTNOTES

  1. Heidenry, John. What Wild Ecstasy. Pages 302 – 303.
  2. Ibid. Page 301.
  3. Masters, William H., Johnson, Virginia E. and Kolodny, Robert. Masters and Johnson on Sex and Human Loving. P. 35-37
  4. Heidenry, John, What Wild Ecstasy. P. 302
  5. Ibid. P. 303
  6. Ladas, Alice Kahn, Whipple, Beverly, and Perry, John D. PHD. The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveries about Human Sexuality. P. 42-43
  7. Baur, Karla and Crooks, Robert. Our Sexuality, Seventh edition. P. 168-169. (Addiego et al., 1981; Belzer et al., 1984)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  • Baur, Karla and Crooks, Robert. Our Sexuality, Seventh edition. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1999 P. 168-169.
  • Heidenry, John. What Wild Ecstasy. Simon and Schuster, N.Y.C. 1987
  • Ladas, Alice Kahn, Whipple, Beverly, and Perry, John D. PHD. The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveries about Human Sexuality. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. 1982.
  • Masters, William H., Johnson, Virginia E. and Kolodny, Robert. Masters and Johnson on Sex and Human Loving. P. 35-37 Little Brown. 1982. (1986 edition)

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