G-Spot: A Highly Profitable Zone

Laurie and Debbie say:

Both of us are old enough to remember when the G-spot (for German gynecologist Ernest Grafenberg) was publicized in 1981. The G-spot is a highly erogenous zone behind the pubic bone. At the time, some women said, “I knew that!” while others went looking for theirs, often successfully.

Now, it appears that G-spots are (surprise!) big business and (another surprise!) a matter for shlocky research. Let’s start with the shlocky research:

Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that the whole current research furore was based on a study of 20 (!!) women, 9 of whom said they have vaginal orgasms and 11 of whom said they don’t. So a team of Italian researchers, armed we’re sure with only the purest of motives, forayed into these women’s vaginas and found that the women who don’t orgasm vaginally have “thicker urethrovaginal tissue” than women who do. Thus, they concluded, based on this wide-ranging and carefully controlled study (NOT!) that you can only have a vaginal orgasm if you have a G-spot (somehow, that thicker tissue got translated into a G-spot).

Respected U.K. sex researcher Dr. Petra sampled how the story got picked up by the media:

To be honest if I’d been sent [this research] to review for a journal I’d have rejected it for publication due to the small sample size, and the inability to conceptualise basic concepts like orgasm and sexual history.

For some reason the New Scientist seemed to have forgotten how to read a scientific paper, and instead ran a piece that suggested ultrasound had discovered proof of the elusive g-spot. They must have known this was going to set off a massive media fuss.

The majority of press coverage, as I gloomily predicted, covered the story pretty uniformly using one or more of the following combinations:
– The g spot has been discovered!
– Science has shown the g spot truly exists
– Here are some facts about the g spot
– A brief history of the g spot
– Some stuff about Freud
– How unlucky women don’t have the g spot but lucky women do
– Cheap and easy tests can now reveal whether you have a g spot or not

Outside of these angles there were some debates that suggested men should no longer worry since some women simply were missing a g spot so there was no need to blame yourself if your partner didn’t have a vaginal orgasm. Or criticisms from some quarters that women who didn’t have a vaginal orgasm were either lazy or suffering from a medical condition.

Read the rest of her column; it’s excellent.

At around the same time, the New York Times Magazine published an article by Susan Campos (not available on line) about G-spot improvement therapy, as performed by a Los Angeles plastic surgeon. A little Googling turns up this story on what Matlock does.

What’s a “G-shot®” party you may be asking? Well I’m sure you’ve heard of the old Botox parties people used to throw. Where a group of friends and or strangers meet at a host’s house or a Dr.’s office and sit around eating, drinking and getting their foreheads injected with loads of Botox. A G-shot® party is similar in that there is a group of friends or strangers, in this case women only, who meet in a Dr.’s office and there is food to snack on, (no alcohol) and it isn’t Botox or the forehead that is being injected. Oh girlfriends (and others) think about it G-shot®, G-spot. Get my drift? Yes, oh yes, oh yes, that’s right! That’s the spot!

The G-shot®, also known as G-spot Amplification® is a simple, in-office procedure where Dr. Matlock injects a woman’s Grafenberg Spot (G-spot) with a collagen based substance. The G-shot® increases the size of the woman’s G-spot to about the size of a quarter in width, and one fourth of an inch in height, in turn, giving the woman increased sexual arousal during sex.

The active ingredient in the G-shot® is a specially developed and processed collagen and it doesn’t require pre-injection skin testing. The actual injection is painless and takes less than five seconds to complete. The entire procedure takes about 15 minutes and the affects last up to 6 months.

Unfortunately, our giggly heroine wrote this before she could tell if the shot had any effect, but after she shelled out the $1850 (yes, for 15 minutes in a group setting) for the experience. She does say it didn’t hurt, for which I suppose we should be grateful. She does not, of course, say how the doctor finds the often elusive G-spot in each woman he treats.

Human beings vary; that’s what we do. We have different tissue thicknesses all over our body, different responses to being tickled, or eating asparagus, different sexual cues, and so on and so on.

Many men (and the male-dominated media) like G-spots because they shift any “responsibility” for orgasm from the man’s (or partner’s) effort to the woman’s body. The medical establishment likes being able to establish something as “normal,” and then charge you money to make you “normal.” Once again, junk science and capitalism combine to find new ways to make women distrust our bodies.

G-spot, sex, sexuality, orgasm, female orgasm, feminism, junk science, body image, cosmetic surgery, Body Impolitic

16 thoughts on “G-Spot: A Highly Profitable Zone

  1. Fashion and style is NOT about one size fits all. Truthfully it’s about loving yourself, being healthy and knowing what works for you. Dont fall into the “Media” idea of what is Beauty, know that YOU as a Human and Individual are SEXY and Beautiful! —

  2. Wait a minute – vaginal orgasm? Do you mean, as opposed to the supposedly inferior clitoral orgasm? I thought “vaginal” orgasms were mythical.

    Cripes, even our orgasms aren’t good enough. I wonder, are “vaginal” orgasms considered better because you need a penis to reach the G-spot?

  3. in the long long list of things i can’t believe i’m saying on the internet, while i find g-spot stimulation to be peel-me-off-the-ceiling enjoyable, it doesn’t make me have an orgasm. ever. no matter how long a person tries.

    this is, for the record, not a challenge, and should anyone reading this take it as a challenge and end up sleeping with me, the first time you try it will be the last time you see me naked. kthxbye.

  4. Wow, the minute I hear “specially formulated” I think “completely untested substance”. And then I think about that vat of botox in Florida that had something like fifty different people’s blood in it from really sloppy injection procedure and needle re-use. Sounds like a party I’d like to skip!

  5. “in the long long list of things i can’t believe i’m saying on the internet, while i find g-spot stimulation to be peel-me-off-the-ceiling enjoyable, it doesn’t make me have an orgasm. ever. no matter how long a person tries.”

    Heh; definitely peel-me-off-the-ceiling thing here too…but it took literally like an hour and a half *and* a fairly head full of beer (to desensitize the normally oversensitized and painful spot) to get to the actual climax. Haven’t ever tried to get all the way there again yet – too damn much work.

    On the other hand I’ve been real close with nipple-gasms – reeeal close. Wonder if that one’ll ever come to pass?

    “Cripes, even our orgasms aren’t good enough. I wonder, are “vaginal” orgasms considered better because you need a penis to reach the G-spot?”

    I beg to differ. For me at least, the penis is incapable of reaching it in any meaningful way. (No, he’s hung just fine, thanks.) It definitely required infinite patience, dexterity, responsiveness to my cues, and screwdrivers. (The alcoholic kind. Ok I said beer before but I was lying.) And for me, it mattered little in the end that said earth-shattering orgasm came from in there, because apparently it’s all part of the same organ, and the outside (clitoris) was just as hypersensitive and “finished” as the rest was, immediately after.

    So at this point I don’t bother much with all that work. It’s amazing foreplay, I’ll settle for that lol.

  6. I would have to have a life-threatening illness before I’d let anyone stick needles into my vagina. Good grief.

    I’m also really dubious about these so-called statistics about “clitoral” vs. “vaginal/g-spot” orgasms. For one thing, unless you’re having sex with entry from behind, it’s pretty impossible *not* to have some clitoral stimulation during intercourse, especially if the man has a well-padded mons veneris. So who can really distinguish between the two?

    It’s just another way to get ill-gotten loot out of women.

  7. I’m putting aside how sad and angry this makes me, the whole eek! needles factor. When we don’t own our own bodies or even our own sexual responses, we enter further onto the path of trying to gain self-worth through other people’s opinions. One unintended consequence (to my mind) of the so-called sexual revolution was that it was immediately poisoned by the deep vein of women-as-property that still has not been flushed out of our culture.

    Sexual response became yet another way for women to gain power by pleasing men, just as our own orgasms were filed as acceptable (vaginal, induced by the magic penis or a reasonable facsimile) or unacceptable (clitoral, possibly achieved without the presence of any sort of magic penis whatsoever–bad girl!). Please don’t misinterpret my comment as anti-penis, I’m a major fan. But I seriously mistrust the idea that a woman’s orgasm can be quantified based on anyone’s assessment but her own! And every effort to do so takes away a little bit of her own personal power. Like Stefanie, the last I heard the whole “clitoral v. vaginal/g-spot” orgasm had been discounted.

    The less we know and respect our own responses the more vulnerable we become to predators who offer to remake our sexuality into an “acceptable” variety–at a price!

  8. “Like Stefanie, the last I heard the whole “clitoral v. vaginal/g-spot” orgasm had been discounted.”

    If you mean for the same reason she said – that you’re going to have *some* clitoral stimulation during intercourse, I have to disagree that it’s been discounted. Because my experience with g-spot orgasm was entirely digital and trust me, there was no outer clitoris involved. However, I do believe it’s part of the same organ, considering the aftereffects being exactly the same inside and out.

    As to the rest, no disagreement there.

  9. Hey, I wanted to put this on your most recent post but comments were off. When that post came over my feed reader, it had a whole bunch of spam links at the end of it (after the tags etc). Not sure where the problem lies, but I thought you might like to know.

  10. Just stopped by to say the same thing as Gretchen above. Tons of spam got into the feed of the most recent post.

  11. It’s easy for me, at least, to distrust my body without any help from the media or doctors, because orgasms are so elusive and hard to predict. I suppose that’s “normal” for me, but I’m not happy about it. No, I’m not signing up for G-spot enhancement (I saw something about it one one of those plastic surgery shows a few months ago) but I can understand why women would.

  12. ok i’v ben having sex since i was 14 ok an i never once in my life ever found a g spot ok i no of getting off wen having sex but not a g spot never found one nope! if there is such a thing as a g spot then were the hell is it im so confused!

  13. I’m a believer in a g-spot, but then I’ve found mine.
    It does make me uncomfortable, the pressure women are given to have the ‘right’ kind of orgasm. First it was vaginal rather than clitoral, and now its G-spot rather than clitoral! What is so wrong with a clitoral, and surely an orgasm is an orgasm after all!

    At the same time I don’t believe we should be telling women what they can and can’t do with their bodies. If having cosmetic surgery makes you feel sexier than its your call. There are worse things in life, like putting up with abuse or relying on alcohol and drugs to have fun.

    As the poster said above, let a thousand orgasms bloom :)

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