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