Ever since the somewhat magical concept of the G-spot appeared in the 1950s, laymen and scientists alike have been on a blind chase after it. In 2012, Dr. Adam Ostrzenski created a media circus with his reported discovery and dissection of a specimen of the G-spot. In order to understand the true motives of the quest for the G-spot, it is essential to go back to the time where it came from.

According to popular myth, the G-spot would have the power of giving women much more powerful orgasms than the clitoris. The catch is that, also according to this myth, which is widely accepted outside scientific circles, not all women would be privy to the secrets of the G-spot, in fact, some might not even possess this magic source of endless pleasures at all. Despite reliable reports and anecdotal testimonials, objective measures have failed to provide strong and consistent evidence for the existence of the famed G-spot.

While Dr. Ostrzenski´s article on having found a G-spot specimen was published by the prestigious Journal of Sexual Medicine, and it also landed him on US prime time television, a large portion of the scientific community reacted to his reported discovery with a high level of healthy skepticism. Based on the research that has been carried out to date, the evidence of the existence of the elusive G-spot is considered anecdotal at best. Considering that Dr. Ostrzenski based his discovery on visual observation of a single specimen, it is very hard to imagine that his findings might be significant enough to outweigh decades of serious research.

As Dr. Harriet Hall, one of the researcher´s fierce detractors states: “The author declared it was a G-spot based on visual inspection of the specimen alone; he said it was an 8.1 mm sac-like structure with a head, body, and a rope-like tail that disappeared into surrounding tissues. After excision, it could be stretched to 33 mm.  He said the walls of the structure resembled fibroconnective tissues and resembled erectile tissues. Both? Apparently he didn’t even bother to take the most obvious, rudimentary next step of examining slices of the specimen under a microscope (with appropriate staining) to determine what kind of tissue it was.”

Although there is no mention of it in Ostrzenski´s study, researchers who claim to be certain of the existence of the G-spot have often referred to the phenomenon known as female ejaculation as an irrefutable proof that there is, in fact, another kind of female orgasm, reserved only for a few lucky members of our sex. But while many women have claimed that they ejaculate during sex, there is still some debate as to the nature of the fluid secreted, according to a review of the literature, most researchers appear to agree about the cause of the secretion.

Some have identified it as urine, and as a fluid released from the Skene’s glands, similar to that produced by the male prostate. Thus, the term ejaculation would not apply to this fluid, as it does not seem to be connected to the female orgasm at all.

As far back as 1968, feminist thinker Anne Koedt wrote an influential work entitled; The myth of the vaginal orgasm. She examined the constructions about female sexuality of a culture dominated by men, analyzing assumptions about female frigidity and the female orgasm: “Frigidity has generally been defined by men as the failure of women to have vaginal orgasms. Actually the vagina is not a highly sensitive area and is not constructed to achieve orgasm. It is the clitoris which is the center of sexual sensitivity and which is the female equivalent of the penis.”

In order to better understand Koedt´s views, it can be helpful to learn about what sexual health professionals thought about the female orgasm in her time. In many ways, in spite of the advancement of science, popular culture seems to have retained many of these outmoded assumptions: “…whenever a woman is incapable of achieving an orgasm via coitus, provided the husband is an adequate partner, and prefers clitoral stimulation to any other form of sexual activity, she can be regarded as suffering from frigidity and requires psychiatric assistance.”

Following Koedt´s reasoning, which was created to challenge those views, we could say that the anecdotal evidence that has been used over the years to proclaim the existence of the G-spot might have been directly influenced by dominant man´s desperate desire to blame the lack of vaginal orgasms on women´s “underdeveloped” G-spots, as opposed to an anatomical limitation that would render them virtually unable to give women orgasms through penetration, without clitoral stimulation.

In this respect Koedt says categorically: “Rather than tracing female frigidity to the false assumptions about female anatomy, our “experts” have declared frigidity a psychological problem of women. Those women who complained about it were recommended psychiatrists, so that they might discover their “problem” — diagnosed generally as a failure to adjust to their role as women. The facts of female anatomy and sexual response tell a different story. Although there are many areas for sexual arousal, there is only one area for sexual climax; that area is the clitoris. All orgasms are extensions of sensation from this area. Since the clitoris is not necessarily stimulated sufficiently in the conventional sexual positions, we are left “frigid.””

In a way, if there were no “sexual politics” behind it, the lack of evidence of the existence of a G-spot might have truncated this line of research altogether many years ago, making it impossible for the likes of Ostrzenski to thrive in any scientific medium. However, for as long as men ignore the true nature of the female anatomy by calling women unable to achieve orgasm through penetration “frigid,” studies about the possible existence of the mythological G-spot are likely to proliferate.

References

Caprio, Frank S. “The Sexually Adequate Female” New York: Citadel Press, 1953

Koedt, Anne. The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm (1968). Notes from the First Year, New York Radical Feminists, New York.

Leiblum, S., & Needle, R. (2006). Female ejaculation: Fact or fiction Current Sexual Health Reports, 3 (2), 85-88 DOI: 10.1007/s11930-996-0007-5

Ostrzenski A (2012). G-spot anatomy: a new discovery. The journal of sexual medicine, 9 (5), 1355-9 PMID: 22781083

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