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)
WEBSITES
Tools and Education for a Better Sex Life
http://www.DoctorG.com/FemaleEjaculation.htm
http://www.incontinet.com/revbyaut.htm
Dr. John Perry. Role of the Urethra in Female Orgasm.
http://www.incontinet.com/revbyaut.htm
Article by Dr. Perry on “Kinsey’s primitive psychology”.
www.libida.com---
Ask Dr. Van Kirk-Veon, the Libida sex librarian.
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