HOLY FUCKING SHIT, BATMAN!
Jan. 4th, 2010 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alyson_mA recent study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, conducted by scientists at King's College (London), suggests that the G-spot doesn't actually exist after all.
This is the signal for dozens of Jezebel commenters to retort, "I do SO have a G-spot, you rotten scientists!"
From where I'm sitting, it would be really nice if I could find a link to the study itself; all I can find are blog posts and news stories about it. One such example is at the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8439000.stm
Among the chief dissenters is Beverly Whipple: "She said the researchers had discounted the experiences of lesbian or bisexual women and failed to consider the effects of having different sexual partners with different love-making techniques."
I don't know anything about Beverly Whipple, so I won't question her expertise or motives, but her logic does not impress me. I'm a bisexual woman, I've slept with other women, and I'm just not feelin' it. I cannot picture how lesbian and bisexual women's experiences would alter the study's findings. That is, unless Beverly Whipple can demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of queer women do report G-spot-derived orgasm, in which case I'm just a freak like the ones Dr. Burri was trying to de-pathologize and I just need to grab a dildo and search harder.
That would be, of course, exactly the sort of pressure that Dr. Burri and her colleagues were trying to unpack when they did the study. And, regardless of the reliability of their procedures, that's an admirable goal. "It is rather irresponsible to claim the existence of an entity that has never been proven and pressurise women and men too." Exactly. It is irresponsible and unnecessary to pressure all women and their partners to achieve a type of female orgasm that is possible in some women but not others. It is irresponsible to tell all women that they have a special erogenous zone that will allow them to have far more intense orgasms than anything they've had by stimulating that silly clitoris, if only their partners could just find that magic spot, if the magic spot is not a universal feature of female anatomy. For many of us, the clitoris is more than satisfactory.
When Dr. Tim Spector concludes that "the idea of a G-spot is subjective," he's not arguing that the women who report the type of sensations associated with the G-spot are making shit up. He's saying that their experiences are not universal. He's saying the experiences they report might not be due to a discreet, uniquely erogenous zone found on every healthy female body. He's saying that what many women call their G-spot might not be what they think it is. Which is absolutely not to say that they should be ashamed of their orgasms, or that they should be doing anything differently when they have sex.
Indeed, the strongest dose of sanity in the article comes from Dr. Petra Boynton: "It's fine to go looking for the G-spot but do not worry if you don't find it."
That's pretty much the crux of it right there. Perhaps the headline should be "THIS JUST IN: ALL WOMEN DO NOT GET OFF IN THE SAME WAYS, NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY." Amazing, the way that works. Next thing you know, they'll be telling us not all people like the same foods.
This is the signal for dozens of Jezebel commenters to retort, "I do SO have a G-spot, you rotten scientists!"
From where I'm sitting, it would be really nice if I could find a link to the study itself; all I can find are blog posts and news stories about it. One such example is at the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8439000.stm
Among the chief dissenters is Beverly Whipple: "She said the researchers had discounted the experiences of lesbian or bisexual women and failed to consider the effects of having different sexual partners with different love-making techniques."
I don't know anything about Beverly Whipple, so I won't question her expertise or motives, but her logic does not impress me. I'm a bisexual woman, I've slept with other women, and I'm just not feelin' it. I cannot picture how lesbian and bisexual women's experiences would alter the study's findings. That is, unless Beverly Whipple can demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of queer women do report G-spot-derived orgasm, in which case I'm just a freak like the ones Dr. Burri was trying to de-pathologize and I just need to grab a dildo and search harder.
That would be, of course, exactly the sort of pressure that Dr. Burri and her colleagues were trying to unpack when they did the study. And, regardless of the reliability of their procedures, that's an admirable goal. "It is rather irresponsible to claim the existence of an entity that has never been proven and pressurise women and men too." Exactly. It is irresponsible and unnecessary to pressure all women and their partners to achieve a type of female orgasm that is possible in some women but not others. It is irresponsible to tell all women that they have a special erogenous zone that will allow them to have far more intense orgasms than anything they've had by stimulating that silly clitoris, if only their partners could just find that magic spot, if the magic spot is not a universal feature of female anatomy. For many of us, the clitoris is more than satisfactory.
When Dr. Tim Spector concludes that "the idea of a G-spot is subjective," he's not arguing that the women who report the type of sensations associated with the G-spot are making shit up. He's saying that their experiences are not universal. He's saying the experiences they report might not be due to a discreet, uniquely erogenous zone found on every healthy female body. He's saying that what many women call their G-spot might not be what they think it is. Which is absolutely not to say that they should be ashamed of their orgasms, or that they should be doing anything differently when they have sex.
Indeed, the strongest dose of sanity in the article comes from Dr. Petra Boynton: "It's fine to go looking for the G-spot but do not worry if you don't find it."
That's pretty much the crux of it right there. Perhaps the headline should be "THIS JUST IN: ALL WOMEN DO NOT GET OFF IN THE SAME WAYS, NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY." Amazing, the way that works. Next thing you know, they'll be telling us not all people like the same foods.
