Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon has a very cool and fairly generous analysis of the, um, controversy over the existence, or lack thereof, of the “g-spot.” (Controversial not least because of some… interesting theories coming out of the same research shop. Via Debbie at Body Impolitic their theory was that women are supposed to have an evolutionary hard time having orgasms in order to test men’s prowess. Seriously. But I digress….)

Anyway, as part of her discussion Amanda correctly, I think, says

It’s interesting to consider if the G spot only occurs in some women, which would explain the huge gap between experiences without further shaming of women who don’t have G spot orgasms.

This is just a snippet, almost an aside. Read the rest of her post here.

For the record that’s what the original authors thought as well.

I’ve mentioned this before but I remember from Beverly Whipple, Ladas, Perry, and company’s original The G Spot: And Other Discoveries about Human Sexuality that the introduction goes specifically into that exact issue that not all women can expect to have them, and that if not they specifically shouldn’t worry about it.

In fact the book as a whole said more about handling expectation and shame than about any kind of tissue stimulation at all.

The introduction mentions specifically that women who read Freud in the 1940s and 1950s were expected to feel guilty for having orgasms from clitoral stimulation, and then later, after reading Masters & Johnson they were expected to feel guilty for having orgasms from vaginal stimulation. The authors thought that was… unfortunate.

Later there’s a whole chapter devoted to the principle that “the best is the enemy of the good,” by which they meant specifically that if people tried to obsess over having or (worse, I think) giving g-spot orgasms they were likely to wind up disappointed with their ordinary old eye-rolling, breathtaking, toe-curling ones. And, sure enough… But be darned if anyone should blame the original authors for that.

Oh, and another thing, the same book also introduced the idea of prostate stimulation in men. Gee, wonder why that idea wasn’t greeted with such widespread enthusiasm? And gee, wonder why men who can’t have them aren’t judged as losers the way women who don’t do the g-spot thing are. And finally, gee, wonder why no researchers are doing twins studies to try and debunk prostate sensitivity. But again I digress.

G-spots and prostates notwithstanding, another big contribution the book made was to introduce the importance of the pubococcygeus (a.k.a “PC muscle”) for both men and women’s genital health and sexual enjoyment. The authors were pretty adamant that Kegels and other pc muscle exercises were pretty important both for increasing the strength of orgasms (of any kind but especially g-spot ones) but also for reducing incontinence and prolapsed uteruses. Their proposed exercises for women are well known but less well-known are the ones for men which involve draping rolled-up towels and making them, um, bob.

Hmm. The book’s not actually that much about the actual g-spot. It was actually pretty radical (and thus most everything but the squirting parts have largely been ignored.) I highly recommend it. It used to be a huge best seller and I’m guessing you can still find copies in used-paperback bookstores. I imagine, could those researchers in the U.K. had they been interested. Just saying.

Bottom line, though, is that if you or your partner has one then great, cool. As long as you’re enjoying yourself and not stressing about it don’t worry about what researcher say. And of you or your partner doesn’t have one then, well, that’s great too. As long as you’re enjoying yourself and not stressing about it don’t worry what researchers say.