alt.sex.column: Hellloooo in there ….

Pub date January 12, 2010
SectionSex Blog

Considering that almost no one agrees on what a G-spot even is — an area of internal erectile tissue within the upper wall of the vagina? Similar tissues surrounding the urethra and/or the vaginal vestibule? Glands and ducts making and secreting some sort of prostate-ish ejaculate? An “orgasmic platform?” An imaginary friend? Without any clear sense of what may or may not be rattling around in there, variously unnoticed and/or cherished, it doesn’t matter how many women are asked, “Well? Got one? Huh? Well, do you or don’t you?” So either there is more to this study than reported, or it may be the all-time winner, poorly-designed sex research, women’s division. And that is saying something.

“But,” you protest. “They used twins. Doesn’t that make it all sciencey and stuff, since they had a proper control for the experiment built right in there? Sure, kinda, if they had been poking around with ultrasound dildo-cams and comparing the results. But this wasn’t that kind of study. (Italian researchers did do this recently, and found “an area of thicker tissue” that was promptly dismissed by the G-spot deniers.) The most conclusive search for some sort of heritable, distinct internal tissue would probably be conducted using deceased twins, so they could excise, measure, and weigh the likely tissues, as both Slovakian and Australian researchers have done with small numbers of cadavers. You find me 1,800 deceased female twin pairs who thought to will their bodies to science and I will design and conduct that research myself. I’ll rent a storage space or something. Like Dexter.

Even the scalpel-wielding mad dissectors, though, had no idea if their subjects’ differing amounts of glandular tissue corresponded to different degrees of sexual responsiveness. So they were not answering the question in a way that is actually applicable and useful to live women wondering if there’s something hiding in there worth issuing their partners a miner’s helmet and emergency rations in case they get lost.

I don’t even know why I’m still bothering to consider “is there a G-spot?” a serious question worth spending time and money to investigate. Frankly, I’ve had it up to here (and down to there) with G-spot zealots and G-spot dismissers. Yes, of course I’m interested (and so ought you be) in the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. And I certainly want to know that any descriptions of female generative organs I happen to proffer are rigorously accurate. I don’t think these are the questions that women and their partners are really asking, though, when they corner a sexpert and beg her to draw them a map.

Most want to know why vaginal intercourse feels OK but doesn’t make them come. Or why it does, when everyone knows that’s the clitoris’ job. They want to learn to be more responsive to vaginal stimulation, or learn to ejaculate, or not to. They want to know why that one thing that one partner did worked so well and if they can teach their new partner how to do it, or they want to know why their last partner went crazy when they did that thing and their new one doesn’t. They want to learn how to have more fun with vaginas. And they can.

Not all women are going to learn to go off like M-80s the second someone sticks something in there, but with the right partners, angles, and attitudes, most can get a lot closer. The twin subjects couldn’t have given identical answers without identical sexual histories, and since you can’t find such subjects, you would have to make them. I don’t even want to imagine how you might go about doing that. OK, I do, but that’s because I kind of like kinky science fiction, which I realize can be an acquired taste, just as vaginal responsiveness can be an acquired trait. Go forth, spelunkers, and explore.

Love,

Andrea

See Andrea’s other column at carnalnation.com.