Sexes: In Search of a Perfect G

New book's theory hits the commercial spot

G is for Gräfenberg, Ernst, a German gynecologist and sex researcher.

Spot is for what he reported discovering in some women in the course of research into birth control methods in the 1940s: a patch of erectile tissue in the front wall of the vagina, directly behind the pubic bone, that acts something like a second clitoris. G spot is for the new book about that odd finding, published amid considerable commercial hubbub: a first printing of 150,000 hardback copies by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and deals with six book clubs.

The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality makes the case for the existence of a bean-shaped erogenous zone in women; when this spot is stimulated by deep pressure, it produces vaginal orgasm, distinctly different from clitoral orgasm. The spot amounts to a "female prostate gland," say the three authors, Alice Kahn Ladas, a New York psychologist; Beverly Whipple, a registered nurse and sex counselor in southern New Jersey; and John D. Perry, a Connecticut psychologist.

Why has the spot remained undetected for so long? Autopsies are not likely to reveal it, claim the authors, because most autopsies are performed on older women, whose G spots may have atrophied. Gynecologists generally miss it because testing for sexual sensitivity in the vagina is not part of diagnostic procedure or medical ethics.

To make their case, Whipple and Perry examined more than 400 women who had signed consent releases permitting direct stimulation. The authors claim that the G spot was stimulated in all the women examined. But in part because the evidence for the G spot is anecdotal and testimonial in nature, rather than based on direct anatomical or tissue culture studies, the U.S. gynecological community is skeptical about the authors' claims.

Dr. J. Jones Stewart, a Pasadena gynecologist, says that while general vaginal responsiveness is a fact, he is not convinced that a G spot exists. Indeed, he says, patients who have had that section of the vagina removed in surgery report the same sexual sensitivity they had before the operation. Says he: "They've misinterpreted the response as a great discovery. The response has been there all the time and has been recognized for hundreds of years. It is not due to an anatomical switch that can cause excitement." Dr. Kermit Krantz, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, believes that lovers aiming for the so-called G spot in fact are hitting a more general nerve area around the weak sphincter muscle of the vagina and the cavernous tissue of the urethra. Says Krantz: "I would like to know on what anatomical basis the G spot is explained. Have they made biopsies of it?" The authors, he thinks, have drawn a conclusion based on inadequate evidence. Adds Krantz: "We shouldn't make claims without anatomical basis. But if they find it, bully, I'd like to know about it." Says Atlanta Gynecologist Dr. Michael Wolfson: "The theory is a bit farfetched."