No other part of the female anatomy has been discovered, denounced, rediscovered, renamed, and frustrated researchers more than the elusive G-spot. It’s been called Gräfenberg’s Holy Grail of female pleasure, a magical sex “button,” and the secret orgasmic key to unlocking ecstasy. But as any vulva owner can tell you, the reality isn’t squirting unicorns.
Despite this, plenty of myths and misconceptions surround the G-spot, particularly regarding ejaculation vs. squirting.
So, as always, let’s debunk a few anatomy myths with the latest research.
Myth #1: The G-spot was named by Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg
History is filled with male anatomists going all Christopher Columbus on women’s bits. The Fallopian Tubes, Bartholin’s glands, the Pouch of Douglas, the Graffian Follicle, the Skene’s Glands, and the Glands of Montgomery are all named after male anatomists. But most of these scientists didn’t name women’s sex and reproductive organs after themselves. Later men gave them that honor.
For example, when Gabriele Fallopio discovered the fallopian tubes in the sixteenth century, he called them “tuba uteri” because he thought they looked like a trumpet. Later, the medical community honored Fallopio by renaming the tuba uteri the “fallopian tubes.”
In the nineteenth century, Scottish physician and researcher Alexander Johnston Chalmers Skene identified the paraurethral glands — the glands responsible for female ejaculation. These were later renamed the Skene’s glands to honor his groundbreaking work.
Then there is the G-spot — named after Ernst Gräfenberg.
In 1950, Ernst Gräfenberg described an erogenous region located a few inches up the anterior wall of the vagina between 11:00 and 1:00. Dr. Gräfenberg noted that stimulating the area caused it to swell and sometimes emit a milky fluid.
Three decades later, Dr. Beverly Whipple, Dr. Frank Addiego, and other researchers took up the mantle and revisited Dr. Gräfenberg’s research. Dr. Whipple’s confirmed an erogenous zone that could cause female ejaculation.
To honor her research, her colleagues suggested she name this pleasure zone the “Whipple Tickle.”
That’s one way to get a female researcher to demur.
Instead, Dr. Whipple named this region the “G-spot” in honor of Dr. Gräfenberg’s earlier work.
Dr. Whipple probably didn’t want her name attached to the area for another reason. Her intentions were never for scientists to debate whether the “spot” existed while generations of women frantically searched for whether they had a G-spot.
This brings us to our next myth…