My GF Sez » science

That spot

guysezual — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:22:22 +0000

Cartoon by xkcd

The elusive erotic zone said to exist in some women may be a myth, say researchers who have hunted for it. – BBC

He sez: Lookin’ for it is as much fun as findin’ it.

So I’m reliably informed, anyway. I can report the personal discovery of a textured area just inside and up a bit, in the location they say it should be. Sex marks the spot, maybe. But, well, it’s all fun terrain in there, and hard to say if one bit is funnier than the next. Especially from my male point of view. Maybe I should hand over to uh, my fellow researcher, for a female perspective.

But before I put her on the spot, as it were, let’s recap:

The location in question was first described by a Teutonic doctor – relocated to New York to escape Jewish persecution in his homeland – in 1950, when he was 69 years old, sez the ever-reliable Wikipedia. A celebrated career of intimate examination of the female sexual areas, backed up by frank discussion with his patients, led him to form the opinion that just inside a lady’s love tunnel lay an area that, when stimulated, resulted in more intense climaxes than clitoral stimulation. He was also excited by the idea that this spot was the source of “female ejaculation”, a liquid rush at the moment of climax.

A female prostate, as it were.

The spot was named after the doctor in 1981, well after he had passed on, and the 1980s were notable for a rush of popular literature devoted to the search for the spot, and what to do with it once found. Lick it, stick it or pick it, went the debate at dinner parties of the tackier kind. I remember them well.

Or prick it and nick it, in the case of some women who underwent biopsies in studies to map the distribution of nervous tissue in that area. What induced them to participate in such an experiment we don’t know.

Whatever, the results of three decades of exhaustive scientific research have been inconclusive. The problem is that much of the evidence is anecdotal, with small sample sizes. One inspired study, a dream job if ever there was one, involved 900 pairs of identical twins who were prevailed upon to point out the location of the spot to hardened scientists. Identical twins = identical spots, went the theory, but alas, only 56% provided identical answers.

Maybe the procedure needed work. No matter how you positioned the mirror, it would have to be a difficult task with a white pointer in the pink bits to indicate the exact location. Or if you relied on an assistant to touch various spots – “Here? What about here? Or over here? Down a bit, maybe? Is it nicer here or there? Well, what about if I wobble this bit?” – there would have to be a certain amount of imprecision, especially if the assistant employed a pen or spatula or thumb instead of whatever the subject normally employed for stimulation. If it were me, faced with a pair of identical twin ladies, I’d be inclined to tickle. And snicker.

G-Spot, courtesy Google Maps and violet blue

In the end, scientists are prone to debate. The involvement of well-meant folk who surmised that women who couldn’t find their spots would feel inadequate beside their better-endowed sisters sent the discussion in a different direction. And, I must admit that this point has merit. Women face the beauty literature every day. The ideal shape, the ideal face, the ideal breasts. And now, the ultimate sex parts. No woman is ever perfect, if you rely on the tracts found on the news-stand racks.

Me, I think it’s all hokum. Just how am I, as a man, supposed to stimulate this notional spot? My anatomy has the knobs and bumps in other areas. Am I supposed to slip in a pinky as well as a porky to press the point?

For self-stimulation, the ever-popular rabbit-ear vibrator has any number of lumps and bumps, but the intention seems to be to fill the void and buzz the bean, rather than hit the spot.

I’m done speculatin’. I’ll hand the topic over to my partner, for a female point of view.

She sez: Does it really exist?

Someone who might know is local sex goddess/guru violet blue. In the introduction to her book on the G-Spot, she sez:

That’s why I had to write this g-spot guide for smart girls like me. There are way, way too many guys online who think that watching porn or reading other people’s websites gives them the knowledge to spout off about what is and isn’t up with the g-spot and female ejaculation — often getting facts wrong in horrifyingly shaming ways. And the books out there were either piecemeal, dated, or intended an audience of women who wanted a spiritual experience — when all I wanted was to figure out how to get off.

Resources

violet blue’s gspot resource guide, complete with Find-it-Yourself illustrations and hints.
Wikipedia’s article on the G-Spot, written by geeks.

A fresh look at the G-Spot – photo by Guy Sez

“Bonk” by Mary Roach

guysezual — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:37:10 +0000

Warning:
Do not read this book on any form of public transport, while consuming beverages, or during any form of solemn congregation.

Title:
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Author:
Mary Roach

Previous publications:

Abstract
This is an examination of the scientific examination of sex. We learn a lot about sex and sexual behaviour and the history of sex, but mainly we learn about the nerds who strapped on goggles and gloves and clipboards to record how the good bits fit together.

Some of them reduced sex to subject numbers and data points. Some of them took photographs. And some entered the fourth dimension, notably the author and her husband, having sex for research purposes under the gaze of an ultrasound wand manipulated by a gent with spikey hair.

This book is every Weird Science nightmare. There’s a French princess who had her clitoris surgically transplanted into an optimum position for maximum stimulation. There are sex machines with chains and pumps and speed controllers and a fan club who build their own devices. (I’d give a lot to get their wives drunk and talkative.) There’s Dr Alfred Kinsey filming 300 paid male volunteers to masturbate on film so that he can measure the ejaculation distance. Most slopped, a few made it a foot, the record was just over eight feet. Mrs Kinsey’s comments on cleaning the carpet the next day are not recorded.

It is the wry eye of Mary Roach that makes this book. Her description of an unfortunate encounter is a good example:

…the Houston man was taken away, on his back in an ambulance, with a large water tank from a public commode stuck on his penis. “The patient had attempted intercourse with the water-tank hole,” reports B H Bayer, MD, in one of those rare, shining moments when urology approaches high comedy.

I think the author gets far too much fun out of all the statistics, sex on camera, Rube Goldberg measuring devices and coyly-worded requests for research funding. If the situation is absurd enough on its own, Roach will improve it with a well-chosen word or two.

The chapter titles give a teasing notion of the contents:

The Sausage, the Porcupine, and the Agreeable Mrs. G.
Can a Woman Find Happiness with a Machine?
The Princess and Her Pea
Does Orgasm Boost Fertility, and What Do Pigs Know About It?

Honest, this is about science, but it is also screamingly funny. Mary Roach has a sense of humour that made her first book about dead bodies an hilarious best-seller. I emphasise the warning given above. Be very careful where you read this book.

For the record, I found the chapter about pigs to be the funniest. I was gasping for breath half way through as assembly-line artificial insemination was described.

The training video includes a shot of a handsome, suntanned Dane lying on a sow, his chest pressed to her back. With one hand, he reaches down beneath her to rub her mammaries and squeeze her teats. A close-up highlights a gold wedding ring, as though to reassure the viewer that nothing untoward is going to happen between these two.

The most valuable chapter? Right at the end. The secret to amazing sex is to have it with someone of your own gender. Someone who knows what you like, because they have the same equipment. Someone who isn’t going to pound your clitoris into submission, or be too soft with your penis. Someone who will take their sweet time when required, and beat a faster drum at the right moment. Alternatively, talk to your partner. Tell them what you like, when you like it. Find out what they like. And, though Mary Roach doesn’t say it, the message is implicit on every page. Make them laugh. Make them love you.

Mary Roach has written three books now. If she ever publishes a fourth, I am going to be like those crowds of children beating down the bookstore doors for the latest Harry Potter. I am going to be first in line. And I am not taking the bus home.

Narrative
I bought this in Compass Books at San Francisco International Airport. On special (hardback) for $6.98. A few days later I was in a laundromat with Grl in Fort Worth, watching our underwear spin around together. I was reading Bonk and she was reading Tuesdays with Morrie and the tears were just pouring down her face as she struggled through the final few poignant chapters. Emotional genius that I am, I was lost in the insanely funny sex book, reading out choice paragraphs to Grl, who seemed strangely unamused.

A few days later, Grl and I flew back in, and I took her straight to Compass Books – highly recommended for books that are a sight better than your average airport sex thriller – where we discovered that the hardback specials had vanished but paperbacks were available. I bought two. This is another one of those books that you force on friends, saying, “You gotta read this!”

I gave one copy to Grl, on the spot.

–Guy Sez