Okay, color me amused. There was a time when the standard feminist response to new evidence demonstrating that the G spot doesn’t exist—-at least in the sense of being a real spot that has a specific sensitivity, like the clitoris—-would have been to say, “Of course. The G spot was invented in response to feminist skepticism about the ‘maturity’ of the vaginal orgasm over the clitoral one, to justify men who didn’t want to engage in stimulation outside of the pump and dump.” Which is why I was amused to see Mary Elizabeth Williams at Broadsheet get ruffled about a new study, involving twins, that demonstrated that the genetic arguments for the existence of a G spot have produced nada. I will say that some of the statements from the researchers incline me to worry about their objectivity—-they are very committed to the idea that the subjective experience that could all be in your head is not “real” somehow, and they have strong opinions on the injustice of G-spot pressure—-but hey, I’m willing to believe that there’s no G spot if that’s what the research finally concludes, after multiple, rigorous studies of course.
Feminist willingness to entertain the reality of the G spot is definitely an innovation of the past couple of decades, and it’s for good reasons. One reason is that a lot of women stimulate this part of their vaginas while masturbating, and also that many lesbian-identified women report G-spot orgasms. This would incline one to think that there’s an explanation for reporting of this beyond just men wanting to believe and women needing/wanting to please men. But I think the overwhelming reason is that the desire to believe women when they report subjective experiences is ascendant, while willingness to believe that women might trick themselves into believing something because it’s what men want to hear is descendant in feminist thought right now. Women say they have G spot orgasms, we believe women, end of story. I respect where this desire comes from. Being a woman, I’m well aware of how much your ability to perceive objective reality is dismissed under the rubric that bitches are crazy. Especially when it comes to biology, there’s a long-standing, ongoing problem of women’s experiences being dismissed as being “all in their head”, particularly when you’re talking about issues such as chronic pain. Dismissals of the G spot can and often do come from that urge to believe that women are especially stupid and out of touch and probably mental. (To be fair, many feminists still are skeptical of the G spot, because so many defenses of it come from those trying to guilt women about desiring clitoral stimulation.) The other reason many feminists have moved into the pro G spot camp is because the amount of work it takes to produce that kind of orgasm puts mere 20 minutes bouts of cunnilingus to shame, and so you can’t really say devotees of it are doing so because it appeals to male laziness.
But what this struggle ends up doing is obscuring that there’s a third possibility, one that neither G spot defenders or dismissers seem willing to entertain, which is that the women’s experiences can be totally real and also that there’s no such thing as the G-spot. I mean, it’s not like it’s behind your ears or something; it’s right by the clit, and inside the vagina, which is no slouch in the sensitivity department. Considering that some women can orgasm with very little stimulation or often just by willing themselves to come hands-free—-and that both men and women are capable of orgasming in their sleep without masturbation—-then it’s certainly well within the range of possibility that women who get the specific G spot stimulation can have an orgasm without there actually being a specific G spot.
I suppose I see why this possibility (which I’m not married to or anything, just suggesting is a likely possibility) bothers people, and it’s for the same reason that the placebo effect is unnerving. There’s still a shame attached to the idea that something is “all in your head”, as if that makes it less real. But if you think about it, it doesn’t, because all experience happens subjectively. And by all, I mean all—-the most extreme example is that you can’t hurt a corpse by shooting it, but there are other ones as well. Pain feels very different depending on context, and it’s been said that hangovers feel worse if you did something stupid while drunk. Our tendency is to want to say this experience is less real than that because our brains are constantly recalibrating how we feel something, but it’s all equally real. If someone is more likely to have a G spot orgasm because she believes in the G spot, then that doesn’t mean her orgasm was one teeny bit less real.