www.ejhs.org
Reviewed by David S. Hall
One of the first things I learned from Alfred Kinsey (the man who collected about five million gall wasps and thousands of sex histories) as a budding sexologist, was that there is a very wide variety in the biology and behavior animals, including human beings. I have since that time attempted to pass this knowledge on to my students and to readers of this Journal. This film carries that message if you look and listen carefully. The film also points out how many researchers, looking at one part of the body, seem to think that they know the truth (and the whole truth) about sexual pleasure.
Dr. Gräfenberg discovered this spot around 1940 but his work was disregarded by the medical profession. In 1982, Beverly Whipple and Alice Kahn Ladas published their book The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality. The criticism was immediate because no physical structure could be found to explain it, the same problem Dr. Gräfenberg had. After it was demonstrated for the critics observation, the tone of the debate changed but acceptance was still questionable.
This film is the story of this discovery and the many medical professionals who ran their own studies, and pronounced the existence or non-existence of the G spot to the world. Few admitted to the wide variety of female biology. Recently, extensive research has pointed out significant differences in the structures of the bodies of women who claim the spot and those who say they don’t have one. You can watch ultrasound measurements of a woman who claims many magnificent orgasms and hear the doctor tell what he found from his measurements. You can watch orgasmic ejaculations and learn what we now know about where they come from, and how normative they are. They are not urine, and do contain PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) from glands in the area of the G spot. Again, not all women can do this.
There is a class by a sex educator, who gets naked and demonstrates G spot massage and ejaculation, carefully screened from the camera’s view. She cannot guarantee her students will achieve this goal.
There is a video of an MRI scan of the brain of a woman who can “think herself off” while in the machine. I must admit that I personally know Dr. Whipple and two people she is working with in this film. It was fun to see a video of her from 1981 discussing her findings with Phil Donahue on his TV show.
It is important to note that not every woman can, or wants to, focus on her G spot, and lots of great sex is enjoyed without such a focus. We are a highly variable population.
I have been in the middle of many discussions on the G spot and “squirting” and I did not have much interest in reviewing this film. I’m glad I did and highly recommend it to both educators and the women and men who are looking for pleasure in their sexual lives. I hope this film helps them understand that everyone is not the same in the way their body works and responds.