The myth of the myth of the vaginal orgasm.

Okay everybody on the Internet, let's make a deal: I won't tell you how to have orgasms, and you won't tell me that mine don't exist.

Figleaf linked to this post on Pandagon about how the G-spot is really just a magic feather that might give you orgasms if you believe, and we shouldn't think less of it just because it doesn't exist in objective reality. Which is deeply weird for me to read, because as far as I'm concerned, it's right there! Give me your finger and I'll show you. It's like reading a debate on the existence of the human nose. (Complete with smartasses saying "what we've thought of as the 'nose' is actually just a cartilage structure containing scent-sensitive cells!" as if that's some paradigm-shifting revelation.) I have a spot in my vagina that is both palpable and sensitive, and it gives me crazy orgasms from penetrative sex.

I really hate the disdainful tone people take toward "the ol' pump and dump," because that's how I get off! I don't get off at all on "the ol' fiddly diddly," but I don't think that means no one likes clitoral stimulation. I hate being told that that PIV sex is dudeocentric or old-fashioned when it makes me come my brains out.

But I think the overwhelming reason [people believe in the G-spot] 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.
No! This isn't philosophy! This is my vagina! It exists in consensus reality! Shit like "respect the desire" is condescending as fuck. "Oh yes, I understand why you might say you have a nose, and I respect that. It's important to believe you!"

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 never really thought of myself as a G-spot "defender." More like "owner." But I guess that makes me a really rabid defender? Reasonable people should be able to compromise on whether something exists. Like maybe I only have half a nose really.

It’s interesting to consider if the G spot only occurs in some women, which would explain the huge gap between experiences without further shaming of women who don’t have G spot orgasms. But what this research indicates is that if this is true, then it isn’t genetic. I’m personally quite comfortable with the possibility that the G spot “exists” only in women that find the process of stimulating it exciting instead of boring, but of course, that kind of thing is culturally difficult to swallow.
If the G-spot was a placebo effect, though, I wouldn't have this experience, which happens very often: "mmm, not quite, mmm, a little further in... OH GOD DON'T YOU DARE MOVE ONE INCH OH GOD RIGHT EXACTLY THERE." It's a pretty complex hallucinatory process if I can hallucinate that much difference between two spots that are millimeters apart and would feel the same if one of them wasn't, you know, my G-spot.

The problem is that if the difference between having a G spot and not having one is suggestibility to the possibility---i.e. that you have orgasms by stimulating a specific part of your body when other women don’t, because you believe that you can---then the shame would transfer from those who don’t to those who do, who would be falsely led to believe that it’s all in their heads and they’re crazy or something. This is due to the aforementioned weirdness people have about believing that what’s in your head is real, plus an giant dose of sexism. [...] But part of it is that “it’s all in your head” is used to dismiss the reality of women’s experiences, even though something that happens in your head is quite real.
No. This isn't the problem. The problem is that it isn't all in my head. It's all in my vagina. There's a ribbedy bit and it makes me make funny noises. Being told "it's real to you, sweetie" is infuriating not because I don't respect subjective experiences but because this isn't subjective!

Look. I get the picture. Amanda Marcotte doesn't have a sensitive G-spot. Fine for her. But she's got no damn right to go around telling me how my vagina is.

It also bothers me how much this whole thing is couched in implications that women who claim to have G-spots are giving in to the evil mens. Any form of female pleasure that is easy and pleasurable for men is suspect. It makes you a collaborator, and your existence (or at least your talking about it) is an impediment to the women who have more difficulty with orgasms. I can't help reading between the lines that a woman who gets off on cock alone is giving it up too damn easy, the slut.




"The existence of the clitoris has always been hotly debated, and new research suggests that identical twins don't have clitorises either, or something. But many women claim to feel clitoral stimulation. Many claim that they're just filthy sellout sluts making things harder for the good girls, and we should respect this important feminist opinion. My theory, however, is that they're merely imagining they have a clitoris and this gets them off, and we should respect their hallucination if it works for them."