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Women Don't Need a "G-Shot"
If We Take the Time to Understand Arousal

For Immediate Release

June 19, 2007

Women Don't Need a "G-Shot"
If We Take the Time to Understand Arousal

Part II
"The G-Shot" and Similar Fads Result From the "Two I's":
Information and Intercourse

Fads like the "G-Shot" come along because of the "Two I's." One is "Information" or the lack of it. The other is "Intercourse" and the accompanying notion that this is or should be everyone's primary source of sexual satisfaction.

Take a look at these "Two I's." Look at them one at a time.

Information: It used to be that young people at the dawn of their adult sexual lives got at least a little information from sex ed classes at school. But these days, the focus is on abstinence.

So, young people - who are eager to partner, fall in love, get married, or just get busy - go out into the world with truly alarming gaps in their sexual knowledge.

The idea that sex is "natural" still has great sway - except, maybe, what one hears referred to as the "unnatural" kinds - so people do not need to be taught how to do it. This is barely correct, and even people who have figured out how to make babies via Tab A and Slot B do not necessarily have the elements of pleasure worked out.

Women and their partners who are attracted to the quick fix idea of the "G-Shot" and its accompanying placebo effect, often don't have the necessary "how to" knowledge to have good and satisfying sex. After that placebo effect of the latest exciting new procedure wears off, they will still not have it. These women and their partners are often ones who may have heard of the G-spot but don't know where or what it is. They haven't given the clitoris the study it is due either, and they don't understand the elements of arousal, especially female arousal.

The "G-Shot" purports to make the G-spot more sensitive or easy to stimulate, but the technique hasn't been tested for either current efficacy or long-term effects.

Think about that. Have you ever seen with your own eyes the handiwork of the penis enlargement surgeons' art? It can wind up looking like the pig-in-a-blanket they used to serve in the school lunch room, or if not that, then lumpy like a potato.

Furthermore, many women don't even like direct G-spot stimulation. Many cannot tolerate the sensation that results until they are fully aroused, but the "G-Shot" does not guarantee full arousal.

If the idea is to help women catch up with male rates of arousal, then why focus on something that is not an erogenous area for all women, and that requires the same amount of attention to arousal as any other penetrative sex?

When orgasm expert Dr. Betty Dodson accuses G-spot mania of being just another way to focus on vaginal orgasms, she's absolutely right. The sensations of G-spot stimulation (for a woman with a sensitive one) can be exquisite, but the real craze is for a trick that will make women more satisfied with intercourse.

The irony of this belief, though, is that many intercourse positions don't optimally stimulate the G-spot at all - plenty of women don't discover their own G-spot sensitivity until they get a curved toy, plus some lube, and go hunting, or they meet a partner who knows how to curve his or her fingers.

Intercourse: It's practically the definition of "having sex" in America, and it is the lens through which many, many couples view their sexual satisfaction.

All the curved fingers and toys in the world don't count as much as the "real thing," even though study after study shows us that the majority of women do not reliably orgasm from penile-vaginal intercourse without direct clitoral stimulation.

"Many of these women try so hard to have an orgasm from intercourse alone," says OB/GYN physician Debra Shapiro, MD, "because their husbands are not giving the clitoris any attention and the women themselves don't know that they can stimulate their own clitoris while having intercourse. I tell them they can do this and they're amazed: 'I can?' They have no idea it's okay." Or, in fact, that it is a common practice.

Many women just have no reliable access to good, realistic information about how sex is conducted. What's more, they have not had the good fortune to find out what many in sex positive communities know: There are lots of other things besides intercourse that make up, and indeed may be crucial to, a good sex life.

About Carol Queen
Carol Queen, Ph.D. works as Staff Sexologist and Chief Cultural Officer at Good Vibrations (goodvibes.com), and co-founded and directs The Center for Sex & Culture (sexandculture.org). More about her work and writings is available at carolqueen.com.

About Good Vibrations
Good Vibrations is the San Francisco-based retailer trusted for three decades to provide a comfortable, safe environment for finding sex-positive products and educational materials to enhance one's sex life. Good Vibrations offers its products through its retail stores, mail order catalog and its ecommerce website at www.goodvibes.com>.

Dr. Carol Queen, PhD is available for interviews.

Part I - "Who Needs a "G-Shot" Anyhow?"