Doctor claims to have found the elusive G spot

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDApr 26 2012

Dr Adam Ostrzenski claims to have found the elusive G spot in women - the long-conjectured trigger for enhancing female orgasm.

In an article published Wednesday by the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the semi-retired Florida gynecologist declared that he had found it. For his study he conducted a postmortem examination of an 83-year-old woman in Warsaw Medical University's Department of Forensic Medicine. Unlike the United States, which strictly regulates the research use of cadavers, Poland allows the dissection of human remains soon after death, when fine distinctions in tissue remain easy to see.

The dissection took seven hours for the Poland-trained physician and anatomist, who said the first principles of medicine - “first you have to establish the anatomy” - prompted him to undertake the study. Inspecting the six distinct layers of tissue that make up a woman's vaginal wall, Ostrzenski said, he uncovered small, grape-like clusters of erectile tissue housed in a sac less than 1 centimetre across - “a deep, deep structure” nestled between the vaginal wall's fifth layer, the endopelvic fascia, and its sixth, the dorsal perineal membrane.

Some experts like sexual medicine specialist Dr Andrew Goldstein, director of the Centres for Vulvovaginal Disorders in Annapolis, Maryland feel this is an apt reply to doubters of the G spot. However, Beverly Whipple, the Rutgers University sexologist who popularised the name “G-spot” as co-author of a 1982 book on the subject feels this is an attempt to simplify women's sexuality.

Whipple and two of her colleagues have already drafted a critique of the study, which she hopes to publish in a future issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. In the critique, the three fault Ostrzenski for failing to show that the “G-spot” he discovered has nerve endings; that it is, as he claims, erectile tissue; or that it has any role to play in female sexual arousal.

Ostrzenski acknowledged that he had not detailed exactly what type of tissue makes up the G-spot or how it works, in part because the Polish regulations that govern dissection of fresh cadavers prevented him from taking samples for histological testing, he said. And he said he makes no claim that the G-spot he has found will be in the same place, nor that it will have the same powers, for every woman. “Absolutely, there will be variation,” he said.

Dr Irwin Goldstein, editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, said the G-spot “certainly doesn't have a flag on it, like X-marks-the-spot,” he said. The fact that Ostrzenski may have found one of many potential organs of female pleasure does not diminish the discovery, he added.

The existence of at least one distinct G spot inside the vagina has gained growing scientific credence in recent years. In 2004, a team of researchers demonstrated that electrostimulation to the front vaginal wall near the bladder caused swelling that enhanced sexual arousal. Studies of female sexual anatomy and function have shown that stimulating the area raises a woman's pain threshold - an evident benefit for childbirth - and prompts the release of oxytocin, a hormone associated with enhanced bonding and trust.

Other studies have suggested that there may be many G-spots. Brain scans of women in various states of sexual arousal have underscored the fluid nature of female sexuality and the key role of psychological factors in women's sexual pleasure, said Dr Michael Krychman, director of the Southern California Centre for Sexual Health in Newport Beach.

Krychman said, Ostrzenski's report offers an important caveat for those who think women's sexual arousal is entirely a mental matter. While the psychological dimensions of women's sexuality dominate the field, the new study recognises that “women have anatomy issues that contribute to their sexual problems,” he said. “There are remedies - physical remedies - that can be brought to bear on those.”