Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot (5 page)

The Dutch anatomist
Regnier de Graaf
, wrote an influential treatise on the reproductive organs
Concerning the Generative Organs of Women
which is much cited in the literature on this topic. De Graaf discussed the original controversy but supported the Aristotelian view.
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He identified the source as the glandular structures and ducts

surrounding the urethra.

[VI:66-7]The urethra is lined by a thin membrane. In the lower part, near the outlet of the urinary passage, this membrane is pierced by large ducts, or lacunae, through which pituito-serous matter occasionally discharges in considerable quantities.

Between this very thin membrane and the fleshy fibres we have just described there is, along the whole duct of the urethra, a whitish membranous substance about one finger-breadth thick which completely surrounds the urethral canal... The substance could be called quite aptly the female 'prostatae' or 'corpus glandulosum', 'glandulous body'
...
The function of the 'prostatae' is to generate a pituito-serous juice which makes women more libidinous with its pungency and saltiness and lubricates their sexual parts in agreeable fashion during coitus.

[VII:81]Here too it should be noted that the discharge from the female 'prostatae' causes as much pleasure as does that from the male 'prostatae'

He identified [XIII:212] the various controversies regarding the ejaculate and its origin, but stated he believed that this fluid "which rushes out with such impetus during venereal combat or libidinous imagining" was derived from a number of sources, including the vagina, urinary tract, cervix and uterus. He appears to identify Skene's ducts, when he writes [XIII: 213] "those [ducts] which are visible around the orifice of the neck of the vagina and the outlet of the urinary passage receive their fluid from the female 'parastatae', or rather the thick membranous body around the urinary passage". However he appears not to distinguish between the lubrication of the perineum during arousal and an orgasmic ejaculate when he refers to liquid "which in libidinous women often rushes out at the mere sight of a handsome man". Further on [XIII:214] he refers to "liquid as usually comes from the pudenda in one gush". However it should be noted that his prime purpose was to distinguish between generative fluid and pleasurable fluid, in his stand on the Aristotelian semen controversy.

19th century

Krafft-Ebing's
study of sexual perversion, Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), describes female ejaculation under the heading "Congenital Sexual Inversion in Women" as a perversion related to
neurasthenia
and homosexuality.
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the intersexual gratification among ...women seems to be reduced to kissing and embraces, which seems to satisfy those of weak sexual instinct, but produces in sexually neurasthenic females ejaculation

It is also described by
Freud
in pathological terms in his study of
Dora
(1905), where he relates it to hysteria.
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The pride taken by women in the appearance of their genitals is quite a special feature of their vanity; and disorders of genitals which they think calculated to inspire feelings of repugnance or even disgust have an incredible power of humiliating them, of lowering their self-esteem, and of making them irritable, sensitive, and distrustful. An abnormal secretion of the mucous membrane of the vagina is looked upon as source of disgust.

However, women's writing of that time portrayed this in more positive terms. Thus we find
Almeda Sperry
writing to
Emma Goldman
in 1918, about the "rhythmic spurt of your love juices".
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Anatomical knowledge was also advanced by
Alexander Skene
's description of para-urethral or periurethral glands (glands around the
urethra
) in 1880, which have been variously claimed to be one source of the fluids in the ejaculate, and now commonly referred to as the
Skene's glands
.
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20th century

Early 20th ce ntury unde rstanding

Female ejaculation is mentioned as normal in early 20th century 'marriage manuals', such as TH
Van de Velde
's
Ideal
Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique
(1926). Certainly van de Velde was well aware of the varied experiences of women.
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It appears that the majority of laymen believe that something is forcibly squirted (or propelled or extruded), or expelled from the woman's body in orgasm, and should so happen normally, as in the man's case. Finally it is just as certain that such an 'ejaculation' does not take place in many women of sexually normal functions, as that it does take place in others.

Yet the subject was largely ignored for most of the early part of the century. In 1948, Huffman, an American gynaecologist, published his studies of the prostatic tissue in women together with an historical account and detailed drawings. These clearly showed the difference between the original glands identified by Skene at the urinary meatus, and the more
proximal
collections of glandular tissue emptying directly into the urethra.
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The urethra might well be compared to a tree about which and growing outward from its base are numerous stunted branches, the paraurethral ducts and glands

To date most of the interest had focussed on the substance and structure rather than function of the glands. A more definitive contemporary account of ejaculation appeared shortly after, in 1950, with the publication of an essay by

Gräfenberg
based on his observations of women during orgasm.
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An erotic zone always could be demonstrated on the anterior wall of the vagina along the course of the urethra...analogous to the male urethra, the female urethra also seems to be surrounded by erectile tissues...In the course of sexual stimulation, the female urethra begins to enlarge and can be felt easily. It swells out greatly at the end of orgasm...Occasionally the production of fluids is ...profuse...

If there is the opportunity to observe the orgasm of such women, one can see that large quantities of a clear transparent fluid are expelled not from the vulva, but out of the urethra in gushes. At first I thought that the bladder sphincter had become defective by the intensity of the orgasm. Involuntary expulsion of urine is reported in sex literature. In the cases observed by us, the fluid was examined and it had no urinary character. I am inclined to believe that "urine" reported to be expelled during female orgasm is not urine, but only secretions of the intraurethral glands correlated with the erotogenic zone along the urethra in the anterior vaginal wall. Moreover the profuse secretions coming out with the orgasm have no lubricating significance, otherwise they would be produced at the beginning of intercourse and not at the peak of orgasm.