The Times - UK (2020-06-29)

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the times | Monday June 29 2020 1GM 17

News


The female G-spot has long been the
holy grail of the sexual world, frustrat-
ingly elusive for men — and women —
alike. Now scientists think that they
know why: it does not actually exist.
After a detailed analysis of a group of
17 women, researchers identified no
particular concentration of nerve
endings or blood vessels in the anterior
vaginal wall, usually considered the
location of the G-spot.
“These findings... support the non-
existence of an erogenous, hypersensi-
tive spot or area,” the scientists, at the
Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul,
concluded in the International Urogy-
necology Journal. The team, which did
include women, said that the “anatomi-
cal evidence” for the G-spot was “scant,
insufficient and weak”.
The G-spot, or Gräfenberg spot, was
first reported in modern scientific
literature by Ernst Gräfenberg, a
German gynaecologist, in 1950. It is
claimed to be an erogenous area that
creates strong sexual pleasure and
powerful orgasms.
Despite years of disagreement in the
scientific community about whether it
exists as a distinct structure and, if it
does, over its location, an entire indus-
try has grown up around the G-spot,
from sex toys to stimulate it to surgical

More drivers caught speeding


The number of speeding drivers pulled
over by Britain’s largest police force
rose by 71 per cent after the coronavirus
lockdown started.
The Metropolitan Police issued 3,
traffic offence reports to drivers sus-
pected of breaking the limit in April, ac-
cording to data obtained by the PA news
agency. There were 1,922 issued during
April last year. Drivers can be sent on a
course, fined or summoned to court.
A further 14,736 drivers were caught
by roadside cameras in London in the
same month. During the lockdown one

driver in London was clocked at
163mph in a 70mph zone, while another
was doing 110mph in a 30mph zone.
The Kent and Derbyshire forces also
recorded year-on-year increases, up
53 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.
Most forces recorded a decrease.
Detective Superintendent Andy Cox,
of the Metropolitan Police, said: “Early
on, for some people driving at extreme
speeds, they would be really surprised
to see us. They would actually come out
and say, ‘We thought you’d be busy
dealing with Covid’.”

Fumbling for the


G-spot? Relax, it


may not even exist


procedures to enhance it. One Amer-
ican company offering such a pro-
cedure explains on its website how its
surgeons inject a hyaluron filler,
usually used to plump lips and smooth
wrinkles, into the G-spot.
“The filler will cause the area to
enlarge, thereby increasing sensitivity,
allowing patients to achieve a vaginal,
or deeper, orgasm,” it says.
Although G-spot therapies have
become a multimillion-pound business
there is virtually no evidence that they
work beyond having a placebo effect.
Many women have long believed the
G-spot to be a myth and have argued
that it causes insecurity and embarrass-
ment for women who cannot reach
orgasm through vaginal penetration
alone. A survey by Cosmopolitan maga-
zine found that half of women felt inad-
equate or frustrated that others could
orgasm in a way they could not. It also
found that nearly a quarter of men con-
sidered that finding a woman’s G-spot
was the primary goal of sex.
The researchers on the Turkish team
did, however, leave a glimmer of hope
for those who believe that the G-spot
exists, saying: “The results of our study
must be confirmed through further
well-designed studies with a larger
number of patients, involving the re-
maining part of the vaginal structure
and clinical outcomes of surgeries.”

Andrew Ellson

S


itting in the
Brontë
Parsonage
museum
archives are a
pair of Native
American beaded
leather moccasins
(Sara Tor writes).
Donated in 1983 by a
Brontë enthusiast, the
shoes arrived
accompanied by a note
claiming that they had
once belonged to
Charlotte Brontë and
curators have been
puzzled by this ever
since. How could they
have made their way
into the hands of a
parson’s daughter from
Victorian Yorkshire?
Now the mystery has
been solved. In a

chapter of Charlotte
Brontë: Embodiment
and the Material World
published by Palgrave
Macmillan, Dr Eleanor
Houghton, a costume
historian, has unpicked
the story.
She found that the
leather of the shoes
was not as pliant as
hide cured using
traditional
methods and the
beadwork had
been sewn in
place using a
paper pattern as
a guide. Dr
Houghton said: “It
is very likely that
these particular
moccasins were
made in the mid to
late-1840s by the

Mystery of Brontë’s


Mohawk moccasins


and sister, Brontë
nursed her at
Scarborough. After
Anne’s death, Brontë
left a box of items,
including the shoes, in
Scarborough, with
instructions for them
to be returned but they
weren’t. “From the
wear on the moccasins,
it’s clear that Brontë
was fond of them... it
is likely she would have
had them on as she
wrote and nursed her
siblings,” Dr Houghton
said. “During such a
tough and sad time, the
comfort afforded by
the shoes probably
mattered a great deal.”

Mohawk tribe on the
Kahnawake Reserve,
near modern-day
Montreal.” Such items
were often sold in New
York, where Brontë’s
American
publishers were
based, and the pair
were probably sent
to her as a gift in
about 1848.
When the author’s
sister Anne fell ill
with tuberculosis,
the disease that had
killed their brother

The shoes that puzzled
the Brontë museum
curators were probably
made by the tribe

THE BRONTE PARSONAGE MUSEUM

he
s
s
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