#PleasurePioneers: Beverly Whipple

Artwork by @drawnbypoppy

If you’ve never heard of Dr. Beverly Whipple, then maybe you’ve heard of a little something called the G-spot. Does that ring a bell? If it does – and it probably should, if you’re sexually active and aware of your body – then you can thank Dr. Whipple. Not only did she discover it and name it, but her work that was published in a 1981 Journal of Sex Research was the first time that the term “G-spot” actually appeared in print.

As a professor and academic, Dr. Whipple realized that because most researchers were men, they were trying to fit women into the male mold, but she wasn’t having it.

“Dr. Beverly Whipple took matters into her own hands, literally, by finding the G-spot” sex educator and writer, Jasmine Lobe, who writes the column, “The J-Spot,” for the Observer, tells We-Vibe. “My sex, relationship, feminist column at the Observer is a play on ‘The G-Spot,’ because my name is Jasmine, so hence the ‘J.’ Get it? While some of us may take the G-spot for granted – if we can find it – there was a time when women’s bodies were just unstudied landscapes and their sexuality a blur.”

For Dr. Whipple, it wasn’t just about studying women’s bodies and how they worked differently from men’s bodies, but how the pleasure was experienced and felt differently as well.

“We can thank Dr. Whipple for her endless research and care,” Lobe says. “She also encourages couples to not have the goal of an orgasm in mind, but to enjoy the overall experience, which is also a very good metaphor for life. So here’s to enjoying the journey and to the G-Spot.”

In 2014, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists inducted Dr. Whipple into the Emeritus Editorial Committee, solidifying her as one of the 50 most influential scientists in the world.