London - It has proved frustratingly elusive for more than 70 years, but scientists say they have finally worked out why men can’t find the "G-spot" – it isn’t there.
Doctors say there’s no proof women have a small, super-sensitive region that could create particularly powerful orgasms when aroused.
The erogenous zone was named after German gynaecologist Ernst Gräfenberg, who first suggested the existence of a dense network of nerve endings in the 1950s. But a new study of 17 middle-aged women has found no evidence of such a spot, but "a fairly even distribution" of nerves instead.
Writing in the International Urogynaecology Journal a team of medics from Istanbul said the "anatomical evidence for the presence of the G spot" was "scant, insufficient and weak".
Although Dr Gräfenberg – who also invented the IUD coil contraceptive – suggested the existence of the zone, he was too modest to name it after himself.
The expression was coined by American sexologists in the 1980s and quickly gained popularity – as well as spawning a new way of marketing sex toys and treatments.
Even though it had been discussed for decades, the first evidence for the existence of the G-spot came just eight years ago, following the examination of a single 83-year-old woman.
The man who published that discovery subsequently invented a procedure dubbed a "G-spotplasty" intended to increase sexual satisfaction, despite scepticism from some colleagues.
Although G-spot therapies have become a multimillion-dollar business, Devan Stahl, from Michigan State University, has said there is "virtually no evidence that these therapies work outside a placebo effect".
And those who believe the G-spot is a myth say the notion makes women feel needlessly insecure. A survey for Cosmopolitan magazine found half of women feel inadequate or frustrated feeling others can orgasm in a way they can’t.
It also found that 22% of men said finding the woman’s G-spot is the number one goal of sex.
Since the 2012 report, several other studies have failed to produce conclusive evidence a single G-spot exists.
Barry Komisaruk, from Rutgers University in New Jersey, who led one study, said: "It’s not like pushing an elevator button or a light switch. It’s not a single thing."