Surprising male G-spot found in most detailed study of the penis yet

The most detailed neuroanatomical study of the penis to date has revealed that its primary erogenous zone is the frenular delta, an area that has long been left out of anatomy textbooks and surgical training. The triangular-shaped area is located on the ventral side, or underside of the penis, where the head meets the shaft, and can be damaged by circumcision.

“Although this may seem obvious to anyone sensitive to the sensations of their penis during sexual activity, our work scientifically validates the existence of a ventral anatomical region of the penis that serves as a center of sexual sensation,” write the authors of the study, led by Alfonso Cepeda-Emiliani of the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Based on this scientific validation, the frenular delta should be considered the “male G-spot” of the penis, says Eric Chung of the University of Queensland in Australia and president-elect of the International Society of Sexual Medicine, who was not involved in the study. “It’s one of the nicest places for male sexual stimulation.”

Cepeda-Emiliani and colleagues painstakingly mapped the sensory nerves of 14 cadaver penises from donors who died between the ages of 45 and 96. To do this, they cut the penises into thin sections, each a few micrometers thick, and added special dyes that bonded to the nerves. The sections were then examined under a microscope.

In anatomy textbooks and online sex guides, it is generally said that the primary site of male genital sensation is the glans, the bulbous head of the penis. But Cepeda-Emiliani’s team found evidence that the frenular delta is more sensitive, because it contains a higher density of nerve endings.

They also discovered that the frenular delta contains the highest concentration of sensory corpuscles, specialized touch receptors made up of bundles of nerve endings. These corpuscles are densely clustered in groups of up to 17 in the frenular delta, while in the glans they are isolated and scattered. Sensory corpuscles in the frenular delta include the Krause corpuscles, which were previously discovered to detect the tiny vibrations that travel through the genitals when skin rubs against skin and provide sexual pleasure.

The frenular delta was named by Ken McGrath of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand in 2001. He called it delta because of its triangular shape, which is located between the V-shaped wings of the glans, below the penis. At its end is the frenulum, a small bridge of skin that connects the foreskin to the penis. McGrath was the first to call the frenular delta the male G-spot, because it is a pleasure zone reminiscent of the female G-spot, but the terminology did not catch on.

The latest study supports the subjective experiences of those for whom stimulation of this so-called G-spot generates “intensely pleasurable and highly specialized sensations,” Cepeda-Emiliani and colleagues write. The fact that it has attracted so little interest in the past “underscores persistent blind spots in sexual medicine and urology,” they add.

Doctors who perform circumcisions should be aware of the nerve-rich frenular delta because some techniques make incisions in the area to remove the foreskin, they say. This can affect its complex nerve networks and reduce sexual sensations if the incisions are deep and the entire frenulum is removed, rather than leaving part or all of it in place.

Kesley Pedler from Port Macquarie Base Hospital in Australia says she was not told about the frenular delta and its special nerves during her surgical training. “The frenular delta is not mentioned in the most reputable urologic surgical anatomy textbooks, even in the most recent editions,” she says. Pedler only performs circumcisions when they are medically necessary, such as when the foreskin is too tight, but he says that “now that we know about this nerve area, it is even more important to only do these operations when absolutely indicated.”

Only a small proportion of male babies are voluntarily circumcised in the United Kingdom and Australia, but around half undergo this procedure in the United States. Whether this changes or lessens sexual sensation later is controversial.

A large study in Belgium found that uncircumcised men reported more sexual pleasure from stimulation of their frenular delta than circumcised men. On the other hand, a US investigation found no difference in orgasm quality between circumcised and uncircumcised individuals, suggesting that the circumcised penis may have ways of compensating for any nerve disruption in the frenular delta region.

The female G-spot has also struggled to gain widespread acceptance among doctors, with some doctors denying its existence. Indeed, no clear clusters of nerves or sensory corpuscles were found in their supposed locations in the vaginas of cadavers. But most women surveyed report having an erogenous zone located a few centimeters inside the vagina, along the front wall. Ultrasound studies have revealed that during sexual arousal, the nerve-rich inner part of the clitoris becomes engorged and presses against the vaginal wall, which may explain G-spot sensitivity.

Cepeda-Emiliani and her colleagues say they are currently conducting a similar in-depth study on the vaginas and clitorises of cadavers.