I am so sick of faking orgasms. I don’t know if it’s me or my partner, but regardless of position, penis size, or level of arousal, I, like many women, have a difficult time getting off. If I had a condom for every time I’ve groaned, tightened my grip on his shoulders, and moaned, “Uhhhhnnnn, mmmmm, yeahhh!” in vain, I’d be a Trojan factory.

This lackluster sex life is why I decided to have a shiny, silver, three-and-a-half-inch hypodermic needle, overflowing with collagen, shoved up the frontal wall of my vagina and into the small spongy area, abundant with nerve endings, also known as my G-spot.

Saturday, October 20, 2007, is a day that from now on, I am calling G-Day, where, through a FDA clinical trial, I recieved the medical procedure free. At approximately 11 a.m. I unzipped my jean skirt, stepped out of my favorite peace sign-bearing panties, reclined on the exam table, and put my legs up in the infamous gynecologic stirrups.

After I did some “self research” so I could inform my doctor as to the exact location of my G-spot (it varies from woman to woman), my gynecologist then administered a local anesthesia with the biggest needle I have ever seen in my mere 19 years of life. Now, I consider myself to be relatively comfortable with needles, having had them repeatedly jabbed into my body to produce my six piercings and a tattoo, but when she came at me with the anesthetic needle, I started panicking.

The anesthesia hurt more than the actual shot itself. It kind of felt like a swarm of bees flying way up into my never never land. After I was nice and numb, my doctor then widened the vaginal opening with a cold metal speculum (that thing that looks like a duck beak), inserted the needle, and injected the collagen into my G-spot.

Before I could even register that the needle’s pressure was making me uncomfortable, it was over. My doctor then had me relax on the exam table until I regained feeling down there. It was the most intense 20 minutes of my life. It felt like the pins and needles feeling of a limb waking up, then all of a sudden, it just felt really, really good.

This procedure is called the “G-Shot.” It’s a revolutionary new form of plastic surgery aimed to alleviate women of their sexual woes, bringing an intense, volcanic orgasm closer to their reach than ever before. The G-Shot works by injecting a small amount of collagen, like that used in lip amplification, into a woman’s G-spot, making it swell to the size of a stack of four quarters. The theory is that once the G-spot, usually flat against the vaginal wall, is raised, it’s more easily accessible to penile stimulation during intercourse.

According to the G-Shot’s official website, the pilot study of the injection offered exciting results. Of all the test subjects, 87 percent experienced enhanced sexual arousal and gratification after receiving the injection. While the G-Shot is still an “off label” use of collagen, meaning that collagen is not FDA approved for vaginal enhancement, doctors are still allowed to administer the treatment after a close examination of the patient’s medical history.

Despite its pilot test, the G-Shot is still under scrutiny from medical researchers. Debby Herbenick, a researcher at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University who studies genital health and has done many studies with Viagra, is one such skeptic. “I am open to the thought women may be enhancing their sex lives through medicine, and even surgeries,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle on June 3, 2007. “But as of yet, the research to prove any of it works is just not there.”

David L. Matlock, M.D., a high-profile plastic surgeon in Los Angeles, California pioneered this innovative use of collagen. Dr. Matlock specializes in what he calls “Vaginal Rejuvenation,” and runs the Laser Vaginal Institute of Los Angeles out of a swanky office on Sunset Boulevard. His groundbreaking manipulations of the female sex organ have led to national recognition through appearances on the hit TV show Dr. 90210.

Dr. Matlock has licensed his practice’s name to over 170 doctors world-wide (three of which are in New York state), but only after they paid him $54,500 for a three-day course training them in the art of vaginal tightening, labia reshaping, liposuction of the mons pubis, reduction of skin around the clitoris, as well as the G-Shot. “Women want to have the best sexual experiences possible,” he says. “If they look good down there, they feel good, and if they feel good, the sex is better.” Making sex better for women is what Dr. Matlock’s practice is all about, and the G-Shot is just one way in which he is trying to achieve this goal.

Rosemary Staltare is just one of Dr. Matlock’s faithful customers. The 33-year-old restaurant publicist has had the G-Shot three times at $1,850 a pop, because collagen injections only last four to six months before they start to disintegrate. “It’s like having a mini heartbeat in my crotch,” she told MSNBC. “I get aroused at the most random activities, like my yoga class and running. And when I have sex I easily achieve intense orgasms that feel like huge waves of pleasure that keep lifting me higher and higher.”

Contrary to patient testimony and a few pilot trials, there is still little scientific evidence that supports the effectiveness of the G-Shot; in fact, many medicinal scientists have yet to agree that a woman’s G-spot is even a sexual pleasure powerhouse in the first place.

The G-spot was discovered in the 1950s by German gynecologist, Ernst Graefenberg. She identified a spot on the inside front wall of the vagina, in between the pelvic bone and the cervix, that had a different, more sponge-like texture than the rest of the vaginal wall and appeared to be “extremely erogenous,” according to the G-Shot’s website. Graefenberg did extensive research, leading her to conclude that this area leads to heightened sexual arousal and more powerful orgasms; the area even adopted Graefenberg’s initial, becoming the G-spot.

It’s a long-standing societal joke that men have trouble finding this sensual spot, but often plastic surgeons administering the collagen are in the same position. Plain and simple, the G-spot is just hard to find. The G-Shot aims to make locating it easier for both the woman and the man.

According to Dr. Matlock, some medical professionals doubt the intensity of the G-spot’s nerve endings, because research has shown that some women don’t get aroused from G-spot stimulation, but he adamantly disagrees. “Does God exist?” he asks. “Some people say no, but I know otherwise. The G-spot is absolutely real.”

The existence of the G-spot is in question, and there has been no extensive research of the actual value of the G-Shot. Why, then, are more and more women willing to inject collagen into their most private place? “Curiosity and desperation,” said Dr. Justin Salerno in a June 3, 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. This new procedure has been performed in the U.S. on over 250 women since its inception two years ago.

Karen Roberts, interviewed in the same San Francisco Chronicle article, first got injected when her sex life with her husband began to deteriorate. Upon speaking with Dr. Salerno, she decided to become his first patient to receive the G-Shot. Roberts explains that going to school and work was starting to take a toll on her energy level, and achieving an orgasm was becoming more effort than she could put forth at the end of a long day. “If I could come home like my husband, have sex and feel that release, I’d be one happy woman,” she explains. “But instead, I come home, I spend all this time concentrating, hoping something will happen and I just end up frustrated.”

The G-Shot doesn’t just attract the young and exuberant. Sandy Gart was 56 years old when she became one of Dr. Matlock’s first patients, and according to The San Francisco Chronicle, has returned for three more injections and plans on getting more as long as her health holds out. “It makes me horny,” she confesses, “It makes me want to have sex like I did when I was younger.”

I can see Gart’s point. Even without actual physical contact to the area, the G-Shot leaves a really nice tingling sensation you-know-where. At first it was a little disconcerting, sitting in class trying to switch sitting positions so that I wasn’t continually clenching my teeth and breathing heavily. After a few days of looking like a drug addict suffering from withdrawal, I found that Indian style was the best way to sit. Luckily, the only major public mishaps have come from a few Pilates classes, and one time when I was on the elliptical in Alumni.

This fervent sex drive is what Dr. Matlock says is the reason why more than 60 percent of his patients return after their first injection. He is adamant it works, but not as a cure for sexual dysfunction, just as a sexual enhancement, like Viagra for men. He claims the lack of research on the G-Shot by his peers is due to a “gender-based hypocrisy” in medical research. “Women have been left behind when it comes to sexual pleasure,” he says. “If this were a male problem, they’d call it serious research and approve it, just like Viagra.”

Roberts agrees with Dr. Matlock’s gender-based theory and believes, after receiving her injection, that the G-Shot could be the answer to create an even sexual playing field once and for all. Just three days after her injection Roberts said that she could reach a “steamy climax within minutes.” “Just like a man,” she finished.

In the end, the decision to get pumped full of collagen is really in the hands of the vagina possessor. The prospective patient needs to take into account that it’s not FDA approved, it’s not scientifically proven, and the G-spot might not even exist.

Now, roughly a week after my procedure, the intense tingling feeling has mostly subsided, and I can sit in class normally again. And while I have yet to experiment with the, ahem, actual use of the shot, I can tell from certain physical instances that when that time comes, it will be more than memorable. Plus, I just really like walking around like I have a dirty little secret.

And let’s just say, I suddenly don’t mind those overcrowded UB Stampede rides anymore, either.