A young woman dialled Vancouver gynecologist Roy Jackson from Boston, confessing the details of her mediocre sex life: Frequent and loving, she said, but not enough orgasms.
Soon the entrepreneur, in her late 20s, lay in Dr. Jackson's clinic. Using a syringe, he pumped a small dose of collagen into her Grafenberg spot, or G spot, doubling its size to the diameter of a quarter.
Just like that, Dr. Jackson said, a fabled and elusive trigger of the female orgasm - located behind the pubic bone and accessible through the anterior wall of the vagina, according to sexologists - had become a much easier target.
The injection - called the G-Shot, or G spot amplification, and now available at clinics in Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto at a cost of about $1,000 apiece - is the latest quick fix promising sexual enhancement for women. Driven by what some plastic surgeons say is increasing demand from women, doctors and pharmaceuticals companies are rushing to produce new creams, supplements, pills and vaginal surgeries to amplify female arousal.
The two-dozen women who have had the G-Shot in his office "have been very happy with the outcome," says Dr. Jackson, a provider for the past 18 months.
But if the injection sounds like the antidote to an age-old problem, some academics and sexologists are concerned that it's being administered to women without any credible evidence that it works. Others oppose the idea that great sex can be obtained with a single pill or shot.
The G-Shot was patented in 2002 by David Matlock, a gynecologist and plastic surgeon in Los Angeles. Since then he has given the shot to 300 women at his clinic on Sunset Boulevard. Most patients are in their late 20s and 30s, he says, and looking to "enhance" their sex lives.
Dr. Matlock has shipped his trademarked G-Shot kits to 36 doctors in recent years, including Dr. Jackson. In the past few months, Dr. Matlock has begun "taking it to the masses," he says, shipping his kits to 30 more doctors as far away as Japan and South Africa.
In June, a kit containing a 30-minute instructional video, collagen doses approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and brochures arrived at the Winnipeg office of Anthony Lockwood. The plastic surgeon spends most of his business week augmenting breasts. On Fridays, he operates on vaginas; three each week, he says.
So far, only two "curious" women in their 30s have received the G-Shot, but Dr. Lockwood expects demand to grow as more women hear about it.
"I think times have changed," he says. "These gals ... know what they want and expect to get it."
Dr. Lockwood is one of several plastic surgeons who say there is a growing demand for vaginal enhancement - for both appearance and function.
Surgeries that shorten or plump labias, tighten vaginal muscles, shrink the skin covering the clitoris and reconstruct hymens have all become available in Canada in recent years. Dr. Lockwood says the growth is so steep that he hopes to make gynecological services the largest portion of his practice.
While the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons does not keep statistics on what surgeries are performed, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates 793 women had surgery on their genitals in 2005, the first year the society kept track. Last year, the number rose to 1,030.
Some women seek so-called "designer vaginas." Others, whose inner labia extends beyond the outer lips, pay for labiaplasties to ease discomfort.
But desire for better sex drives most women who opt for the G-Shot or vaginal tightening procedures, often after childbirth, said Dr. Jackson.
"The women are doing it for themselves as opposed to for their partners," he said. "I don't want to feel that they have a gun to their head."
