“I never imagined I would get fillers, let alone in my fanny,” says Emily. The 32-year-old communications officer recently got a procedure known as a ‘G-shot’. G-shots are a shot of filler (or hyaluronic acid) just like the kind 11 per cent of us have had in our lips, cheeks or elsewhere in our faces. But they’re not designed for beauty enhancement; they exist to make sex more pleasurable. Injected into the G-spot (that’s part of your anterior vaginal wall, about two-thirds up if you’re lying on your back), it causes the zone to swell in size and make for easier targeting during penetrative sex. It also makes it more sensitive, so penetration can feel more intense. It lasts around six months before a top-up is required, and will set you back around £1,200 per procedure.

“It’s like giving your G-spot a little boost to help it become more sensitive and responsive during intimate moments,” Limor Weinberg, an aesthetician and founder of The Clinic USA, explains.

Emily admits that it’s a “pretty awkward procedure to lie there and get done every nine months” but she’s happy with the effect on her sex life. She got it because she saw that it could help women enjoy penetrative sex, which was something she was “super insecure” about. “Not enjoying [penetrative sex] was starting to have a negative effect on my relationship. Now that I have the G-shot I really enjoy sex. It was life-changing for me.”

There’s been a huge surge in interest for G-shots like Emily had, with Weinberg adding that many clinics are reporting a 30-50 per cent increase in enquiries over the past year alone. They were originally administered on older women in peri or full menopause seeking solutions for hormonal changes and reduced lubrication, Weinberg explains. But there’s been a notable rise in interest among all women – many as young as 20 years old. “Patients are drawn to its potential to address difficulties with arousal or orgasm, or simply to spice things up in their intimate lives,” she adds.

But it’s not just G-shots getting an influx of enquiries on the sexual enhancement market. If you’re looking to improve anal sex, there’s a treatment for that, too. Enter: Holetox. It’s essentially anal Botox, a treatment that relaxes both the internal and external anal sphincters. Chris Bustamante, founder of Lushful Aesthetics explains, “Holetox can help heal chronic anal fissures, haemorrhoids, post-surgical recovery, and chronic anal spasms” so it can be used therapeutically.

“Recreationally, though, it also makes anal penetration – whether with toys or a penis – easier and more enjoyable,” he adds, which may be why he’s received a staggering 200 per cent increase in enquiries for Holetox in the last year alone. He tells Dazed he caters to a varied demographic in offering Holetox, but usually for different reasons. For many queer men, for instance, Holetox means alleviating discomfort or tightness associated with bottoming, while for women, Holetox is becoming a means to enhance anal sex experiences that were previously challenging or painful.

It’s something 37-year-old Phillip felt he “needed to get his hands on straight away” when he heard about it through a friend. The brand manager tells Dazed, “I was a top but I wanted to be a switch, I wasn’t getting enjoyment out of bottoming. I was so tight it was ridiculous. A mutual friend with the same problem got Holetox and it changed his sex life completely, so I got it too.” Since then, Phillip has had a better time bottoming for anal sex. “I’m not painfully tight any more and I’ve been able to bottom with sexual partners – that’s not something I ever thought I’d get to do.”

Societal ideas tell us that penetrative sex is the ultimate ‘real’ sex, yet this doesn’t line up with how a lot of people experience the most pleasure in sex

29-year-old Chelsea, a flight attendant, also got Holetox after a year of “anal being off the cards since my partner’s penis is huge”. Anal sex was something they both wanted to explore. “But we always had to abort the mission as soon as we tried entering,” she says, laughing. Since her friend is an aesthetician, she was able to try Holetox free of charge. “With Holetox I can have much better anal sex experiences. He can actually get it in for one thing, but it also feels amazing. I would definitely pay for it in the future,” she says.

Clearly, these procedures can have a profound impact on people’s confidence and enjoyment in their sex lives and the combined rise in requests for them demonstrates a need. But this uptick in procedures demonstrates an over-prioritisation of penetration in our sex lives. Societal ideas around sex tell us that penetrative sex is the ultimate “real” sex, while everything else is demoted to “foreplay” or “doing bits”. We call penetrative sex “going all the way” for a reason.

Yet this doesn’t line up with how a lot of people experience the most pleasure in sex. Studies reveal that non-penetrative acts such as clitoral stimulation are far more likely to lead to orgasm for women than penetrative sex. Among queer couples, particularly lesbian women, research suggests they report the highest levels of sexual satisfaction specifically because their sexual experiences often include a wider variety of non-penetrative activities, such as oral sex, nipple play and clitoris stimulation. Yet, 80 per cent of people see the definition of “sex” as penetration. Our sexual realities not lining up with societal expectations leave many of us feeling left behind.

Isabelle Uren, a sexologist at Bedbible tells Dazed that procedures like G-spot filler and Holetox perpetuate unrealistic expectations for sex. “Cultural scripts continue to prioritise penetrative sex over other forms of intimacy, creating pressure to perform in a way that may not align with individual preferences or needs,” she explains. Uren says that this is partly because, historically, sex was tied to procreation rather than pleasure, a view that marginalised LGBTQ+ relationships and reinforced the idea that penis-in-vagina intercourse is the ultimate goal. The lack of comprehensive sex education also doesn’t help, as it rarely emphasises alternatives to penetration.

Chelsea says she simply wants to have “as many sexual experiences as possible” and that missing out on anal sex was genuinely annoying for her and something she wanted to fix, so there weren’t any kinds of pressures contributing to her decision to get Holetox. For Phillip and Emily, however, neither had considered having a sex life made up of non-penetrative acts. “It’s not something that even crossed my mind. I hadn’t thought of sex looking any other way [than penis-in-vagina sex],” Emily says.

“I suppose I could have tried other things,” Phillip adds. “But I wanted to be the guy who was down for anything.”

Although these procedures empower people to address sexual concerns in ways that weren’t previously possible, there’s understandable concern that the rise in requests for G-shots and Holetox could stem from these ideas. Rather than exploring other kinds of sex that could work for them, perhaps those who are struggling with gaining pleasure from penetration are going to extreme lengths to fit in, and engage in “normal” sex. And they’re parting ways with a lot of cash in the process.

For those struggling with unsatisfying penetrative experiences, treatments like these may offer relief, but they are not the only solution. Penetration isn’t actually a necessary item on your sexual menu – and if you don’t enjoy it, the best answer could not be in a cosmetic procedure, but in exploring different kinds of sex.