Member Spotlight
Beverly Whipple, PhD, RN, FAAN
Professor Emerita at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Dr. Whipple has a BS in Nursing from Wagner College, a Masters in Counseling, a Masters in Nursing, and a PhD in Psychobiology, with a major in Neurophysiology, from Rutgers University.
Dr. Whipple is an AASECT certified sexuality educator and sexuali-ty counselor. She is the co-author of the international best-seller, The G Spot and Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality, which has been translated into 19 languages and was re-published as a Classic 23 years later in 2005. Her other co-authored books are: Safe Encounters: How Women can say Yes to Pleasure and No to Unsafe Sex; Smart Women, Strong Bones; Outwitting Osteoporo-sis; The Science of Orgasm (2006); and The Orgasm Answer Guide (2010). Dr. Whipple has appeared on over 350 radio and TV programs and has been featured in many magazines. She has delivered over 800 talks and keynote speeches, and published over 170 research articles and book chapters.
She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her research. In 1982 and 1983 The Philadelphia Magazine named her one of the People to Watch. She received the NJ State Nurses’ Association Award for Excellence in Re-search. From the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), she has received the Hugo Beigel Research Award for research excellence and the best article published in the Journal of Sex Research, the Distinguished Scien-tific Achievement Award, the Public Service Award, the Kinsey Award, and the Bullough Award for the most distin-guished book written in 2006. In addition, she has received the Professional Standard of Excellence Award and the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). She received the Patty Brisban Award of Excellence for Women's Health and Women's Sexual Health and the Diva Award from the New Jersey Institute of Nursing. She is also a Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. The New Scientist named her one of the 50 most influ-ential scientists in the world for their 50th anniversary in 2006, one of only 5 women so named and the only person from the field of sexual health.
In June 2011 she received the Gold Medal from the World Association for Sexual Health at their World Congress in Glasgow, Scotland. This was awarded to Dr. Whipple for her research contributions to the field of sexual health.
Her concern with women's health derives naturally from her over forty years of helping women to feel better about themselves, as a nurse, a nurse educator, and researcher. Her research focuses mainly on women's health issues and the sexual physiology of women. She has validated, in her human physiology laboratory, sexual responses of wom-en, including fMRI's of the brain during orgasm, from various forms of self-stimulation including imagery alone. Some of the responses that she has documented are the re-discovery and naming (with Dr. John Perry) of the Grafenberg spot or G spot, the analysis of the fluid expelled during female ejaculation, orgasm in women from imagery alone (no touching of the body), and orgasm in women with complete spinal cord injury. She and her colleagues have identified four nerve pathways that are involved in women's sexual responses, the pudendal, the pelvic, the hypogastric and the vagus nerves. For her PhD she investigated the adaptive significance of the area of the G spot, that is the strong analgesic effect from stimulation of this area, which she documented, also occurs naturally during labor and child-birth.
She is a member of most of the professional sexuality organizations. She joined SSSS, AASECT and EAST, which later became SSTAR, in the 1970's. She has given back to the professional organizations for their support of her research by being on the Board of SSSS for over 9 years and being President of SSSS from 2002-2003. She was on the Board of AASECT for 9 years and was the President of AASECT from 1998-2000. As of this time, she is the only person who has served as the President of both SSSS and AASECT. She was on the Executive Committee of the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) for 12 years and was the Vice President from 2001-2005 and the Secretary General/Treasurer from 2005-2009. She was on the Board of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (ISSWSH) from 2002-2004. She has also served for many years on the Board of the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexu-ality (FSSS) and is now an Honorary Member of the Board of FSSS.. She was a founding member of the North Ameri-can Federation of Sexuality Organizations (NAFSO).
Dr. Whipple is a member of a number of Honor Societies and received the Alumni Achievement Award in 1983 and was named an Alumni Fellow in 2007 by Wagner College.
In terms of SSSS, she has attended most of the annual meetings since the 1970's and enjoys sharing time with her colleagues and hearing the newest research being presented. She also finds it stimulating to discuss research ideas with her SSSS colleagues. She has presented her research at most of the SSSS meetings and still remembers her first research presentation to SSSS in Dallas, Texas in 1980 where she and John Perry presented their findings about the Grafenberg spot and female ejaculation. They write about this presentation in the first chapter of The G spot and Other Discoveries about Human Sexuality.
Dr. Whipple hopes that SSSS will continue to support researchers, young and older, and will continue to provide a forum for dissemination of research and for exchange of research ideas.