on certain ejected fluids
Some years ago I read Bonk: the curious coupling of sex and science, by the popular science writer Mary Roach, having read one of her previous books (Stiff – and no, it wasn’t because I thought it’d be about sex), and of course I found it compelling, but I recall being disappointed at the lack of information in some areas, one of which has come back to me thanks to a YouTube video recently watched. The colloquial term is ‘squirting’, sometimes also referred to as female ejaculation. What’s that about, and is it just urine, with a few womanly additives? That’s what I want to explore today.
So according to popular YouTuber Rena Malik MD, squirting is ‘the emission of fluid from the urethra, during sexual arousal or orgasm, that occurs in some women’. The urethra (I’m writing as a none too sexually experienced male here) is the tube through which urine from the bladder leaves the body, and it ranges in length from about 3.8cm in women to about 20cm in men, and most of that male length is external, and is sometimes called the penis. Malik also educates me about the Skene’s gland. These glands are located ‘around and beneath the urethra and are homologous to the male prostate gland’, so these different glands start to emerge in embryonic development. Again according to Malik ‘the theory is that during sexual arousal these Skene’s glands fill with fluid, then during orgasm the pelvic floor muscles contract, putting pressure on the spongy tissues of the urethra’, causing fluid to be ejected. The question again is, what precisely does this fluid consist of? And one ‘issue’, if you can call it that, is that if it’s just pee, with a few additives, why don’t men pee when their urethra/penis is aroused or manipulated? And we must thank the universe that they don’t.
There appears to be more mystery around these matters than there should be, given their centrality to a sexually satisfying and mind-expanding life. So what do we know?
This, I’m finding, isn’t an easy topic to research. I mentioned female ejaculation, which Malik describes as something quite separate from squirting, while others seem to disagree. A 2015 paper, ‘Nature and origin of “squirting” in female sexuality’, the abstract of which is posted on PubMed, concludes with this:
The present data based on ultrasonographic bladder monitoring and biochemical analyses indicate that squirting is essentially the involuntary emission of urine during sexual activity, although a marginal contribution of prostatic secretions to the emitted fluid often exists.
This accords with my guess, and it also, perhaps, provides a clue to why it’s an exclusively female experience. And here I have to admit that my research comes from viewing Japanese sex videos, in which women are induced to squirt by manual manipulation, often vigorous, of the upper wall of the vagina, near where both the clitoris and the urethral opening sit. It’s not hard to imagine that such vigorous pressure, on both the urethra and the clitoris, by a male or female sex performer with savour faire, can produce the required result. And clearly, males just aren’t anatomically open to such an experience. And of course it doesn’t always require manual manipulation, as my scientific researches have found. Some women are able to squirt through standard sexual intercourse, or by the use of a vibrator or some such device. And presumably some are not. After all, every set of female and male genitalia is as anatomically unique as is every human face. We’re just not looking closely enough!
Now, in inquiring into this, I’ve found commentators claiming that ‘it’s definitely not urine’. They must surely be going not by the look of the fluid – it certainly looks like pee – but by smell and, dare I say, taste. I’ve never tried the taste test myself, and I must admit to being slightly averse to sniffing pee, but I do know that pee can come in slightly different colours and this is obviously due to variations in its chemical composition due to diet, illness and the like. And it would seem obvious to me that ‘squirt’ varies similarly, but also due to the ‘marginal contribution of prostatic secretions’ above-mentioned.
So, are squirting and female ejaculation the same things? Off the top of my head I would say it’s just semantics. An ejaculate (noun) is, arguably, something you ejaculate (verb). It could be vomit, or blood, or, common amongst dictatorial types, verbal diarrhoea. And so I disagree with Dr Malik when she says that ‘ejaculation and squirting are two different things’, though I think she’s trying to make the distinction between what women sometimes release during sex/masturbation, and the semen released by men. In fact she’s fallen for the patriarchal myth, or just the patriarchal way of putting things, that only males ejaculate. Then again, maybe it’s me that’s trying to preserve the term in its broadest sense. Most dictionaries define ejaculation specifically in terms of semen, and describe its broader use as ‘dated’. So I don’t know if I’m an old fuddy-duddy or a post-modern feminist seeking renovation of a patriarchalised term. Enfin, je m’en fous de tout ça!
One more point. It’s often claimed that squirting is a more or less involuntary occurrence. It’s said to happen unexpectedly, causing a degree of shock and embarrassment. Women just can’t control themselves, as we all know, while men ejaculate by means of freely-willed effort. It almost takes us back to the days of Aristotle – men are the seed-bearers, women the mere receptacle. It’s enough to make me piss myself laughing.
All in all this is a most stimulating topic. I might try to get a handle on the g-spot next, so to speak.
Reference
Mary Roach, Bonk: the curious coupling of sex and science, 2008
Stephen Jay Gould, ‘Male nipples and clitoral ripples’, in Bully for brontosaurus, 1991
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