To Squirt or not to Squirt: Is That Really the Question?

I can’t recall the first time I heard about squirting. But I certainly remember the night my mother, a wee tipsy beside the fireplace one holiday season, told me that she was a squirter and would sometimes even hit the ceiling. I don’t know if she remembers telling me this, but I will never forget it: “Oh hunny, you’ll see – your aunt does it too. It runs in the family… it’ll hit you around 25”.

Always the precocious one, it actually hit me around 23, but I had a little help. I have been a webcam girl since I was 18, performing live sexy shows via the Internet in real-time for pay-by-the-minute customers. One gentleman always tried to insist he could teach me to squirt, and bought many VIP shows to try and explain this mysterious art to me. Once I had obtained a G-Wand, a toy specially made for hitting the G-Spot, we went at it again, and this time, I blew my own mind.

I let the client think he had directed and controlled the whole thing, but if you pay close attention to your own body, its sensations and responses, you are really the best teacher you could ever have. The pounding at my G-Spot with the curved toy led me to feel like I was swelling up inside, and when I couldn’t tell if I should squeeze tight or let go, I pulled the toy out and gushed all over the place. But before I get too far into the hydraulics, let’s talk about ‘the debate’.

First, let’s define it – squirting, or ‘female ejaculation’, is when you experience a trickling or gushing of fluid from and around the urethra, before or while cumming. It is not a fluid from the vagina itself but rather the ‘para-urethral’ tissue. But here is where the debate begins – isn’t it just pee?

In my own tests, I have squirted and then gone to the washroom and peed. Similarly, I have peed and then squirted shortly after my bladder was voided, so I am confident that while maybe some urine can come out with your squirt juices, you are not just taking a big pee on the bed. Women have what is called a ‘urethral sponge’ which engorges with blood when we are aroused, compressing the urethra to prevent urination during sex.

This is why it is actually very hard to urinate while excited, when the clitoris and surrounding tissue is erect. Yes, the clit is a long organ, about 4 inches on average but most of which resides inside the body. And, like a penis, it engorges with blood and gets harder when we are aroused. Ask a guy if he can pee when he’s hard and he’ll certainly tell you it’s a difficult feat that often involves jamming your cock under the rim of the toilet seat and praying you won’t piss all over the bathroom.

The studies that have been done on female ejaculation are few, and often have divergent research questions, methodologies, and small sample sizes, so it is difficult to make sense of the conflicting data. This is a common issue when it comes to studies of women’s sexuality. There is often little interest in, scarce funding for, and very biased approaches to discovering the specifics of female sexual response. We’re left with nothing but a big guessing game. 

It saddens me that the scientific community continues to be so sexist, but what concerns me even more is – if it feels good, why do we have to study it? Why must we constantly de-mystify the body in order to pin down, classify and define it? And who is to tell us we need to know the ‘why’ of squirting, or if it’s ‘real’, if it’s normal or abnormal? The pathologization of various sexual responses, pleasures and outcomes is historically contingent, and changes over time.

What used to be ‘abnormal’ – such as clitoral orgasms in Freud’s day, or homosexuality until it was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1973 – are now considered ‘normal’. The body does not speak one clear, ahistorical truth but rather is interpreted differently at different times. That said, why do we need to confer anatomic credibility to legitimize our genuinely pleasurable sexual experiences? While I am indeed curious about the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of what my body does when I have a ‘squirt-gasm’ (as I fondly call them), the larger question for me is – why does the ‘why’ matter?

That said, what I can gather from the mixed data is that when the G-Spot is touched (that ridge of spongy tissue just inside the vaginal wall, kind of ‘behind’ the clitoris so that if you hook your fingers inside yourself like you were using your pubic bone as a handle, you would hit the area) the ‘Skene’s glands’ are stimulated from the inside and swell up with a fluid.

These are ducts around the urethra, also called para-urethral or periurethral glands, and are found in the general area of the vulva below the actual urethra and are connected to the above mentioned urethral sponge. The Skene’s glands are very similar to the male prostate, and so are often referred to as the female prostate. When it reaches saturation a fluid, very biochemically similar to the fluid excreted by the stimulated male prostate, comes out.

And thus, we have squirt! This reminds us that men’s and women’s genitals are actually not as different as we tend to think. In fact, at one point they were assumed to be exactly the same, just pulled out or pushed in. This ‘one-sex system’ was the accepted scientific stance prior the 18^th century, which held that there was only one sex, and that women simply had an inverse version of male genitals.

The insistence on two distinct, indeed, opposite sexes, gained scientific ground only when it became politically useful to do so (See Thomas Laqueur’s Making Sex for more on this). Later scientific study has given us the common understanding that in the womb, the fetus’s genitals always start to form in the same way, and take on different characteristics depending on the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, which then influences what hormones are produced by the gonads, igniting different sexual characteristic developments.

All to say there have been and continue to be various arguments for the fact that men and women are not all that different below the belt, and thus we can talk about a ‘female prostate’ and ‘female ejaculation’ (notice how the male gender is presumed, just like when we say a ‘female cop’ or ‘female soldier’) and really we are discussing a similar physiological reaction from similar body parts. So basically, we play around with our naughty bits, they get engorged, and in certain cases, fluids squirt out.

But you know what’s more fun that talking about glands and ducts and secretions? (I know, I am so hot right now just thinking about it) Actually doing it!

Over the years I have squirted more times than I can count, as it is a hot commodity online when I do my webcam shows. On a side note, I would highly recommend the Luv Linen as a product to absorb all that fluid, because it can be pretty damn messy.

Luv Linens can absorb a LOT and go right into the wash, which is handy as the wet sheets can get a little smelly afterwards. Of course, some women I know only let out a little trickle of juice, but it’s good to be prepared. Strangely enough, I have never squirted in my ‘real’ sex life – I think that the pressure of a partner present, the underlying anxiety about ruining their bed for the night, and a general preference for and habit of doing it myself makes it harder to pull off in the heat of the moment. I have had partners make me squirt on camera when shooting sexy movies, so many I just need a camera rolling, who knows?

But all told, I like to use fingers or a thin, hard toy (glass dildos and g-wands work great). I start to push pressure, in a rhythmic thumping, against the front inner wall of my vagina – almost like I were trying to hit the back of my clit. As I am putting pressure in this area, I can feel the walls around start to swell up; sometimes, if I am using my fingers, it actually becomes difficult to keep moving them, as if they get locked in place by how tight things get. A pressure will build and build, and as I feel like I might pee, I pull out. There is a strange mixture of both a pushing out and letting go sensation.

Sometimes I will start to squirt even as I am still pushing into myself, and the fluid drips and runs down my fingers and sprays around. It is a very sexy feeling for me now, to see and feel all of this juice pouring out of me, but at first I was much more ambivalent about it. Some partners may feel differently about it.

While I don’t think we should ever need to apologize for the form our pleasure takes (provided everything is consensual), I think it is polite to warn your partner before you let go – in the same way it is common courtesy to give a head’s up before splooging in someone’s eye.

And speaking of partners: I know some folks pride themselves on ‘making girl’s squirt’ (making us, like we have no say or role in the matter!) but I’d like to offer a word of warning.

I find it a drag anytime a partner treats you like a Rubik’s cube that need only be twisted and turned in a certain way to achieve some predetermined outcome (often implying that you are ‘broken’ when they don’t get the outcome they expected). I think if there were one resounding rule about sex, it would be this: everyone is different.

The pressure of a situation that is set out like an obstacle course that needs to be run, or a challenge that needs to be defeated, can be a total ego-crush for everyone involved. If you have an awesome, comfortable, patient partner you are super lucky and should definitely experiment together. But if you are not so sure that is the case, try it out a bit on your own (with some towels and tissue handy!) before you place it on the table as a joint project. Or just practice until you have it down perfectly and surprise the hell out of them on their birthday!

At first, I never felt like I was having an orgasm when I squirted. Maybe some of my fellow squirters can relate, but it feels very different than, say, a clitorally induced orgasm with a vibrator, which also feels different than an orgasm when I am being penetrated. Eventually, I simply realized I enjoyed the feeling, and didn’t need to waste time labeling it as a ‘real’ orgasm or not.

Like I said earlier, I think the less time we spend worrying about classifying and codifying things, the more time we reserve for playful experimentation, innovation, and enjoyment. Hell, even if I am just peeing my pants, I like it!

Ava Mir-Ausziehen / Sssh.com

Note: The Wikipedia entry on squirting is actually very dense and informative, and if you are curious I encourage you to check it out:  HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_ejaculation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_ejaculation

Photo source: https://www.freepik.com/premium-photo/bordeaux-wine-glass-white-background-concept-beverages-alcohol_4139932.htm#page=1&query=squirt&position=42