Female ejaculation

What is female ejaculation?

Female ejaculation (Dutch: vrouwelijke ejaculatie) is the release of a small amount of thick, milky fluid from the Skene’s glands, two little glands around the urethra that are also called the female prostate. It happens during or just before an orgasm. It is something other than squirting, even though in everyday use the words get badly mixed up.

Female ejaculation or squirting?

This is the heart of the confusion, and science helps here. The encyclopedia describes female ejaculation as the release of fluid from the Skene’s gland during or before an orgasm, a small amount of thick, whitish fluid with prostate-specific substances. Squirting is a different phenomenon: a large amount of clear fluid that turns out to be largely diluted urine from the bladder. The medically reviewed explanation at Clue puts the numbers side by side: female ejaculation is about one milliliter of milky fluid, squirting tens to hundreds of milliliters of clear fluid.

What the research showed

For a long time it was a mystery. The 2015 study by Samuel Salama and colleagues in the Journal of Sexual Medicine used ultrasound and saw that the bladder filled during arousal and emptied at the moment of the release. In two of the seven women the fluid was chemically identical to urine, in the other five it contained PSA, the sign of a contribution from the Skene’s glands. In other words: some women release a mixture. That partly explains why the two terms get mixed up so easily. It is, by the way, a surprisingly poorly studied subject: the studies are small, and estimates of how often women ejaculate or squirt vary widely. What is clear is that it happens in some women and not in others, without saying anything about the quality of the sex.

The Skene’s glands and the G-spot

Where it comes from explains a lot. The Skene’s glands lie around the urethra, and the urethra runs just behind the front wall of the vagina, exactly where many people feel the G-spot. It is no coincidence that female ejaculation is often linked to stimulation of that front wall. Because the glands produce substances that resemble those from the male prostate, some researchers also speak of the female prostate. That the area is sensitive in one person and barely so in another is simply part of it: bodies differ, and there is no version that is “right”. For one person that front wall is a key to a lot of pleasure, for another a spot like any other.

Why it does not matter whether “it” is pee

There is a lot of shame around this subject, usually undeserved. Yes, squirting contains urine, and no, that does not make it dirty or wrong. It happens at high arousal, outside your control, and it says nothing about hygiene or about how good the sex was. The distinction between ejaculation and squirting is scientifically interesting, but in bed it barely matters. What your body does, it does; there is no right or wrong version.

What female ejaculation is not

“A real orgasm comes with ejaculation or squirting.” Nonsense. Most women do not ejaculate or squirt, and their orgasms are exactly as real. It is a phenomenon that belongs to some women and not others, nothing more.

“If you can do it, you are better at sex.” Also not true. It is not a skill and not an achievement. Porn has turned it into a kind of trick, but in real life it is simply something your body does or does not do.

What I see of it myself

There is a lot of pressure around this subject, mostly from porn, and I see it come back in my work as a gigolo. Women sometimes think they have to squirt to be “doing well”, or feel ashamed when it happens. Both a shame. I never chase it; it is not a goal and not a scoreboard. If it happens, that is lovely and there is nothing to be embarrassed about. If it does not happen, you are missing nothing at all. The only thing that counts is whether it feels good, and that is completely separate from how much fluid is released. Anyone who does want to explore it during an intimate togetherness is helped most by relaxation and patience, not by aiming hard at it; tension is exactly what holds it back.

Further reading

• Squirting goes deeper into the other, watery phenomenon.
• G-spot lies close to the Skene’s glands and is often linked to it.
• Female ejaculation and squirting from Clue explains the difference clearly.

Sources

• Female ejaculation. Wikipedia. Shows that female ejaculation is the release of a small amount of thick, whitish fluid from the Skene’s gland with prostate-specific substances, and that squirting is a different phenomenon with a lot of clear fluid from the bladder.
• Female ejaculation and squirting. Medically reviewed by Jared Falcke, MD, Clue. Shows that female ejaculation is about one milliliter of thick, milky fluid from the paraurethral glands with PSA and glucose, and squirting tens to hundreds of milliliters of clear fluid from the bladder.

Related terms

• Squirting. The watery phenomenon that is often confused with female ejaculation.
• G-spot. The zone that lies close to the Skene’s glands.
• Sexual response cycle. The larger model in which ejaculation falls around the orgasm.