Plasseks

What is plasseks?

Plasseks is the Dutch word for sexual play with urine, in whatever form. The scene usually calls it watersports in English, and the clinical term is urolagnia. It covers peeing on someone, being peed on, watching, and holding it in until just before things go wrong. Plasseks is broader than a golden shower, which names a single act.

What people mean when they say plasseks

Four different things, and that is exactly why the word causes such confusion.

Someone who says she likes plasseks might mean she wants to be peed on, that she wants to pee on someone else, that she only wants to watch, or that what she is after is the strain of holding it in too long. That last form has almost nothing to do with liquid and everything to do with control.

An ordinary conversation about this starts with the form, then. “I find plasseks exciting” says so little that it barely says anything, and two people who mean different forms only find out under the shower.

What does and does not travel through urine

Less than the story wants, and not nothing.

The biggest fear is the oldest one. The RIVM’s LCI guideline on HIV infection is unambiguous about it. HIV has been isolated from many bodily fluids, but transmission has only been proven through blood and blood products, semen, other genital secretions, transplant tissue and breast milk. For transmission through saliva, tears, urine and stool there is no evidence in humans.

Hepatitis B runs along the same route as sex itself. The LCI guideline on hepatitis B lists, for sexual transmission, semen, vaginal fluid, menstrual blood and pre-ejaculate in contact with mucous membranes, with receptive anal sex as the largest risk. Urine is not on that list.

One virus does belong on it, and it is rarely mentioned. The LCI guideline on CMV infection names urine in so many words as one of the fluids that transmit cytomegalovirus, alongside saliva, semen, cervical mucus, blood and breast milk. Sixty to eighty percent of adults carry antibodies against it, so for most people that is old news. It does count during pregnancy: a first infection in the first half of the pregnancy is the situation where CMV can reach the child.

The practical translation is short. The fluid is not the problem. The places where it gets in are, and those are mucous membranes and broken skin. As Thuisarts sums it up: you get an STI from sex, above all from sex without a condom. So it is the sex around it that counts, not the pee.

Why people want plasseks

Because there is little that so clearly falls outside the rules.

• For you the gain is in giving up something you don’t allow yourself. Toilet training is the first rule you ever learned, and that makes it the most personal one to set aside for a moment.
• For the person doing it, it is proof the surrender is real, without anything involved that hurts or leaves a mark.
• For the two of you together, it comes down to the quality of the talk beforehand, because adjusting halfway through is not an option here.

Plasseks does not fix things. If something is off between two people, it is still off afterward. And the form with the least fuss, just watching, often gets skipped even though it is enough for many people.

How people arrange plasseks

The place first, the body second.

The usual order in practice: pick a room that can take a spill, agree which form it will be, and name separately whether the face and mouth take part. That last one is not a detail of the same plan. It is its own question, because that is where the mucous membranes are.

What marks the careful version is that something is arranged for afterward: warm water, a towel, and time. What marks the sloppy version is that it starts on impulse and the bathroom then takes over the conversation.

What plasseks is not

“You can get AIDS from it.” No. The RIVM states there is no evidence in humans for transmission of HIV through urine. This is the most stubborn story around the subject and it is wrong.

“Urine is clean, so nothing can happen.” Also no. Cytomegalovirus is literally on the RIVM’s list of fluids that transmit it, urine included, and pregnancy is the situation where that matters.

“Plasseks is the same as a golden shower.” The English word golden shower names exactly one thing. The Dutch word covers the whole field around it, watching and holding it in included.

“It has to be humiliation.” That is one frame out of several. Marking, surrender and plain arousal stand apart from it, and which of the four it is, you decide yourself. Degradation explains what that frame does look like when it is chosen on purpose.

What I see myself

I’m Victor, a gigolo, twenty-five years into BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. This subject almost never reaches me as a question, but it does reach me as a sentence that breaks off halfway.

The health question always comes first. Women who bring this up don’t want to know how it feels, they want to know whether it can be done without getting sick. That is a fair question and it is rarely answered properly, which leaves the answer stuck somewhere between “urine is sterile” and “you’ll catch all sorts from that.” Neither is true.

I also notice the watching version gets underrated. Plenty of women who are curious about this are happy just being there for it.

What you can do yourself

• Say which of the four forms you mean before you use the word plasseks, because it covers four different things.
• Choose the bathroom before you start on preferences. As long as the place is not settled, the conversation is secretly about the cleanup.
• Treat the face and mouth as a separate agreement, because that is where the mucous membranes are that the RIVM says it all turns on.
• Skip this if there is a wish to conceive or a pregnancy in play, or talk to a doctor first: cytomegalovirus does travel through urine.
• Drink plenty of water beforehand, and rinse an eye that catches something anyway straight under the tap. Cuts and grazes stay out of it.
• Start with watching. That is a full form in its own right, not a half step.

More on plasseks

Within this glossary, golden shower describes the best-known act with the figures on how often it happens, degradation covers the frame plasseks is placed in most often, and fetish explains how a preference like this usually gets classified. On the blog, the piece on the power of sharing fantasies is about the conversation that comes before wishes like these.

Beyond that, the RIVM’s LCI guidelines are free to read and the only Dutch reference work that states, per pathogen, which bodily fluid transmits it, and Thuisarts answers in plain language when an STI test makes sense.

Where this fits on this site

This word is not on my list of what I offer, and I won’t quietly slip it in. Still, almost anything is open to a conversation, so feel free to ask before you book. The BDSM date page shows how a talk like that goes.

Sources

• Hivinfectie. LCI guideline, National Coordination for Communicable Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The Dutch standard guideline for communicable disease control, and so the go-to source on transmission routes. Supplies the finding that HIV has indeed been isolated from a large number of bodily fluids, but that transmission has so far only been proven through blood and blood products, semen, other genital secretions, transplant tissue (cornea excepted) and breast milk, and that there is no evidence in humans for transmission through saliva, tears, urine and stool. Also supplies that the virus enters through mucous membranes or damaged skin.
• CMV-infectie. LCI guideline, RIVM. Supplies that transmission in the general population happens through direct and indirect contact of mucous membranes with infected bodily fluids such as saliva, urine, semen, cervical mucus, blood and breast milk; that young children shed the virus in urine and saliva at high levels for years; that sixty to eighty percent of the population carries antibodies against CMV by adulthood; and that clinically relevant congenital infections occur mostly after an infection in the first half of the pregnancy.
• Hepatitis B. LCI guideline, RIVM. Supplies that sexual transmission of the hepatitis B virus happens through contact between infected bodily fluids (semen, vaginal fluid, menstrual blood, pre-ejaculate) and the genital, anal or oral mucous membranes of non-immune people, with receptive anal sex as the largest risk; urine does not appear in that list.
• Soa. Thuisarts.nl, a joint effort of the Dutch College of General Practitioners with the Federation of Medical Specialists and the Dutch Patient Federation. The Dutch public information layer over the GP guidelines. Supplies the core rule that you get an STI from sex, above all from sex without a condom, that you can have an STI without noticing anything, and the advice to get an STI test at the GP or the public health service (GGD) when in doubt.

Related terms

Plasseks is the Dutch umbrella word; the neighbors around it each name a part of it or the frame it falls in.

• Golden shower. The best-known act within plasseks, with the figures and the hygiene question.
• Degradation. The frame plasseks is placed in most often, and when that fits.
• Fetish. The category a preference like this usually gets filed under.
• Consent. Why, with plasseks, everything hangs on the talk beforehand and nothing on steering midway.
• Boundary. Where the question “do the face and mouth take part” belongs.
• Exhibitionism. The neighboring preference for anyone drawn most to the watching form.
• Watersports. The English slang word for the same field, and where that word gets ticked off in practice.