February 9, 2015 • 43 mins
Written descriptions of female ejaculation first appeared two thousand years ago, yet scientists still debate whether squirting really happens. Cristen and Caroline trace the medical history of female ejaculation and why squirting controversy persists in medical labs, porn studios and bedrooms today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And Caroline, I think we need to
go ahead and get a vocabulary note out of the
way for this podcast. Okay, we're gonna stay squirting. Yeah, yeah, yes,
(00:26):
that's accurate. We are. And we're not trying to be
controversial or dirty or illicit giggles, although if you giggle,
we can't hear you, so that's fine. Yeah, we kind
of do like eliciting giggles when we can. Yeah, but no,
we we are trying to lay out some some biological
anatomical info. We're dropping some knowledge bombs on you today. Yeah,
(00:49):
and squirting is not just pornographic slang. This is a
term used by scientists and doctors to actually distinguish squirting.
As we'll go onto this gribe from female ejaculation. This
is all part of the Great Squirting Debate, as is
the title of this podcast episode. So, so folks are
(01:10):
gonna say squirting, I just want to We just want
to get that out of the way so that people
understand why we are saying what some would probably think
of as a controversial word. Yeah, but ladies and gentlemen,
if you enjoyed our clitteracy episode last year, I think
you're really going to enjoy this one too, because the
(01:32):
whole thing about squirting and female ejaculation and orgasms and
the female body and how scary and mysterious it is, uh,
is that people have been fascinated with this topic for
literally centuries. And it's interesting to see the development of
the knowledge and the observations about women's bodies and then
(01:53):
how it's like lost to history, it's like dust in
the wind and uh and and then we're here now. Yeah,
this definitely feels like an epilogue to our c literacy episode,
which if you haven't listened to it, we'll finish. Listen
to this and then listen to that, which you can
find over at stuff Mom Never told you dot com.
Just search cliteracy. So enough about cliteracy. Let's talk about ejaculation, Caroline.
(02:18):
This is what we're here in the studio to do today.
Let's talk about female ejaculate and is it ejaculate? How
many women ejaculate? Well? Um, what's interesting. I feel like
a lot of people on the internet and in the
world argue about squirting versus female ejaculation and say that
it's something you can learn, something that you should be
(02:40):
doing in the bedroom. Umor and some people are saying, no,
it's just porn, or it's just made up or whatever.
Some people are really offended by it as well. But
as reported by psychologist James Sherlock over at The Independent
in January, some ten to forty percent of women experience
the involuntary emission of fluid, ranging somewhere between six to
(03:05):
thirty teaspoons, which I find to be an adorable measurement. Yes, teaspoons,
the proper little teaspoon measuring out ejaculate. Another conversion of
that fifty milli leaders. If you prefer to think in
milli leaders as opposed to teaspoons, it's your choice. We
like to give our listeners choices. Um and sure Like
(03:29):
points out that even though colloquially, female ejaculations is now
known as squirting as well, a lot of times squirting
And we'll get more into this, and this is where
the science of squirting comes in and why we are
using this term squirting. Squirting usually refers to in the
scientific lab a larger amount of liquid coming out right
(03:52):
because Yeah, like you said, there is a difference, Um,
but there are theories about what female ejaculate even is
in the first place. And these theories have been around
also for thousands of years up till today, and they
include involuntarily urinating during and or after sex, or it's
just hyper lubrication. Yeah, nobody's nobody put forth the theory
(04:16):
that it's something completely unique from either one of those. Yeah.
And like we've said, this idea, this observation, the existence
of this fluid has been around for a long time.
If you go back two thousand years ago, you'll find
descriptions of female ejaculation in a lot of Taoist texts
that talk about yin and yang and how female ejaculate
(04:39):
or what's what sounds a lot like female ejaculate is
considered the yin chi essence because women contain the yin
and the chie sort of the balance of the yin
and the yang, and then combined is the yin chi essence,
which I mean, they're really into it. Yeah. Well, we
should also point out that the y was considered negative
(05:01):
and passive and cold, whereas the yang essence was considered
the more active, happy, gregarious, extrovert. And and the guys
have the yang, so semen is the yang. Female ejaculate
the yin, and then you have the yin Chi and Caroline,
can we now bring up the Taoist text Secret Instructions
concerning the Jade Chamber, which is essentially an old sex guide. Yeah, no,
(05:25):
it's it's amazing and it will forever now be the
name for my vagina, the jade chamber chamber. Yeah, for sure,
I love it. But in the Chinese wrote a lot
about sex, they definitely didn't shy away from the topic,
and in this particular text they clearly distinguished between the
quote flippery vagina or the state of arousal and the
(05:46):
genitals transmitting fluid or historians think female ejaculation. And what's
notable in these ancient Chinese texts as well as Indian
texts will mention in just a second, they describe female
ejaculate not so much in terms of reproduction the whole
female sperm thing that we talked about in our literacy
podcast that we'll talk about in more detail and just
(06:09):
a moment, but rather in terms of pure sexual pleasure
and that this was a good thing, that the sign
of the quote genitals transmitting fluid, which is the fifth
sign of female arousal in the secret instructions concerning the
jade chamber, that that is good for you physically mentally
and can lead to longevity, not so much that, oh, well,
(06:31):
she's transmitting this fluid. Time to make a baby, right,
But yeah, speaking of India, the Comma Sutra, with which
I'm sure you guys are familiar, actually provides one of
the earliest, quote scientific investigations and basic physiological descriptions of
this whole female ejaculation process. And yeah, like Kristen said,
(06:54):
it was considered in these cultures to be just part
of a of a balanced breakfast, of a healthy life
and didn't have so much to do with a focus
on reproduction. But when you get to ancient Greece, physicians
mentioned female ejaculation in their studies as well, but typically
more in a reproductive context. If we look to Aristotle
(07:16):
and Hippocrates, for instance, they did ponder the origins of
female sperm and female discharge and what that meant for
health and for reproduction. Scholars aren't entirely sure whether Aristotle
is referring more to female ejaculate or simply lubricating vaginal
lubrication when he wrote, quote, there is a discharge from
(07:38):
the uterus which occurs in some women but not in others.
It's found in those who are fair skinned and of
a feminine type generally, but not those who are dark
and of masculine appearance. So do with that what you will. Indeed,
and Hippocrates meanwhile, thought that a child sex could be
partially determined by whether the woman emits her own strong
(08:02):
or weak sperm in combination with her husband's strong or
weeks week sperm, though he didn't mention ejaculation specifically. But
at this time people definitely believe that women had their
own semen going on because physicians really from ancient times
up through the Renaissance figured that male and female reproductive
organs were counterparts. They were essentially exactly the same, but
(08:25):
women's were the lesser of the two because of size.
And as an example, the term testies was used for
both male and female organs because it was assumed that
they both produced semen, So our ovaries, in other words,
would have been thought to have been our testies. They're
just inside of us. Because the idea was that female
genitalia was just male genitalia tucked up inside of us.
(08:47):
We just kind of had like reverse smaller penises and testicles,
right exactly. I know why I had to slow down penises,
but I need to I need to charge your batteries.
The Kristen Bot, Well, they to get to Galen, who's
a huge name in early medicine. In biology, Galen thought
that women needed to reach orgasmic sexual pleasure in order
(09:09):
to create their own ejaculated semen. This is what historians
referred to as the two seed model. It's this idea
of the female orgasm being necessary and critical. And the
thing is, even though these physicians believed more that semen
and ejaculation had to do with reproductive stuff as opposed
to just sexual pleasure, this idea that the female orgasm
(09:32):
was critical basically lasted up until the Victorians were like
female sexuality put it away. I mean, that's a pretty
gentlemanly idea that Galen put forth. Though I'll say that
um and and that is actually something that is a
common theme in these earlier texts. I mean, going back
to ancient China and India, where there is a focus
(09:54):
on women orgasm ng first in order for everything to
work out as it should. Yeah, you gotta get that essence.
That's where I get your essence. Um and But but
there was also this idea to which sort of relates
to hysteria, which we've talked about a lot on the podcast,
the idea of the wandering uterus if you don't have
(10:15):
a baby. But there's also concern over the build up
of female stemen. That was one reason why women orgasming
was considered important so that we could then release our fluids.
So they did so that they didn't build up inspide
of us and make us crazy, right like one widow
that Galen observed who was experiencing a lot of back
(10:36):
pains and other aches and pains which he believed was
caused by a build up of semens that could be
remedied by a midwife rubbing her genitals. And I mean
that overlaps completely with our claracy episode. Uh. I have
a feeling that this is like a kinder, gentler version
of the Victorian era where they were trying to use
like giant mechanical vibrators to get women to orgasm. And
(11:00):
I also have a feeling they weren't as judging. I'm
just gonna say that not as judge as the Victorians. Yeah,
there's yeah, it's it's not hard to be less judgy
than the Victorians. But before we get more into those
judge victorians, we should pause in the seventeenth century and
applaud a Dutch kind of cologist by the name of
de Graph, who provided the first actual scientific insight into
(11:23):
this ejaculation issue. He was the first to suggest, and
we'll explain this more, he was the first to suggest
that the glands around a woman's urethra were equivalent to
a man's prostate glands. He distinguished also between arousal related
lubrication and female ejaculation, and said that that ejaculation fluid
(11:45):
was from that female prostate. And this is wonderful. It's like,
oh my gosh, sixteen hundreds, we've got this science that
is real. We have real science. Surely, surely we will
continue in this vein, in this vein. Yeah. Well, speaking
of veins, de Graph described this lubricant as a pituito
(12:06):
serious juice which will actually come up in modern medicine again,
which he thought made women more libidinous with its quote
pungency and saltiness and lubricate says sexual parts in agreeable
fashion during coitus. So he was onto something for sure.
He was like, okay, all right, we're figuring out that
there there is some internal anatomy that is uh, you know,
(12:29):
creating this lubricant this possible ejaculate. But then let's pass
forward to eighteen eighties six where we have a noted psychiatrist,
Richard von croft Ebbing, who said that women only ejaculated
when they were weak minded lesbians who had sex with
other women. Yeah, yeah, he's not he's not big on
(12:53):
the lesbians. Or maybe he is big on the lesbians
and that's why he was so judging and me and
in his in his paper, it sounds like we're trying
to psychiatrizes the psychiatrists, And yes, I did just make
up a word. But then around the same time in
the eighties, we get a guy who builds off of
the previous research of that Dutch kind of coologist a
graph We get Alexander Skaine, who discovered perio retro glands
(13:15):
in women and noted that they produced fluid and it
reminded physicians of the time of men's prostate gland. It's
as if people had lived for two hundred years and
totally forgot what the graph had already been, like, hey, hey,
I've already done that. I've already I already pointed that out.
And skin though received the eponymous recognition for that because
(13:37):
these are now known as your skins glands. Wouldn't that
be cool to have a gland named after you, Caroline?
It would? But we have so much more to talk
about the glands. We'll get to him in a minute,
but first we have to talk about psychologist have a
Lock Ellis, who in nineteen o four they're still trying
to figure the stuff out. He proposed that female ejaculation
(13:58):
was basically the same thing as semens, so he's like,
he's just reading the stuff from the ancient Greeks. He
also proposed that it came from the bartholon glands, which
are two piece sized glands responsible for secreting mucus that
lubricates the vagina. So he's basically saying things that we've
heard already, that it's female. Female ejaculation is equivalent to
(14:19):
male ejaculation, and that it's there just to lubricate. But
other people disagreed. But then we get to nineteen o
four and psychologists have a lock. Ellis proposed that female
ejaculation came from the Bartholn glands, which are two piece
sized glands responsible for secreting mucus that lubricates the vagina.
(14:40):
So basically, Ellis is saying like, hey, they might ejaculate
the stuff or or have a certain discharge, but it's
it's mainly for lubrication purpose. It's all the same thing.
And we should point out that by now the reproductive
potential of this fluid, whatever it might be, had been
and dismiss thanks to microscopes and the realization that women
(15:04):
don't produce female sperm. That whole two seed model that
Galen came up with a long long time ago that
had been disproven. So once we're in the twentieth century,
now it comes down to that the great squirting debate
has now boiled down to well, where does it come from?
And is it the same as vaginal lubricant? Are we all?
(15:26):
Is this all just different names for the same thing.
And then in nineteen fifty a guy named Ernest Graffenberg
comes along, and if Graffenberg rings a bell, it's probably
because he is the g in g spot. He disagreed
with Ellis. He said female ejaculation has little to do
with lubrication. He said, no, no, no, this is a
separate fluid all together. And why did he say this, Well,
(15:48):
he observed women masturbating and noticed that ejaculation occurred more
frequently with the palpitation of an orogenous zone on the
front wall of the vagina near the urethra. This is
known as your urethral sponge, or more colloquially as the
G spot. And we should point out that Graffenberg didn't
(16:09):
name the G spot after himself. That name came much later,
Although how awesome would that be if he's like, I'm
putting a flag in this, I'm calling it, I'm naming
it after myself. This is a Grafenberg spot dropped the
mic am out um. But so anyway, key to his
observation was the fact that this emission that he noticed
(16:31):
happened during the orgasm, at the apex of the orgasm,
and after, not before. So it wasn't. Yes, women's vaginas
became lubricated before and during sex, but this particular mission
that he was observing did not have to do with lubrication.
It was happening after orgasm and during orgasm, so His
answer was that female ejaculation was a secretion from the
(16:56):
intra urethral glands located underneath the G spot, not urine,
which was the leading alternative hypothesis at the time and
is going to come back again, but not before the
fifties and sixties, when interestingly both Alfred Kinsey and Masters
and Johnson dismissed female ejaculation as just extra vaginal lubrication.
(17:20):
They're like, no, this extra thing is not happening. It's
all just the same things, which puts us back at
square one. And then finally, though in researchers for the
very first time are like, hey, why don't we apply
some rigorous science to this, And they perform a chemical
analysis of female ejaculate and what do they find, Caroline,
we have sperm after all. Now it demonstrated a clear
(17:45):
difference between the liquid excreted deering orgasm and urine. Yeah,
and so at this point researchers are putting forth the
notion that female ejaculate originates from way air ladies and
gentlemen the scans glands, so you know, the stuff that
was being discussed back in sixteen hundreds. Basically, Yeah, and
(18:09):
so they're saying okay, well, these glands are just the
equivalent to a female prostate. It's the same cells that
when we're in utero will develop into the male prostate
depending on your chromosomal makeup, and they're made of similar
tissues also in women. But some say that they're quote
dead end cells or vestiges of our embryonic days. Yeah,
(18:33):
there's a lot of dismissal going on, like the why
do we care if women have these little glands or
tissues or whatever. It's not like they're doing anything like
helping you reproduce, But we clearly care so much because
the entire history of the medical history of female ejaculation,
the medical history of the clitterest, everything that we know
(18:53):
has been a constant search for, like homologous anatomy between
men and women. It's essentially looking at male anatomy and
then figuring out, Okay, what inside women matches this. So
they dismiss it, and yet they still use the same
logic to try to figure it out, which doesn't seem
to make much sense, especially considering that these are scientists.
(19:15):
Right while speaking of all of those scientists, when we're
in the late eighties and early nineties, there are a
lot of studies that happened that back up this difference
between female ejaculate and lubrication and urine in addition to
confirming the fact that yes, women do have ejaculate. So
we get pathologist Milan Xaviacic, who is a big name
(19:38):
in this research. He and his team found that both
the male and the female prostate quote release their contents
via an ejaculatory mechanism and continual resting secretions. And then
around this time, several studies demonstrated that female ejaculate contained
a lot more of this thing called prostatic acid phospha
(20:00):
days which is a chemical secreted by the prostate land
and is found in semen, and a lot less urrea
than the subjects urine. So what does this mean. It
helped women understand basically that they weren't experiencing incontinence during
and after sex and that this emission is a normal phenomenon.
Of course, women who do struggle with incontinents, that's a thing,
(20:23):
But they're saying that this squirting, this female ejaculation is
not wetting the bed. You were not experiencing incontinence, and
it's a part of normal sexual activity for a lot
of people. And in addition to that, prosthetic acid phosphatase
fructos had also been identified around this time in female ejaculate,
which previously was thought to be present only in male ejaculate,
(20:47):
as an energy source to help sperm move along in
the epic journey, usually to death. But of course the
requestion marks about the function of that fructose, is it
to move sperm along? Because at the same time, there
have also been theories that perhaps this ejaculate actually creates
(21:07):
more of an acidic and inhospitable environment for sperm, serving
as another kind of quote unquote natural birth control for
women because there is no reproductive purpose to it. Maybe
it is tied solely to female sexual pleasure. But after
all this research in zaviat Check and neurophysiologist Beverly Whipple,
(21:30):
who by the way, was one of the researchers who
gave the G spot the G named it after Graffenberg,
they still were not sure what the connections were between
this female prostate that they've they've been researching the now
named G spot and female ejaculation. But Zaviatics name does
(21:52):
not go away, as we'll see in just a second.
But if we move up past the nineties into the
more modern era, we have figured out a few more things,
although there are still a lot of mysteries and confusion
and controversy almost surrounding the female orgasm. So researchers have
figured out that the prostate, being fully formed in men
doesn't necessarily have a fully formed female equivalence. So our
(22:15):
skins glands aren't always fully developed. Some have large skains glands,
some don't, some seem to lack them completely, and scientists
think that this variation among women might be maybe why
some women experience g spot orgasms and ejaculation while others don't. Well.
(22:36):
In addition to the variation in size with the skins,
glands or female prostate, there's also variation in size in
terms of your your rethral sponge, in the kinds of
erectile tissues in your internal clitterists that may or may
not influence uh the likelihood of so called g spot orgasms. Um,
but the aviatic said, when it comes to the skins glands,
(23:00):
you should just call them the female prostate. He thinks
that they are alike enough that that's what it should be,
And in fact, in two thousand two, the Federative International
Committee on Anatomical Terminology officially renamed skains glands the prostate,
which is interesting. Um. But again again it is this
(23:21):
pursuit of homologous anatomy which but fuddles me a little
bit because, um, especially if we just call it the
female prostate to disambiguate from the prostate, which just makes
the male body normative and the female body the exception.
But that's another conversation for another time. Um, regardless of
(23:42):
the name, every healthy dude with a prostate produces prostate fluid,
but only a fraction. Again that ten tot of women ejaculated,
as far as anyone can tell. So it's like the
more we learn, the more questions we have, and a
lot of it seems to come down on two semantics
of like what do we call this thing rather than
(24:03):
just saying, okay, well we know this happens, right. But
we'll get more into our continuing our ongoing fascination with
female ejaculation and the issue of squirting and what is
or is not squirting? When don't we come right back
from a quick break and now back to the show.
(24:28):
So in the first half of the podcast, we charted
the medical history of female ejaculate And I want to
cite this paper that we drew from published in the
journal Sexual Medicine History in two thousand and ten to
kick off the second half um in which the author
writes quote this article aims to demonstrate that the phenomenon
(24:49):
of female ejaculation has been discovered, described, and forgotten in
Eastern and Western culture repeatedly over the last two thousand years.
And where does that leave us in? Still with questions,
still with a great squirting debate, not only about its physiology,
(25:11):
but also about its propriety. Yeah, so, if you've been
paying attention to the news the past several months, you
might remember that the UK banned squirting in porn. I
mean you can still watch it, obviously, you can still
access it on the Internet or wherever you get your porn,
but it just can't be produced in the UK. They
(25:32):
also banned by the way strangulation, which okay, I guess
I can see spanking and faith sitting. So this this
is all part of that those faith sitting demonstrations that
were going on in England a while back. And the
reason why squirting porn was banned was because they thought
that it looked too much like p porn essentially. Yeah,
(25:53):
I mean yeah, squirting was basically fine when it was
considered to be just a sexual response and something that
bends two bodies during sex. UM. But once the question
of like, oh, is it urine, We'll wait, that's obscene.
Once that came up, then that's when the band was set.
But it's funny because, yeah, like the writer said, we
(26:14):
have two thousand years of studying what female ejaculation is
and is not, but we still haven't gotten to a
point where we're comfortable defining it. And so then we
get this new study in December which sort of like,
I know, we joked about Kim Kardashian breaking the Internet,
but this study like blew the Internet up. Yeah. It
was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine and it
(26:36):
was called the Nature and Origin of Squirting in Female Sexuality.
So yes, squirting is in a study title published in
a respected journal, hence its use in this podcast um.
And it was conducted by these researchers in France, and
what they did was get seven so keep this in mind,
pretty small sample size, but they brought seven women who
(26:58):
had self reported a jack relation into a lab to see, okay,
once and for all, are you ladies just incontinent during
orgasm or not? And initially they had them come in
empty their bladders, and even they even scanned the bladders
to make sure, okay, there's nothing in them all right,
(27:19):
And then what happened Caroline, Well, at this point they
begin sexual stimulation, either with a partner or by themselves,
but then they stop to undergo another ultrasound to examine
what's going on with their bladders. At this point they
determine that there's a little fluid in the bladder. They're
released to go back to sexual stimulation. Once they achieve
(27:41):
orgasm and experience ejaculation. The researchers collected a sample of
that fluid and then performed another ultrasound. What did they find, Well,
that fluid that midway through had been detected in the
bladder after starting and then stopping, sexual stimulation was gone.
(28:01):
So the outcome was basically that among two of the
seven women went once they performed this biochemical analysis of
the fluid, it was just urine, sad trombone noise. Yeah,
And we should know too that these were women who
said that not only did they ejaculate, but usually they
would squirt about a glass of waters worth a fluid
(28:24):
deering orgasm. And this also leads to this proposed distinction
between female ejaculate, which is like a little bit, and squirting,
which is a lot of it, right, And so for
the other five of seven women. This is coming from
that article in The Independent that we cited earlier. The
biochemical analysis showed that while the fluid was mostly urine,
(28:49):
it also contained a prostate specific and regen originating from
this games glands, and the authors concluded that these results
support their hypothesis that female ejaculation is an involuntary urine
a mission. They said that the presence of that prostate
(29:09):
specific androgen, though, was ruled to be the residue of
true female ejaculation due to mechanical stimulation of the g spot.
But you also have to wonder with this kind of
study set up to how how authentic almost the results are,
because one thing that we didn't note was that for
(29:31):
this whole process of women having an orgasm, it took
around an hour too, and also having to stop in
the middle go get your bladder scan and then come
back not the most arousing set up as well. So
who knows whether if this were happening at home and
they took the dainty little teaspoons and collected some and
(29:52):
then took it to a lab, whether perhaps maybe there
would be more prostate specific androgen and and less urrea.
And also doesn't really matter because the unfortunate thing about
this study and its results being published in a very
internet fashion, as women are just peating themselves in bed,
(30:13):
that really didn't help the situation at all, because now
we're still left with the question of well esquirting the
same thing as female ejaculation, Because in two thousand eleven,
there is a study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, which,
by the way, if you want to know about female ejaculation,
get yourself a subscription to the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
(30:33):
UM researchers, though, performed biochemical studies on that fluid expelled
during orgasm that also do line up with those recent
findings from the French study, and the authors wrote, quote
the clear and abundant fluid that is ejected in Gush's parentheses,
squirting is different from real female ejaculation. And I gotta say, Caroline,
(30:59):
whenever I hear things like real female, like real this,
or real that it's like, well, okay, all right, tell
me more what is real what is not? Yeah, So
people are definitely working hard to distinguish the true, mysterious,
fascinating female ejaculation. They really want to pinpoint it. And
(31:19):
Old Beverly Whipple, the she the namer of the g spot,
told the publication New Scientists that she thinks that the discovery,
the quote unquote discovery means that female ejaculation should only
be used as a term to refer to the small
amount of fluid that is produced by those periorethal glands
(31:41):
in a woman and not squirting. Right, because in that
two thousand eleven study they distinguished that quote real female
ejaculation as scanty, thick, and whitish fluid, whereas scoring a
lot of times is clear fluid. It does look aside
from not having a yellowish tent, it does look like
(32:03):
like clear urine. Yeah, And they're saying that true ejaculation
is from the female prostate and squirting is just fluid
from the bladder. And not surprisingly, though, this question of
whether there is a true ejaculation, whether there is really
a difference between squirting and female ejaculate, got a lot
of people talking um because, as Hayley McMillan pointed out
(32:28):
over at Refinery, this is a rather androcentric conversation because
what these scientists are looking for in terms of true
female ejaculation is the presence of things like the fructoes,
like that prostitate acid that you find in semen, which
is all find well and good. But at the same time,
(32:50):
it's like, well, do we necessarily need to have a
tip fotat so to speak? Yeah, because she Yeah, she's
basically saying that the way researchers are going about this
is trying to define true female ejaculation by the presence
of an enzyme that characterizes male ejaculation. And she says
(33:11):
it's it's part of the same movement to call the
clitter as a female penis, and that, hey, why can't
women have a thing that is of women? Why does
it have to be defined in terms of what is
male or not male? Yeah? And also when it comes
to a question of do women ejaculate, why not just
(33:33):
take women who experience this phenomenon at their word. This
was something written about in a column for The Guardian
by lux Alpatrom, who herself experiences ejaculation when she orgasms
sometimes not every time. Um. And that's the thing also
about it where it can be a bit elusive, because
if it happens once, it doesn't necessarily happen every time. Um.
(33:55):
But she wrote, quote female ejaculators, no, firsthand, even if
the flu would they emit during an orgasm comes from
the bladder, It looks, smells, and feels different from urine.
And also she goes on to say, regardless of the
biological basis of female ejaculation, the physical appearance is at
its heart a pure expression of female sexual pleasure. Yeah.
(34:18):
And this leads her to talk about the UK's ban
on squirting in porn, talking about how since porn is
this visual medium, if you're banning squirting, you are banning
a very female expression of not only orgasm, but just
of pleasure and sexual excitement. Yeah. And it's stigmatizing it
too as well. And there have been interview studies conducted
(34:41):
among women who ejaculate who report shame around ejaculate because
either their partners think that they're peeing on them and
don't appreciate it, or they think that they're incontinent and
feel embarrassed for that, And so for that reason they
don't seek out sexual pleasure for fear of doing it.
And it's this legal battle has not only taken place
(35:03):
so in the UK, there have also been obscenity cases
in the United States as well. And we found a
recent article published in the Texas Journal of Women in
the Law which has one of my favorite titles ever,
obscene squirting. If the government thinks it's urine, they've got
another thing coming. Yes. And the other points out though,
(35:24):
how men's ejaculation not considered obscene, which quote quote clearly
dehumanizes the female body in a hateful way. And there
was another quote that I wanted to pull from it,
um which said scientists and pornographers agree ejaculation is a
natural response to sexual stimulation. So yeah, I mean I
(35:46):
I definitely don't agree with it being banned in porn,
especially because when it comes to ejaculate and things that
are okay, there are still, uh, what would be considered
far more degrading acts that are fine to film when
it comes to how and where men can ejaculate, right, yeah, exactly. Um.
(36:07):
One thing we haven't brought up though, is like, okay,
so there is squirting, there is female ejaculation. People do
this people enjoy it. But then there was this writer
over at Feminist Thing that brought up the point, this
was back in two thousand nine, of like, well, yeah,
but I also don't like that men are basing their
idea of their own virility and masculinity around whether a
(36:27):
woman is squirting or not. Well, okay, so here's the
thing I was thinking about that, and um, I have
a feeling that, uh, it's it's only some men, and
this probably goes for women who have sex with women
as well, where there's going to be a fascination with
the whole thing too, because I think the obsession with
it in a sexual sense is that it's quote unquote
(36:51):
legit proof that a female orgasm has happened, because you know,
men like have physical evidence of it, where as women
not so much. So that kind of obsession makes sense
to me. Yeah, but by the same token too, anecdotally,
I will say that I have known women who are
similarly proud of their ability to squirt as a display
(37:16):
of maybe not their virility, but their sexual prowess too.
So it's it definitely adds an interesting performative element, let's say,
to sex. Yeah, and that writer the psychologist who was
writing over The Independent that we've cited a couple of times,
basically closes out his article about that December French study
by saying, like, listen, this is an enriching part of
(37:40):
a lot of people's sexual lives and relationships, and nobody's
getting hurt. You know, let's not make this a big
controversial issue. And some people do it, some people don't.
It's part of people's sexual lives. Let's not get all
up in arms about it. Yeah, And I mean, it's
just it's so fascinating to me this scientific debate persists.
(38:03):
Like the French study, I don't think really settled anything.
I don't think anyone was really fully satisfied with those results.
But I don't know at this point what will satisfy it.
What will satisfy me is if like women or anyone
who has a vagina who ejaculates, like, Okay, that's fine,
that's cool, Like that's part of your sexual response, no
need for to be ashamed by it. Embrace it, you
(38:25):
do you that's cool. Which might sound pretty lack of daysical,
but we're pretty lack of daysical when it comes to
men ejaculating. You know, I think if anything What should
be settled is the stigma that some and shame that
some feel about it. Um yeah, whether whether you're being
(38:46):
made to feel shamed for doing it or for not
doing it exactly. Yeah, I mean because of the interesting
thing we The one statistic we didn't cite was that,
at least in Australia, we don't have US statistics, but
it's the third most popular porn search. So people are
clearly intrigued by this thing, this capacity some people have.
(39:07):
Um yeah, I think it's I just want to hear
from listeners now, listeners, can you settle this great squirting
debate for us? Has it influenced your sex life? At all?
Moms Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is our email address.
You can also tweet us if you want, at mom
Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook. And we've got a
couple of letters to read do you that have nothing
(39:28):
to do with ejaculation right now. So I've got a
letter here from Mackenzie about our Women in Comics too Parter,
and she wrote, I'm listening to part two of your
Own and Comics podcast where you Chris then talked about
being too intimidated to go into a comic store as
a team reminded me of my early years as a
(39:50):
girl comic book fan. When I was eleven or twelve,
I was a welfare food stamps kid living in a
poor neighborhood and in an otherwise affluent city. I was
teased and buloyed a lot with a few friends, and
I later came to realize I was deeply depressed. About
a mile down the street there was a comic bookstore
I was allowed to visit without supervision. I had been
introduced to comics by my dad just a few years before,
(40:12):
but I didn't live with them full time, so the
store was my main outlet for comics giegery. I went
several times a week just to kill time, thumbing through
old back issues of Uncanny X Men and Fantastic Four
from the eighties. These only cost a few bucks each,
so I could afford to buy some every now and then.
The female clerk, Scarlett, who may have been the co
owner of the store, must have realized I desperately needed
(40:35):
whatever brakes life would deal me. She never charged me
tax and would sometimes even throw in a few issues
for free. This helped stretch my money to buy more comics,
and I was always thrilled to see here at the register.
I'm actually in tears right now remembering this and how
much her small kindness meant to me during a time
when I really needed them. Her store changed hands over
the years and I was never able to thank her.
(40:57):
But I still have all those comics she sold me,
and emotionally those story lines mean more to me than
any others. And I've read thousands of comics over my
years as a fan. There may not be a ton
of women working in comics stores, but Scarlett did, and
she made a difference to me. Ladies helping ladies, I guess, so,
thanks Mackenzie and Scarlett. I have a letter here from
(41:20):
Pamela about our astronomy episodes. She says, I've been a
long time listener to your podcast, which I adore. I
love sharing the podcast with my sons about the amazing
things women can and have done. This week, your podcast
on the women in Astronomy was especially fascinating. I attended
Agnes Scott College Indicator, Georgia. One of my classmates with
(41:42):
Amy Lavell. Amy is now an associate of the Physics
and Astronomy department at our alma mater. I believe She
has even served as the chair of her department in
the past. Agnes Scott has always served as a beacon
for women to aspire to all fields, and Amy's return
to the incredible facilities our college provides for women wars
my heart. Amy has been an amazing woman science since
(42:03):
her undergrad years, including publishing papers and peer reviewed publications
as an undergraduate. I remember her enthusiasm for her field
from our earliest interactions as first year students. She continues
to reach out to encourage other women and girls to
aspire to stem fields. As our twenty five reunion approaches,
I believe Amy would easily merit and mentioned in your
podcast as a leader among women and astronomy. Thank you
(42:25):
for the always enjoyable and enlightening podcasts you produce every week,
and thank you Pamela for writing in and thanks to
everybody who's written to us. Mom Stuff at how stuff
Works dot com is our email address and for links
to all of our social media as well as all
of our blogs, videos and podcasts, including this one with sources.
If you want to learn more about the science of
female ejaculation, head on over to Stuff Mom Never Told
(42:49):
You dot com for more on this, and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff works? Dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And Caroline, I think we need to
go ahead and get a vocabulary note out of the
way for this podcast. Okay, we're gonna stay squirting. Yeah, yeah, yes,
(00:26):
that's accurate. We are. And we're not trying to be
controversial or dirty or illicit giggles, although if you giggle,
we can't hear you, so that's fine. Yeah, we kind
of do like eliciting giggles when we can. Yeah, but no,
we we are trying to lay out some some biological
anatomical info. We're dropping some knowledge bombs on you today. Yeah,
(00:49):
and squirting is not just pornographic slang. This is a
term used by scientists and doctors to actually distinguish squirting.
As we'll go onto this gribe from female ejaculation. This
is all part of the Great Squirting Debate, as is
the title of this podcast episode. So, so folks are
(01:10):
gonna say squirting, I just want to We just want
to get that out of the way so that people
understand why we are saying what some would probably think
of as a controversial word. Yeah, but ladies and gentlemen,
if you enjoyed our clitteracy episode last year, I think
you're really going to enjoy this one too, because the
(01:32):
whole thing about squirting and female ejaculation and orgasms and
the female body and how scary and mysterious it is, uh,
is that people have been fascinated with this topic for
literally centuries. And it's interesting to see the development of
the knowledge and the observations about women's bodies and then
(01:53):
how it's like lost to history, it's like dust in
the wind and uh and and then we're here now. Yeah,
this definitely feels like an epilogue to our c literacy episode,
which if you haven't listened to it, we'll finish. Listen
to this and then listen to that, which you can
find over at stuff Mom Never told you dot com.
Just search cliteracy. So enough about cliteracy. Let's talk about ejaculation, Caroline.
(02:18):
This is what we're here in the studio to do today.
Let's talk about female ejaculate and is it ejaculate? How
many women ejaculate? Well? Um, what's interesting. I feel like
a lot of people on the internet and in the
world argue about squirting versus female ejaculation and say that
it's something you can learn, something that you should be
(02:40):
doing in the bedroom. Umor and some people are saying, no,
it's just porn, or it's just made up or whatever.
Some people are really offended by it as well. But
as reported by psychologist James Sherlock over at The Independent
in January, some ten to forty percent of women experience
the involuntary emission of fluid, ranging somewhere between six to
(03:05):
thirty teaspoons, which I find to be an adorable measurement. Yes, teaspoons,
the proper little teaspoon measuring out ejaculate. Another conversion of
that fifty milli leaders. If you prefer to think in
milli leaders as opposed to teaspoons, it's your choice. We
like to give our listeners choices. Um and sure Like
(03:29):
points out that even though colloquially, female ejaculations is now
known as squirting as well, a lot of times squirting
And we'll get more into this, and this is where
the science of squirting comes in and why we are
using this term squirting. Squirting usually refers to in the
scientific lab a larger amount of liquid coming out right
(03:52):
because Yeah, like you said, there is a difference, Um,
but there are theories about what female ejaculate even is
in the first place. And these theories have been around
also for thousands of years up till today, and they
include involuntarily urinating during and or after sex, or it's
just hyper lubrication. Yeah, nobody's nobody put forth the theory
(04:16):
that it's something completely unique from either one of those. Yeah.
And like we've said, this idea, this observation, the existence
of this fluid has been around for a long time.
If you go back two thousand years ago, you'll find
descriptions of female ejaculation in a lot of Taoist texts
that talk about yin and yang and how female ejaculate
(04:39):
or what's what sounds a lot like female ejaculate is
considered the yin chi essence because women contain the yin
and the chie sort of the balance of the yin
and the yang, and then combined is the yin chi essence,
which I mean, they're really into it. Yeah. Well, we
should also point out that the y was considered negative
(05:01):
and passive and cold, whereas the yang essence was considered
the more active, happy, gregarious, extrovert. And and the guys
have the yang, so semen is the yang. Female ejaculate
the yin, and then you have the yin Chi and Caroline,
can we now bring up the Taoist text Secret Instructions
concerning the Jade Chamber, which is essentially an old sex guide. Yeah, no,
(05:25):
it's it's amazing and it will forever now be the
name for my vagina, the jade chamber chamber. Yeah, for sure,
I love it. But in the Chinese wrote a lot
about sex, they definitely didn't shy away from the topic,
and in this particular text they clearly distinguished between the
quote flippery vagina or the state of arousal and the
(05:46):
genitals transmitting fluid or historians think female ejaculation. And what's
notable in these ancient Chinese texts as well as Indian
texts will mention in just a second, they describe female
ejaculate not so much in terms of reproduction the whole
female sperm thing that we talked about in our literacy
podcast that we'll talk about in more detail and just
(06:09):
a moment, but rather in terms of pure sexual pleasure
and that this was a good thing, that the sign
of the quote genitals transmitting fluid, which is the fifth
sign of female arousal in the secret instructions concerning the
jade chamber, that that is good for you physically mentally
and can lead to longevity, not so much that, oh, well,
(06:31):
she's transmitting this fluid. Time to make a baby, right,
But yeah, speaking of India, the Comma Sutra, with which
I'm sure you guys are familiar, actually provides one of
the earliest, quote scientific investigations and basic physiological descriptions of
this whole female ejaculation process. And yeah, like Kristen said,
(06:54):
it was considered in these cultures to be just part
of a of a balanced breakfast, of a healthy life
and didn't have so much to do with a focus
on reproduction. But when you get to ancient Greece, physicians
mentioned female ejaculation in their studies as well, but typically
more in a reproductive context. If we look to Aristotle
(07:16):
and Hippocrates, for instance, they did ponder the origins of
female sperm and female discharge and what that meant for
health and for reproduction. Scholars aren't entirely sure whether Aristotle
is referring more to female ejaculate or simply lubricating vaginal
lubrication when he wrote, quote, there is a discharge from
(07:38):
the uterus which occurs in some women but not in others.
It's found in those who are fair skinned and of
a feminine type generally, but not those who are dark
and of masculine appearance. So do with that what you will. Indeed,
and Hippocrates meanwhile, thought that a child sex could be
partially determined by whether the woman emits her own strong
(08:02):
or weak sperm in combination with her husband's strong or
weeks week sperm, though he didn't mention ejaculation specifically. But
at this time people definitely believe that women had their
own semen going on because physicians really from ancient times
up through the Renaissance figured that male and female reproductive
organs were counterparts. They were essentially exactly the same, but
(08:25):
women's were the lesser of the two because of size.
And as an example, the term testies was used for
both male and female organs because it was assumed that
they both produced semen, So our ovaries, in other words,
would have been thought to have been our testies. They're
just inside of us. Because the idea was that female
genitalia was just male genitalia tucked up inside of us.
(08:47):
We just kind of had like reverse smaller penises and testicles,
right exactly. I know why I had to slow down penises,
but I need to I need to charge your batteries.
The Kristen Bot, Well, they to get to Galen, who's
a huge name in early medicine. In biology, Galen thought
that women needed to reach orgasmic sexual pleasure in order
(09:09):
to create their own ejaculated semen. This is what historians
referred to as the two seed model. It's this idea
of the female orgasm being necessary and critical. And the
thing is, even though these physicians believed more that semen
and ejaculation had to do with reproductive stuff as opposed
to just sexual pleasure, this idea that the female orgasm
(09:32):
was critical basically lasted up until the Victorians were like
female sexuality put it away. I mean, that's a pretty
gentlemanly idea that Galen put forth. Though I'll say that
um and and that is actually something that is a
common theme in these earlier texts. I mean, going back
to ancient China and India, where there is a focus
(09:54):
on women orgasm ng first in order for everything to
work out as it should. Yeah, you gotta get that essence.
That's where I get your essence. Um and But but
there was also this idea to which sort of relates
to hysteria, which we've talked about a lot on the podcast,
the idea of the wandering uterus if you don't have
(10:15):
a baby. But there's also concern over the build up
of female stemen. That was one reason why women orgasming
was considered important so that we could then release our fluids.
So they did so that they didn't build up inspide
of us and make us crazy, right like one widow
that Galen observed who was experiencing a lot of back
(10:36):
pains and other aches and pains which he believed was
caused by a build up of semens that could be
remedied by a midwife rubbing her genitals. And I mean
that overlaps completely with our claracy episode. Uh. I have
a feeling that this is like a kinder, gentler version
of the Victorian era where they were trying to use
like giant mechanical vibrators to get women to orgasm. And
(11:00):
I also have a feeling they weren't as judging. I'm
just gonna say that not as judge as the Victorians. Yeah,
there's yeah, it's it's not hard to be less judgy
than the Victorians. But before we get more into those
judge victorians, we should pause in the seventeenth century and
applaud a Dutch kind of cologist by the name of
de Graph, who provided the first actual scientific insight into
(11:23):
this ejaculation issue. He was the first to suggest, and
we'll explain this more, he was the first to suggest
that the glands around a woman's urethra were equivalent to
a man's prostate glands. He distinguished also between arousal related
lubrication and female ejaculation, and said that that ejaculation fluid
(11:45):
was from that female prostate. And this is wonderful. It's like,
oh my gosh, sixteen hundreds, we've got this science that
is real. We have real science. Surely, surely we will
continue in this vein, in this vein. Yeah. Well, speaking
of veins, de Graph described this lubricant as a pituito
(12:06):
serious juice which will actually come up in modern medicine again,
which he thought made women more libidinous with its quote
pungency and saltiness and lubricate says sexual parts in agreeable
fashion during coitus. So he was onto something for sure.
He was like, okay, all right, we're figuring out that
there there is some internal anatomy that is uh, you know,
(12:29):
creating this lubricant this possible ejaculate. But then let's pass
forward to eighteen eighties six where we have a noted psychiatrist,
Richard von croft Ebbing, who said that women only ejaculated
when they were weak minded lesbians who had sex with
other women. Yeah, yeah, he's not he's not big on
(12:53):
the lesbians. Or maybe he is big on the lesbians
and that's why he was so judging and me and
in his in his paper, it sounds like we're trying
to psychiatrizes the psychiatrists, And yes, I did just make
up a word. But then around the same time in
the eighties, we get a guy who builds off of
the previous research of that Dutch kind of coologist a
graph We get Alexander Skaine, who discovered perio retro glands
(13:15):
in women and noted that they produced fluid and it
reminded physicians of the time of men's prostate gland. It's
as if people had lived for two hundred years and
totally forgot what the graph had already been, like, hey, hey,
I've already done that. I've already I already pointed that out.
And skin though received the eponymous recognition for that because
(13:37):
these are now known as your skins glands. Wouldn't that
be cool to have a gland named after you, Caroline?
It would? But we have so much more to talk
about the glands. We'll get to him in a minute,
but first we have to talk about psychologist have a
Lock Ellis, who in nineteen o four they're still trying
to figure the stuff out. He proposed that female ejaculation
(13:58):
was basically the same thing as semens, so he's like,
he's just reading the stuff from the ancient Greeks. He
also proposed that it came from the bartholon glands, which
are two piece sized glands responsible for secreting mucus that
lubricates the vagina. So he's basically saying things that we've
heard already, that it's female. Female ejaculation is equivalent to
(14:19):
male ejaculation, and that it's there just to lubricate. But
other people disagreed. But then we get to nineteen o
four and psychologists have a lock. Ellis proposed that female
ejaculation came from the Bartholn glands, which are two piece
sized glands responsible for secreting mucus that lubricates the vagina.
(14:40):
So basically, Ellis is saying like, hey, they might ejaculate
the stuff or or have a certain discharge, but it's
it's mainly for lubrication purpose. It's all the same thing.
And we should point out that by now the reproductive
potential of this fluid, whatever it might be, had been
and dismiss thanks to microscopes and the realization that women
(15:04):
don't produce female sperm. That whole two seed model that
Galen came up with a long long time ago that
had been disproven. So once we're in the twentieth century,
now it comes down to that the great squirting debate
has now boiled down to well, where does it come from?
And is it the same as vaginal lubricant? Are we all?
(15:26):
Is this all just different names for the same thing.
And then in nineteen fifty a guy named Ernest Graffenberg
comes along, and if Graffenberg rings a bell, it's probably
because he is the g in g spot. He disagreed
with Ellis. He said female ejaculation has little to do
with lubrication. He said, no, no, no, this is a
separate fluid all together. And why did he say this, Well,
(15:48):
he observed women masturbating and noticed that ejaculation occurred more
frequently with the palpitation of an orogenous zone on the
front wall of the vagina near the urethra. This is
known as your urethral sponge, or more colloquially as the
G spot. And we should point out that Graffenberg didn't
(16:09):
name the G spot after himself. That name came much later,
Although how awesome would that be if he's like, I'm
putting a flag in this, I'm calling it, I'm naming
it after myself. This is a Grafenberg spot dropped the
mic am out um. But so anyway, key to his
observation was the fact that this emission that he noticed
(16:31):
happened during the orgasm, at the apex of the orgasm,
and after, not before. So it wasn't. Yes, women's vaginas
became lubricated before and during sex, but this particular mission
that he was observing did not have to do with lubrication.
It was happening after orgasm and during orgasm, so His
answer was that female ejaculation was a secretion from the
(16:56):
intra urethral glands located underneath the G spot, not urine,
which was the leading alternative hypothesis at the time and
is going to come back again, but not before the
fifties and sixties, when interestingly both Alfred Kinsey and Masters
and Johnson dismissed female ejaculation as just extra vaginal lubrication.
(17:20):
They're like, no, this extra thing is not happening. It's
all just the same things, which puts us back at
square one. And then finally, though in researchers for the
very first time are like, hey, why don't we apply
some rigorous science to this, And they perform a chemical
analysis of female ejaculate and what do they find, Caroline,
we have sperm after all. Now it demonstrated a clear
(17:45):
difference between the liquid excreted deering orgasm and urine. Yeah,
and so at this point researchers are putting forth the
notion that female ejaculate originates from way air ladies and
gentlemen the scans glands, so you know, the stuff that
was being discussed back in sixteen hundreds. Basically, Yeah, and
(18:09):
so they're saying okay, well, these glands are just the
equivalent to a female prostate. It's the same cells that
when we're in utero will develop into the male prostate
depending on your chromosomal makeup, and they're made of similar
tissues also in women. But some say that they're quote
dead end cells or vestiges of our embryonic days. Yeah,
(18:33):
there's a lot of dismissal going on, like the why
do we care if women have these little glands or
tissues or whatever. It's not like they're doing anything like
helping you reproduce, But we clearly care so much because
the entire history of the medical history of female ejaculation,
the medical history of the clitterest, everything that we know
(18:53):
has been a constant search for, like homologous anatomy between
men and women. It's essentially looking at male anatomy and
then figuring out, Okay, what inside women matches this. So
they dismiss it, and yet they still use the same
logic to try to figure it out, which doesn't seem
to make much sense, especially considering that these are scientists.
(19:15):
Right while speaking of all of those scientists, when we're
in the late eighties and early nineties, there are a
lot of studies that happened that back up this difference
between female ejaculate and lubrication and urine in addition to
confirming the fact that yes, women do have ejaculate. So
we get pathologist Milan Xaviacic, who is a big name
(19:38):
in this research. He and his team found that both
the male and the female prostate quote release their contents
via an ejaculatory mechanism and continual resting secretions. And then
around this time, several studies demonstrated that female ejaculate contained
a lot more of this thing called prostatic acid phospha
(20:00):
days which is a chemical secreted by the prostate land
and is found in semen, and a lot less urrea
than the subjects urine. So what does this mean. It
helped women understand basically that they weren't experiencing incontinence during
and after sex and that this emission is a normal phenomenon.
Of course, women who do struggle with incontinents, that's a thing,
(20:23):
But they're saying that this squirting, this female ejaculation is
not wetting the bed. You were not experiencing incontinence, and
it's a part of normal sexual activity for a lot
of people. And in addition to that, prosthetic acid phosphatase
fructos had also been identified around this time in female ejaculate,
which previously was thought to be present only in male ejaculate,
(20:47):
as an energy source to help sperm move along in
the epic journey, usually to death. But of course the
requestion marks about the function of that fructose, is it
to move sperm along? Because at the same time, there
have also been theories that perhaps this ejaculate actually creates
(21:07):
more of an acidic and inhospitable environment for sperm, serving
as another kind of quote unquote natural birth control for
women because there is no reproductive purpose to it. Maybe
it is tied solely to female sexual pleasure. But after
all this research in zaviat Check and neurophysiologist Beverly Whipple,
(21:30):
who by the way, was one of the researchers who
gave the G spot the G named it after Graffenberg,
they still were not sure what the connections were between
this female prostate that they've they've been researching the now
named G spot and female ejaculation. But Zaviatics name does
(21:52):
not go away, as we'll see in just a second.
But if we move up past the nineties into the
more modern era, we have figured out a few more things,
although there are still a lot of mysteries and confusion
and controversy almost surrounding the female orgasm. So researchers have
figured out that the prostate, being fully formed in men
doesn't necessarily have a fully formed female equivalence. So our
(22:15):
skins glands aren't always fully developed. Some have large skains glands,
some don't, some seem to lack them completely, and scientists
think that this variation among women might be maybe why
some women experience g spot orgasms and ejaculation while others don't. Well.
(22:36):
In addition to the variation in size with the skins,
glands or female prostate, there's also variation in size in
terms of your your rethral sponge, in the kinds of
erectile tissues in your internal clitterists that may or may
not influence uh the likelihood of so called g spot orgasms. Um,
but the aviatic said, when it comes to the skins glands,
(23:00):
you should just call them the female prostate. He thinks
that they are alike enough that that's what it should be,
And in fact, in two thousand two, the Federative International
Committee on Anatomical Terminology officially renamed skains glands the prostate,
which is interesting. Um. But again again it is this
(23:21):
pursuit of homologous anatomy which but fuddles me a little
bit because, um, especially if we just call it the
female prostate to disambiguate from the prostate, which just makes
the male body normative and the female body the exception.
But that's another conversation for another time. Um, regardless of
(23:42):
the name, every healthy dude with a prostate produces prostate fluid,
but only a fraction. Again that ten tot of women ejaculated,
as far as anyone can tell. So it's like the
more we learn, the more questions we have, and a
lot of it seems to come down on two semantics
of like what do we call this thing rather than
(24:03):
just saying, okay, well we know this happens, right. But
we'll get more into our continuing our ongoing fascination with
female ejaculation and the issue of squirting and what is
or is not squirting? When don't we come right back
from a quick break and now back to the show.
(24:28):
So in the first half of the podcast, we charted
the medical history of female ejaculate And I want to
cite this paper that we drew from published in the
journal Sexual Medicine History in two thousand and ten to
kick off the second half um in which the author
writes quote this article aims to demonstrate that the phenomenon
(24:49):
of female ejaculation has been discovered, described, and forgotten in
Eastern and Western culture repeatedly over the last two thousand years.
And where does that leave us in? Still with questions,
still with a great squirting debate, not only about its physiology,
(25:11):
but also about its propriety. Yeah, so, if you've been
paying attention to the news the past several months, you
might remember that the UK banned squirting in porn. I
mean you can still watch it, obviously, you can still
access it on the Internet or wherever you get your porn,
but it just can't be produced in the UK. They
(25:32):
also banned by the way strangulation, which okay, I guess
I can see spanking and faith sitting. So this this
is all part of that those faith sitting demonstrations that
were going on in England a while back. And the
reason why squirting porn was banned was because they thought
that it looked too much like p porn essentially. Yeah,
(25:53):
I mean yeah, squirting was basically fine when it was
considered to be just a sexual response and something that
bends two bodies during sex. UM. But once the question
of like, oh, is it urine, We'll wait, that's obscene.
Once that came up, then that's when the band was set.
But it's funny because, yeah, like the writer said, we
(26:14):
have two thousand years of studying what female ejaculation is
and is not, but we still haven't gotten to a
point where we're comfortable defining it. And so then we
get this new study in December which sort of like,
I know, we joked about Kim Kardashian breaking the Internet,
but this study like blew the Internet up. Yeah. It
was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine and it
(26:36):
was called the Nature and Origin of Squirting in Female Sexuality.
So yes, squirting is in a study title published in
a respected journal, hence its use in this podcast um.
And it was conducted by these researchers in France, and
what they did was get seven so keep this in mind,
pretty small sample size, but they brought seven women who
(26:58):
had self reported a jack relation into a lab to see, okay,
once and for all, are you ladies just incontinent during
orgasm or not? And initially they had them come in
empty their bladders, and even they even scanned the bladders
to make sure, okay, there's nothing in them all right,
(27:19):
And then what happened Caroline, Well, at this point they
begin sexual stimulation, either with a partner or by themselves,
but then they stop to undergo another ultrasound to examine
what's going on with their bladders. At this point they
determine that there's a little fluid in the bladder. They're
released to go back to sexual stimulation. Once they achieve
(27:41):
orgasm and experience ejaculation. The researchers collected a sample of
that fluid and then performed another ultrasound. What did they find, Well,
that fluid that midway through had been detected in the
bladder after starting and then stopping, sexual stimulation was gone.
(28:01):
So the outcome was basically that among two of the
seven women went once they performed this biochemical analysis of
the fluid, it was just urine, sad trombone noise. Yeah,
And we should know too that these were women who
said that not only did they ejaculate, but usually they
would squirt about a glass of waters worth a fluid
(28:24):
deering orgasm. And this also leads to this proposed distinction
between female ejaculate, which is like a little bit, and squirting,
which is a lot of it, right, And so for
the other five of seven women. This is coming from
that article in The Independent that we cited earlier. The
biochemical analysis showed that while the fluid was mostly urine,
(28:49):
it also contained a prostate specific and regen originating from
this games glands, and the authors concluded that these results
support their hypothesis that female ejaculation is an involuntary urine
a mission. They said that the presence of that prostate
(29:09):
specific androgen, though, was ruled to be the residue of
true female ejaculation due to mechanical stimulation of the g spot.
But you also have to wonder with this kind of
study set up to how how authentic almost the results are,
because one thing that we didn't note was that for
(29:31):
this whole process of women having an orgasm, it took
around an hour too, and also having to stop in
the middle go get your bladder scan and then come
back not the most arousing set up as well. So
who knows whether if this were happening at home and
they took the dainty little teaspoons and collected some and
(29:52):
then took it to a lab, whether perhaps maybe there
would be more prostate specific androgen and and less urrea.
And also doesn't really matter because the unfortunate thing about
this study and its results being published in a very
internet fashion, as women are just peating themselves in bed,
(30:13):
that really didn't help the situation at all, because now
we're still left with the question of well esquirting the
same thing as female ejaculation, Because in two thousand eleven,
there is a study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, which,
by the way, if you want to know about female ejaculation,
get yourself a subscription to the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
(30:33):
UM researchers, though, performed biochemical studies on that fluid expelled
during orgasm that also do line up with those recent
findings from the French study, and the authors wrote, quote
the clear and abundant fluid that is ejected in Gush's parentheses,
squirting is different from real female ejaculation. And I gotta say, Caroline,
(30:59):
whenever I hear things like real female, like real this,
or real that it's like, well, okay, all right, tell
me more what is real what is not? Yeah, So
people are definitely working hard to distinguish the true, mysterious,
fascinating female ejaculation. They really want to pinpoint it. And
(31:19):
Old Beverly Whipple, the she the namer of the g spot,
told the publication New Scientists that she thinks that the discovery,
the quote unquote discovery means that female ejaculation should only
be used as a term to refer to the small
amount of fluid that is produced by those periorethal glands
(31:41):
in a woman and not squirting. Right, because in that
two thousand eleven study they distinguished that quote real female
ejaculation as scanty, thick, and whitish fluid, whereas scoring a
lot of times is clear fluid. It does look aside
from not having a yellowish tent, it does look like
(32:03):
like clear urine. Yeah, And they're saying that true ejaculation
is from the female prostate and squirting is just fluid
from the bladder. And not surprisingly, though, this question of
whether there is a true ejaculation, whether there is really
a difference between squirting and female ejaculate, got a lot
of people talking um because, as Hayley McMillan pointed out
(32:28):
over at Refinery, this is a rather androcentric conversation because
what these scientists are looking for in terms of true
female ejaculation is the presence of things like the fructoes,
like that prostitate acid that you find in semen, which
is all find well and good. But at the same time,
(32:50):
it's like, well, do we necessarily need to have a
tip fotat so to speak? Yeah, because she Yeah, she's
basically saying that the way researchers are going about this
is trying to define true female ejaculation by the presence
of an enzyme that characterizes male ejaculation. And she says
(33:11):
it's it's part of the same movement to call the
clitter as a female penis, and that, hey, why can't
women have a thing that is of women? Why does
it have to be defined in terms of what is
male or not male? Yeah? And also when it comes
to a question of do women ejaculate, why not just
(33:33):
take women who experience this phenomenon at their word. This
was something written about in a column for The Guardian
by lux Alpatrom, who herself experiences ejaculation when she orgasms
sometimes not every time. Um. And that's the thing also
about it where it can be a bit elusive, because
if it happens once, it doesn't necessarily happen every time. Um.
(33:55):
But she wrote, quote female ejaculators, no, firsthand, even if
the flu would they emit during an orgasm comes from
the bladder, It looks, smells, and feels different from urine.
And also she goes on to say, regardless of the
biological basis of female ejaculation, the physical appearance is at
its heart a pure expression of female sexual pleasure. Yeah.
(34:18):
And this leads her to talk about the UK's ban
on squirting in porn, talking about how since porn is
this visual medium, if you're banning squirting, you are banning
a very female expression of not only orgasm, but just
of pleasure and sexual excitement. Yeah. And it's stigmatizing it
too as well. And there have been interview studies conducted
(34:41):
among women who ejaculate who report shame around ejaculate because
either their partners think that they're peeing on them and
don't appreciate it, or they think that they're incontinent and
feel embarrassed for that, And so for that reason they
don't seek out sexual pleasure for fear of doing it.
And it's this legal battle has not only taken place
(35:03):
so in the UK, there have also been obscenity cases
in the United States as well. And we found a
recent article published in the Texas Journal of Women in
the Law which has one of my favorite titles ever,
obscene squirting. If the government thinks it's urine, they've got
another thing coming. Yes. And the other points out though,
(35:24):
how men's ejaculation not considered obscene, which quote quote clearly
dehumanizes the female body in a hateful way. And there
was another quote that I wanted to pull from it,
um which said scientists and pornographers agree ejaculation is a
natural response to sexual stimulation. So yeah, I mean I
(35:46):
I definitely don't agree with it being banned in porn,
especially because when it comes to ejaculate and things that
are okay, there are still, uh, what would be considered
far more degrading acts that are fine to film when
it comes to how and where men can ejaculate, right, yeah, exactly. Um.
(36:07):
One thing we haven't brought up though, is like, okay,
so there is squirting, there is female ejaculation. People do
this people enjoy it. But then there was this writer
over at Feminist Thing that brought up the point, this
was back in two thousand nine, of like, well, yeah,
but I also don't like that men are basing their
idea of their own virility and masculinity around whether a
(36:27):
woman is squirting or not. Well, okay, so here's the
thing I was thinking about that, and um, I have
a feeling that, uh, it's it's only some men, and
this probably goes for women who have sex with women
as well, where there's going to be a fascination with
the whole thing too, because I think the obsession with
it in a sexual sense is that it's quote unquote
(36:51):
legit proof that a female orgasm has happened, because you know,
men like have physical evidence of it, where as women
not so much. So that kind of obsession makes sense
to me. Yeah, but by the same token too, anecdotally,
I will say that I have known women who are
similarly proud of their ability to squirt as a display
(37:16):
of maybe not their virility, but their sexual prowess too.
So it's it definitely adds an interesting performative element, let's say,
to sex. Yeah, and that writer the psychologist who was
writing over The Independent that we've cited a couple of times,
basically closes out his article about that December French study
by saying, like, listen, this is an enriching part of
(37:40):
a lot of people's sexual lives and relationships, and nobody's
getting hurt. You know, let's not make this a big
controversial issue. And some people do it, some people don't.
It's part of people's sexual lives. Let's not get all
up in arms about it. Yeah, And I mean, it's
just it's so fascinating to me this scientific debate persists.
(38:03):
Like the French study, I don't think really settled anything.
I don't think anyone was really fully satisfied with those results.
But I don't know at this point what will satisfy it.
What will satisfy me is if like women or anyone
who has a vagina who ejaculates, like, Okay, that's fine,
that's cool, Like that's part of your sexual response, no
need for to be ashamed by it. Embrace it, you
(38:25):
do you that's cool. Which might sound pretty lack of daysical,
but we're pretty lack of daysical when it comes to
men ejaculating. You know, I think if anything What should
be settled is the stigma that some and shame that
some feel about it. Um yeah, whether whether you're being
(38:46):
made to feel shamed for doing it or for not
doing it exactly. Yeah, I mean because of the interesting
thing we The one statistic we didn't cite was that,
at least in Australia, we don't have US statistics, but
it's the third most popular porn search. So people are
clearly intrigued by this thing, this capacity some people have.
(39:07):
Um yeah, I think it's I just want to hear
from listeners now, listeners, can you settle this great squirting
debate for us? Has it influenced your sex life? At all?
Moms Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is our email address.
You can also tweet us if you want, at mom
Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook. And we've got a
couple of letters to read do you that have nothing
(39:28):
to do with ejaculation right now. So I've got a
letter here from Mackenzie about our Women in Comics too Parter,
and she wrote, I'm listening to part two of your
Own and Comics podcast where you Chris then talked about
being too intimidated to go into a comic store as
a team reminded me of my early years as a
(39:50):
girl comic book fan. When I was eleven or twelve,
I was a welfare food stamps kid living in a
poor neighborhood and in an otherwise affluent city. I was
teased and buloyed a lot with a few friends, and
I later came to realize I was deeply depressed. About
a mile down the street there was a comic bookstore
I was allowed to visit without supervision. I had been
introduced to comics by my dad just a few years before,
(40:12):
but I didn't live with them full time, so the
store was my main outlet for comics giegery. I went
several times a week just to kill time, thumbing through
old back issues of Uncanny X Men and Fantastic Four
from the eighties. These only cost a few bucks each,
so I could afford to buy some every now and then.
The female clerk, Scarlett, who may have been the co
owner of the store, must have realized I desperately needed
(40:35):
whatever brakes life would deal me. She never charged me
tax and would sometimes even throw in a few issues
for free. This helped stretch my money to buy more comics,
and I was always thrilled to see here at the register.
I'm actually in tears right now remembering this and how
much her small kindness meant to me during a time
when I really needed them. Her store changed hands over
the years and I was never able to thank her.
(40:57):
But I still have all those comics she sold me,
and emotionally those story lines mean more to me than
any others. And I've read thousands of comics over my
years as a fan. There may not be a ton
of women working in comics stores, but Scarlett did, and
she made a difference to me. Ladies helping ladies, I guess, so,
thanks Mackenzie and Scarlett. I have a letter here from
(41:20):
Pamela about our astronomy episodes. She says, I've been a
long time listener to your podcast, which I adore. I
love sharing the podcast with my sons about the amazing
things women can and have done. This week, your podcast
on the women in Astronomy was especially fascinating. I attended
Agnes Scott College Indicator, Georgia. One of my classmates with
(41:42):
Amy Lavell. Amy is now an associate of the Physics
and Astronomy department at our alma mater. I believe She
has even served as the chair of her department in
the past. Agnes Scott has always served as a beacon
for women to aspire to all fields, and Amy's return
to the incredible facilities our college provides for women wars
my heart. Amy has been an amazing woman science since
(42:03):
her undergrad years, including publishing papers and peer reviewed publications
as an undergraduate. I remember her enthusiasm for her field
from our earliest interactions as first year students. She continues
to reach out to encourage other women and girls to
aspire to stem fields. As our twenty five reunion approaches,
I believe Amy would easily merit and mentioned in your
podcast as a leader among women and astronomy. Thank you
(42:25):
for the always enjoyable and enlightening podcasts you produce every week,
and thank you Pamela for writing in and thanks to
everybody who's written to us. Mom Stuff at how stuff
Works dot com is our email address and for links
to all of our social media as well as all
of our blogs, videos and podcasts, including this one with sources.
If you want to learn more about the science of
female ejaculation, head on over to Stuff Mom Never Told
(42:49):
You dot com for more on this, and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff works? Dot com
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