This article is edited from a paper by Doctor Beverly Whipple (1)
Female ejaculation fascinates many. It has been the subject of many films. There are also many videos and books claiming to teach women to ejaculate, but these films and books tend to represent the amounts shown to be expelled to be much larger than in actuality. The process is still not fully understood and there has been limited research on how it works and what purpose it may serve.
Female ejaculation refers to the expulsion of fluid from the urethra that is different from urine. The fluid is described as looking like watered-down fat-free milk, tasting sweet, and usually about a teaspoon (3–5 cc) in volume. The biological phenomenon of female ejaculation has been a normal and pleasurable experience of many women’s sexuality through the ages – though suggestions vary on what percentage of women experience it.
Female ejaculation through the ages
Female ejaculation was a tradition in ancient cultures of China, India, Japan, and other areas of Asia and Africa. The Romans called these fluids liquor vitae, and in ancient India, the fluids were known as a amrita (nectar of the gods). Aristotle was probably the first to write about female ejaculation and Galen, the Roman physician and surgeon, is said to have known about it in the second century C.E.(1) One of the founders of experimental physiology, Regnier De Graaf, in his New Treatise Concerning The Generative Organs Of Women (1672), described the female prostate and the fluid from the urethra in some detail, observing that this can happen “in an agreeable fashion during coitus.”
In 1950, Dr. Grafenberg wrote about the sensitive area on the anterior wall of the vagina, which when stimulated seems to cause the female urethra to enlarge and swell. He also described a fluid from the urethra that is different from urine. Years later, John Perry and I rediscovered this sensitive area while teaching women Kegel exercises using biofeedback for stress urinary incontinence. Some of the women who reported that they lost fluid from their urethra had very strong pelvic floor muscles, while women with stress urinary incontinence usually have weak pelvic floor muscles. The women with strong pelvic floor muscles also reported that they only lost fluid from their urethra during sexual stimulation and some during orgasm. This led John Perry and me to conduct a study comparing the pelvic muscle strength of women whom we called ‘female ejaculators’ to women who did not experience female ejaculation. The results of this study demonstrated that the pelvic muscle strength of women who experience female ejaculation was significantly stronger than the women who did not have this experience.
The women who experienced female ejaculation also reported that there seemed to be a sensitive area felt through the anterior wall of their vagina and stimulation of this area caused the expulsion of fluid from their urethra and in some cases an orgasm that felt different from their orgasm from clitoral stimulation. They reported that the orgasm felt deeper inside their body and produced a bearing down sensation, with the uterus pushing down into the vagina, rather than the tenting effect of the vagina (where the end of the vagina balloons out and the uterus pulls up), as reported at orgasm by Masters and Johnson in 1966, in response to clitoral stimulation.
Our team of medical doctors and nurse practitioners examined over 400 women and found this sensitive area, which swells when it is stimulated with a ‘come here’ motion, in all women tested. The women were lying on their back and the stimulation of the area felt through the anterior vaginal wall was done with two fingers, with the palm of the hand up, of the person doing the stimulation. We then named this area the Gräfenberg spot after Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg, who identified this sensitive area.
Female ejaculation vs urine
It was concluded, after conducting hundreds of studies, that the fluid expelled through the urethra comes from the female prostate gland. The fluid has been analyzed chemically, all studies finding that the chemical components of the ejaculated fluid were significantly different from urine from the same subjects. Specifically, the ejaculate contains high levels of prostatic acid phosphatase, prostatic specific antigen, glucose, and fructose, but low levels of urea and creatinine. The chemical composition of healthy urine is the opposite of female ejaculate, so they are easily differentiated from each other. That is, healthy urine contains high levels of urea and creatinine and no prostatic acid phosphatase, prostatic specific antigen, or glucose. Others have described the occurrence of female ejaculation without performing any chemical analysis.
Squirting and gushing orgasms
Biochemical evidence demonstrates that the clear and abundant fluid that is ejected in gushers is different from the real female ejaculation, and also is chemically different from urine from the same subject. Consequently, it is questionable as to whether in those cases the large amounts of fluid are female ejaculate or, more likely, dilute urine. It is evident that some women expel a fluid that is different from urine during sexual activities and orgasm and some women may also expel urine. In some women, G spot stimulation, orgasm, and female ejaculation are related, while in others they are not. There are reports that some women have experienced female ejaculation with orgasm from clitoral stimulation and some women have reported experiencing ejaculation without orgasm.
The G Spot
The tissues that compose the area now known as the G spot have been reported by many. In The Orgasm Answer Guide, which I co-authored with Barry Komisaruk, Sarah Nasserzadeh, and Carlos Beyer-Flores, it was noted that the area of the clitoris-urethra-vagina complex (also known as the area of the G spot) contains several different organs in this highly complex body region. ‘These include 1) the anterior vaginal wall, 2) the urethra, 3) the Skene’s glands (also called the para-urethral glands or female prostate gland), 4) perhaps other glands in this region (vestibular glands, Bartholin’s glands), 5) the surrounding muscle and connection tissue, and 6) perhaps even portions of the clitoris’, now known to be a much larger organ than previously thought.
In 2012 in the ‘Controversies in Sexual Medicine’, in the Journal Of Sexual Medicine, research was reviewed in which it was demonstrated that women can experience orgasm from many forms of stimulation and that the assumption that women may experience only the clitoral, external orgasm is not based on the best available scientific evidence.
Your sex life
It is important for women and their male and female partners to know that the phenomenon of female ejaculation, for those who experience it, is a normal part of healthy sexuality. Some women report that they had surgery to correct this fluid expulsion and others report that they stopped experiencing orgasm. It is also important for health care providers to be aware of this phenomenon and to help their patients to realize that this is a normal, healthy part of female sexual responses.
When writing about my research findings, I have ended one article with the following: ‘I want to conclude by saying that orgasm in women is in the brain, it is felt in many body regions, and it can be stimulated from many body regions as well as from imagery alone. Orgasm is not a just a reflex, it is a total body experience. We need to continue to be open to documenting the various pleasurable sensual and sexual experiences reported by women. It is important to be aware of the variety of sexual responses that women report and that have been documented in the laboratory. It is also important not to put women into a model of only one or two ways to experience sensual and sexual pleasure, satisfaction, and orgasm.
‘Women need to be encouraged to feel good about the variety of ways they experience sexual pleasure, without setting up specific goals (such as finding the G spot, experiencing female ejaculation, or experiencing an orgasm from vaginal stimulation). Healthy sexuality begins with acceptance of the self, in addition to an emphasis on the process, rather than the goals of sexual interactions.’ (1 p59)
We need scientific studies and then acceptance of the reports of women’s sensual and sexual pleasure.
References:
- Whipple, B. Female Ejaculation, G Spot, A spot, and Should We Be Looking for Spots? Curr Sex Health Rep. 2015, 7;59-62
Some of the Books co-authored by Dr Beverly Whipple:
Ladas, A.K., Whipple, B., and Perry, J.D. The G Spot and other Discoveries about Human Sexuality (1982, 2005). New York: Holt Reinhart and Winston: https://www.amazon.com/Spot-Other-Discoveries-about-Sexuality/dp/0805077596
Komisaruk, B.R., Beyer-Flores, and Whipple, B. The Science Of Orgasm (2006) Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The+Science+of+Orgasm+Komisaruk&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
Komisaruk, B.R., Whipple, B., Nasserzadeh, S., and Beyer-Flores, C. The Orgasm Answer Guide (2010) Baltimore, MD. Johns Hopkins University Press: https://www.amazon.com/Orgasm-Answer-Guide-Barry-Komisaruk/dp/0801893968/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Orgasm+Answer+Guide+-+Komisaruk&qid=1591127347&s=books&sr=1-1