Dear Vera Blossom, I feel like squirting is a myth perpetrated by Big Porn. I’ve only ever heard whispers about it. I have a vagina, and I’ve never squirted. I sleep with people of all genders who have vaginas, and I’ve never seen any of them squirt. Am I just not performing well enough to get them to squirt? Is the lack of squirting in my sex life because I’ve actually never had good sex?
-Striving Sapphic Squirter, Chicago
Dear reader, you are not alone in your confusion about this elusive sexual phenomena. Recently, I was at a bar chatting about squirting with friends of many gender and sexual embodiments, and people had so many questions: Is it a myth? Is it pee? Can I squirt if I just try harder?
Their queries thrust me into a fact-finding mission. The next morning, I was perusing the stacks at Perpetual Books here in Chicago when I stumbled upon Juice: A History of Female Ejaculation, by Stephanie Haerdle.
In the preface, Haerdle writes,
“…for thousands of years, it went without saying that both women and men ejaculated during intercourse. In the late nineteenth century, however, female ejaculation came under fire in Europe, the fact of its existence denied, contested, suppressed, recast as taboo, and ultimately forgotten by most.”
So while porn can spread misinformation about sex and pleasure, your confusion about squirting likely didn’t start on screen. Our collective ignorance on this topic is emblematic of systemic discrimination and misogyny in medical and scientific research.
In an effort to reverse a couple centuries of neglected education around vaginas, I’m going to do my part and gush about squirting. (Note that while modern medical research often uses the term “female ejaculation” when discussing this topic, I prefer to utilize more gender-neutral language like “squirt.”)
Is squirt pee?
The documented history of squirting dates back to more than 2 millennia. Texts like the Han Dynasty-era Secrets from the Jade Chamber and the nearly-2,000-year-old Sanskrit text Kama Sutra mention that vaginas can generate sexual fluids, including lubricating fluid and the gushing fluids we would call “squirt.”
Exactly which fluids we consider squirt can be confusing, especially because the medical research community has not come to a consensus on labels and nomenclature. So to get a good working definition, I spoke to science journalist Leigh Cowart, author of Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose.
Cowart says there are two distinct fluids that we might consider to be “squirt.”
One is the vaginal lubrication fluid that can be clear or milky. This is generated during sexual intercourse and diffuses from the vaginal walls; it can vary in composition from person-to-person and from moment-to-moment during sexual intercourse, depending on the intensity and length of a given session. This fluid is similar to seminal fluids, Cowart told me, except it doesn’t contain sperm.
The second sexual squirt fluid comes in more of a gush. Cowart said some women may expel up to ten tablespoons or more of this clear liquid at once and spray it clear across the bedroom.
The composition of this squirt is similar to diluted urine, Cowart explained, but it is not clear exactly where this fluid originates. Scientists have theorized that it could come from the bladder, but it may come from a combination of the bladder, intraurethral glands, and the Skene’s glands (prostate-like glands located in the urethra).
So is squirt just pee? That’s a question that’s still hotly debated—and not just by me and other crude perverts over cheap beer at a bar, but by scientists. Cowart explained that squirt resembles diluted urine, but it seems to differ compositionally from urine.
Anyway, in their professional opinion, “if it is pee, it’s fine,” Cowart said, adding: “Girl, pee on him.”
I have to agree! Release your inhibitions, and let them feel the rain on their skin.
Research on squirting
One of the best recent academic articles on squirt, “Female Ejaculation: an update on anatomy, history, and controversies,” was a comprehensive analysis published in 2020.
After reviewing 44 publications from 1889 to 2019, its authors concluded that there is substantial evidence in support of vulval ejaculation, but recognize that this topic is “contentious.”
The scientific controversy over squirt is related to the reality that scientists have long under-researched the vagina, uterus, and ovaries. Modern medicine is rife with gender marginalization and health care that prioritizes cis male world view.
While Hippocrates accurately described the penis as early as 35 BC, it wasn’t until 2005 that urologist Dr. Helen O’Connell used cross-sectional imaging to accurately describe the anatomy of the clitoris in healthy, premenopausal, cisgender women for the first time.
(Read: Clitoris Researcher Wants You to Know Everything This Sex Organ Can Do)
For too long, scientific interest in the female body focused largely on its procreative functions, and doctors dismissed other bodies with vagines—like those of intersex people—as anomalies in need of “normalizing.”
Today’s growing body of medical research into squirt and Skene’s glands emissions is explicit pushback against this historic erasure. This year, researchers at the Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands also created the world’s first 3D map of the clitoris—30 years after the first 3D map of the nerves in the penis.
“There is a societal taboo attached to female sexuality,” said one of the co-authors of that 3D clitoral nerve map, neuroanatomist Ju Young Lee, in an April 2026 interview with Smithsonian Magazine. “The taboo is an obstacle to conducting scientific investigation.”
Perhaps it doesn’t need to be said, but I certainly don’t find female sexuality taboo. I’m openly curious about the organs that half the world’s population owns. And if they want to make those organs gush, I’m here to help.
Why can’t I squirt?
As for you, Striving Sapphic Squirter, you are not alone in your concern. Not everyone can squirt, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you if you haven’t had a splashy wet orgasm.
An academic article published in 2023 examined a few surveys and found that somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of adult women had ever squirted in their lifetime. Of those squirters, only a small fraction reported “always” experiencing squirting and orgasm together.
The mechanics around squirting are elusive.
“Next to nothing is known about what specific approaches or strategies … make squirting more likely during a sexual episode,” the study’s authors wrote.
But wait, there’s hope. That 2023 paper identified several techniques that may help squirters reach a wet climax. Participants reported success with “digital stimulation,” or fingering, of the interior front wall of the vagina, and with a combination of vaginal and clitoral stimulation. For some, anal stimulation did the trick.
Cowart also told me about the Squirt Watch, a wearable device that contains a microprocessor, oscillator, and accelerometer to help you identify the exact angle, speed, and force to use while fingering a vagina to help your partner achieve a squirting orgasm.
This may sound like a proper wet dream, but for the record, many squirters report some downsides. Some find the experience “too emotionally intense,” have trouble with how long it takes to achieve a squirting orgasm, and that it can also be a hassle to clean up.
Ultimately, dear Striving Sapphic Squirter, I think it’s important to approach your ejaculatory quest—like all sex and masturbation—with curiosity and an open mind, and to relinquish yourself to the pursuit of fun.
Prioritize your own pleasure, and don’t worry so much about what comes next.
The post I Don’t Squirt During Sex. Is My Vagina Broken? appeared first on Rewire News Group.