Female Ejaculation
An Introduction To Female Ejaculation
The act of female ejaculation – also referred to as gushing or even squirting – is the obvious discharge or forceful streaming of a fluid like substance by some women during their orgasm via their paraurethral channels located about the urethra. What the true makeup and root cause of this liquid substance remains a dilemma to clinical experts and has reached near mythical speculation amongst those parties interested.
When investigated more closely, thirty five to fifty percent of those women surveyed claimed to have expelled fluid during intercourse while having an orgasm. Numerous other surveys conducted have reported discrepancies of between ten percent and sixty nine percent based on how the question was framed and the description of the event.
An example of one survey would be when 200 women were questioned and six percent said they had ejaculated, another thirteen percent had similar experiences to an ejaculation and sixty percent said there was some fluid discharge but no ejaculating. The quantity of substance that is discharged varies widely as well. From miniscule amounts that would not even draw a woman’s attention to volumes averaging from one to five mL, with even higher quantities of discharge recorded.
We like to think, as modern humans, that we invented sex and all that is associated with it but for thousands of years the act of sexual intercourse has not changed all that much. The question of whether women can achieve ejaculation as part of their stimulation process during sex is a topic that has been debated physiologically, medically, and biologically throughout the ages. Male ejaculation has always been a fact that was unquestioned, female ejaculation on the other hand has always been questioned and its acceptance or not, speculated upon by writers over the centuries.
The mere suggestion that a woman could expel a fluid from her vaginal region elemental to her sexual stimulation started debate among anyone involved in the sexology realm of modern times. However, the ancients apparently had something to say about female ejaculation as well since it is alluded to in the bible of all books. Those who study the bible will admit that eroticism is alluded to in the bible with mention of arousal, orgasm and ejaculation in women. One can find a reference to this in the Song of Solomon, 4: 12-13, in about 1014 BC.
Also in scripture, Deuteronomy 24:5 states, “When a man has taken a new wife, before going to war… he will be free at home one year, and will make happy the wife he has taken”. Another line points out he will “cheer her up”, interpreted by those bible academics to mean a certain sexual affection or awareness, though it can also be interpreted to mean female orgasm.
There is also mention of female ejaculation in some east Indian erotic passages, like the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana and later about the 1500’s by Ananga-Ranga. In some Indian places of worship, there are sculptures of women, which seem to portray female ejaculation. In the Kama Sutra itself it reads – “The semen of women continues to fall from the beginning of the sexual union to the end, in the same way as that of the male”.
Sexual instruction books from China like “Secret Methods of the Plain Girl by Su Nu Ching (Sui Dynasty 590–618 AD) talk about female ejaculation in sentences like “Copious emissions from her inner heart begin to exude outward”. That is just from the continent of Asia! Europe and the Mediterranean regions also have references to female ejaculation in some of their texts as well.
Roman writers and Greek scholars understood without principle that female ejaculation was simply normal and pleasurable, but debate was spawned as to whether there was any kind of fertile benefit in the fluid as there was in male ejaculate. Regnier De Graaf, A seventeenth century doctor and anatomical scientific pioneer made a claim that there was debatable mention in some Greek passages describing a prostate-like organ in women. Aristotle, recognized there was a fluid but never thought it had fertile properties and both Hippocrates and Galen bought into a two semen theory.
Aristotle wrote that some would believe that a woman contributes semen during coitus since she experiences pleasure on a scale equal to the man and it is often accompanied by a release of liquid. The discharge is not seminal in nature…Aristotle continued that when the discharge happened it was often on a scale unique from that of a man’s semen and in fact far surpasses it.
Hippocrates said the man’s ejaculate runs as one with that of the woman’s and Galen distinguished between pleasure and procreation female fluids, characterizing the pleasurable fluid as – to paraphrase Galen – derived from the prostate. It is now known women do not have a prostate gland but rather what is called a Skene’s gland. He stated that the production of this prostate fluid serves not to produce children and that it is dispensed with outside when it has finished its job of service…the liquid not only helps to stimulate the act of sex but also to dampen the path during its dispersal. It distinctly flows from the female as she feels the greatest of pleasure during coitus. It was because of these writings by the ancient scholars that the two semen theory was prevalent in both Arabic and eventually Western medical science.
In more modern times, female ejaculation is discussed early on in the 1900’s in certain “marriage manuals”. In T.H. Van de Velde’s book = Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique released in 1926, It’s apparent he was knowledgeable of a variety of female practices. In summarizing his thoughts – It seems the greater part of ‘nonprofessional’ women believe there is a substance of some kind thrust from the body of a woman at orgasm as normally as in a man. It is also certain that this ejaculation does not happen in the average sexually active women as it happens in certain others.
Overall, the matter was not discussed much in the early part of the century, at least until 1948. It was then that an American physician – gynecologist, printed his examination data of the prostatic tissue in females along with an historical description and meticulous illustrations. These showed in detail the uniqueness between the Skene glands in the urinary opening and the more centrally located glandular tissue gathering which emptied straight into the urethra about which were located the paraurethral ducts and glands.
In 1950 a journal accounting of women observed throughout their orgasm described a more up to date look at female ejaculation. It was never in doubt that an erotic region was located on the frontal face of the vagina running along the urethra similar to the male urethra; the female urethra appears shrouded by corpus cavernosum-like tissue as is found around the penis. During sexual arousal, the woman’s urethra is expanded which one can feel without difficulty. When orgasm is achieved it expands significantly with the sporadic production of liquid, which at times is plentiful.
When monitoring these orgasmic women, you are witness to oversized amounts of a translucent liquid released from the urethra in “gushes” and not as many thought, from the vulva. This happened with such force first thoughts were that the bladder sphincter muscle had become disabled from the sheer force of the orgasm. There are accounts of uncontrolled urine discharge written about in sexual reports, though this fluid showed no urine qualities. There is now an inclination to consider that fluid discharged while a woman is in orgasm is not nor is it related to urine, rather it is a substance from the intraurethral glands associated with the erogenous region of the intraurethral – vaginal wall. Furthermore, the copious quantities of emission during the orgasm does not have any lubricating importance or the manufacture and release of the fluid would happen prior to climax rather than when at its pinnacle.
As convincing an argument as was made, the brightest sexologists of the time – Kinsey and later Masters and Johnson brushed aside these earlier observations chocking the earlier observations up to merely urinary incontinence. However, Kinsey did admit that muscle contractions of the vagina could force out secretions to some extent from the vaginal region in particular cases. Masters and Johnson weighed in with their thoughts on the subject a decade later saying that – the largest part of sexually active women do not ejaculate while experiencing orgasm, we have seen a few cases where women discharged a fluid forcefully that was not urine. Female ejaculation is an incorrect and prevalent notion. M&J restated their opinion that women ejaculating was erroneous and the gushing or squirting was a result of urinary stress incontinence…the latter statement was made in 1982.
After all the debate, mythology, clinical study and historical documentation one would think a definitive answer would have been arrived at or forthcoming. An anatomical issue such as this is not exactly neuroscience and brain mapping. Female ejaculation still seems to elude experts and refuses to be defined as a common sexual attribute in the aroused women.
As of now, there are three parts to the female ejaculation debate. Does female ejaculation actually exist or does it not? What is the source of the fluid and what are its elements? How does female ejaculation fit into the overall foundation of sexuality? Quite predictably the dialogue becomes clouded political will, pop culture, pornography as well as physiology, chemical balance and behavioral examination. Some women claim the research is tainted with a males eye view. There is often discussion of the elusive G-spot and its role in producing ejaculation in women due to stimulus of the inner vaginal wall and the paraurethral tissue, where ducts and gland compose the supposed spring of ejaculate liquid. Interestingly, this tissue in women has an embryonic connection to the male prostatic tissue.
In 1982, the book called – The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality – reinvigorated talk about female ejaculation spurring the women’s sexuality debate including a whole chapter about female ejaculation. Though mostly subjective statements, it characterized one of the great issues concerning female ejaculation, which is the lack of monitored observations versus clinical investigations and studies conducted. One feminist hypothesis pushed that due to a women’s pleasure in sexuality being traditionally downplayed, the thought of a women experiencing pleasure due to ejaculation was minimized by medicos and brushed off as a sort of bodily phenomenon. Debate continued as more women entered the discussion and dialogue became quite impassioned. Some pundits pointed to a lack of female voices joining in the debate about female ejaculation, defending the concept as their own fight for control over what was clearly their domain.
Part of the reason the controversy still exists is because there simply are not universal definitions or research structures. There have not been many large studies conducted using less than particular subjects, select case studies have been a problem. Use of more test subjects is required and a conclusive method overall for testing is a necessity. Containment and study of fluid has been a problem, separation of urine from glandular secretions is next to impossible. Controlled studies with abstaining women have had the best results, using pre and post orgasmic urine for controlled study.
There are also issues with menstrual timing and its effect on the fluids and the test subject’s ages mean there are biological and chemical differences in data profiles. In general, testing has been a mish mash of research and data without much attention paid to control and tactical planning. The sexual functions of women and specifically their orgasms have really been lacking in medical and scientific study, but not when it comes to philosophical debate. Nonetheless, a lack of factual material when it comes to female ejaculation has not thwarted the social importance of the subject in the feminist health care realm, as this has been substantial.
Many women suffered in fear and humiliation, shunning any intimate encounters due to the certainty that they had in fact wet the bed. Still others concealed their climax and even consulted physicians regarding their apparent health issue, some having surgical procedures to arrest the problem. There was the potential for performance anxiety due to expectations of a women ejaculating as easily as a man does. Was there something wrong with a woman if she did NOT ejaculate during intercourse? such questions and thought processes concerned experts.
Modern women’s health initiatives conclude the quantities of dispersed fluid will differ widely amongst women, most hardly visible. Female ejaculation may happen with or without stimulation of the vaginal region and it could happen combined with an orgasm or simply intense bliss. In addition, an orgasm can occur without ejaculation. It isn’t known to be a learned practice but women have reported they can augment their pleasure with an increase in sexual responsiveness. There are even workshops available to train women in how to ejaculate as part of their human female sexuality. Female ejaculation has been explained as an integral part of female imagination and their very birthright.