April 1, 2025Unpacking the Mystery of Squirting: What Science Really SaysA mysterious and often debated aspect of human sexuality colloquially known as squirting sparks controversy. This episode explores what research reveals. Photo illustration: Scientific American; Image: Getty ImagesSUBSCRIBE TO Science QuicklyRachel Feltman: For Scientific Americans Science Quickly, Im Rachel Feltman. Just a heads-up, todays episode is about human sexuality. We talk about sex, sometimes using slang terms but without any profanity. Id probably give this episode a PG-13 rating. So if you usually listen with kids, maybe give this one a solo trial run to make sure youre comfortable with the questions it may raise. And if you just really dont like hearing people talk about sex, then this episode isnt for you! No hard feelings, well see you on Friday.Now that thats out of the way: the human body is capable of doing some pretty incredible thingsincluding things we dont yet understand. But few physical phenomena inspire as much speculation or debate as the one colloquially known as squirting.My guest today is Wendy Zukerman, host of the hit podcast Science Vs. You may remember her from her previous appearance on Science Quickly back in August. If not, Ill refresh your memory: we talked about anal sex. Shes back today to tell us how Science Vs tackled the surprisingly controversial science of squirting.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Wendy, welcome back to the show! Its so great to have you.Wendy Zukerman: Oh, thank you so much for having me!Feltman: So the last time you were on Science Quickly, you were talking about your deep dive into the science of anal sexthe very neglected science of anal sex. Tell me about your latest sexual-health research endeavor.Zukerman: I know! Rachel, I wanted to tell the audience: We cover other issues, you know [laughs]?Feltman: [Laughs] Science Vs is a great, extremely varied show, and you are ...Zukerman: [Laughs] We have a new season ...Feltman: Back here today to talk about more sex stuff [laughs].Zukerman: Exactly. While this season is gonna cover ADHD, fluoride, methamphetamine, creatine, I am here to talk about the first episode of this season, which is on squirting.Feltman: Incredible. So there may be listeners who are like, Whats that?Zukerman: Great question.Feltman: So [laughs] yeah, what is it?Zukerman: Well, yes, so it is this rather mysterious phenomena where folks who have a vagina, sometimes when theyre extremely aroused, about to orgasm, at the moment of orgasm, a large amount of fluid will gush out of them. And its this big mystery around: What is this fluid? Where is it coming from? Is it coming from the vagina, the urethra? Is it pee? Is it female ejaculate?And for many years on the Internet you see these sort of fights playing out, and they often have this kind of political-ish tone to it, where often sort of feminist websites will argue, It is not pee; we have a special ejaculate, and then you have these kind of other websites that are sayingyou know, theyre kind of downplaying the squirt and saying, you know, No, it is just pee. And then in the middle of that, you have a lot of people being angry.And so we just wanted to say, like, this is ridiculous. Were in 2025. How can a physiological phenomena, how can this thing cause so much drama and be so politicized? What is this liquid? We should be able to know [laughs]. We have very sophisticated science. We should be able to determine what this liquid is.Feltman: Absolutely. So what did you know about the concept going into making this episode?Zukerman: So I have squirted, just sort of at the beginning of my sexual encounters. And for me, when it happened, I really thought it was pee.Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: I was quite certain. I wasnt devastated or anything; I was just like, Oh, bodies are weird, but I dont wanna be cleaning the sheets every time that this happens, so Im gonna kind of train my body not to do that, and I was able to.Nowadays it sort of has this very powerful element. Its part of porn, and it has these exciting elements to it, and its sort of a real accomplishment that you have squirted. But I guess, still, to a lot of folks who do it, and we did this large survey of our listenerswho has squirted and how many times and how they felt about itand you still see this sort of real confusion around how people feel about it, which is often tied to this idea of: What exactly is this liquid? And so I was just very curious myself where people were getting their evidence from here and what we could know about it.Feltman: Yeah, well, I definitely wanna get into the survey itself, but first, with your episode on anal sex, you really found collaborators who were also mystified at the lack of research and who helped you, you know, make this very scientific. Were you able to do the same thing for squirting?Zukerman: Yeah, so with squirting we actually do have some data that has really probed this question of: What is that fluid? Theres still a lot missing in the dataso we have sort of a bunch of small studies that have been well-done, and so in this case, while our survey was really helpful to sort of capture how many folks this is happening to and how they feel about it, we were able to look at the peer-reviewed literature this time to really see whats going on here.Feltman: Well, what is going on? What [laughs]?Zukerman: Okay, so let me tell you about one of the studies that we found. It was done by a French gynecologist, and we spoke to him, Samuel Salama. It was very funnywhen I was chatting to him, I sort of asked him, Why did you do a study on squirting? And as youll hear, its very well-thought-out, and he started, hes likeI was gonna do a French accent, but I, I wont, save the listeners that; one accent will be enough. And he started going, Its an interesting phenomena. At the time we really didnt know what the fluid was. And I was like, Come on, Sam. Why did you do the study on squirting? And he says, Okay, okay, okay. When I was younger And Im like, Thank you. He said he had a lover, she squirted. They were both so curious what was going on. They tried to find out. They tried to ask friends and doctors, and no one gave them a credible explanation.And so years later hes studying sexology, he has a clinic that he can use that can really get to the bottom of this. I think he was askedeveryone needs to do a research project as part of his studies. And he says, Great, nows the opportunity. And so what he does is he gets seven what he called systematic squirters, which meant that these were folks who could squirt every single time they got aroused. Cause for some people it sort of happens every now and then, but if hes going to the trouble to do the experiment, he wants to make sure that these folks are gonna squirt when they need to squirt.So he gets the women to come into the lab, and whats really cool is that he does an ultrasound of their pelvis and bladder at various points of this squirting adventure. So first, he gets them to go to the bathroom and then ultrasounds their pelvis and bladder. And so he can see that after theyve gone to the bathroom, the bladder is empty. Thats what should happen. And then he says, Okay, go into this very sort of sterile-looking room in the clinic and go forth.But what he did, which was very insightful, is he said, Before you squirt, at the peak of arousal, get me to come back inIm gonna ultrasound your bladder again.Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: And sowhich I just imagine what it would be like for these folks to hold on to that aroused state while you get [an] ultrasound of your bladder [laughs]. And then the ultrasounds done, and then he says, Okay ...Feltman: Get back to it.Zukerman: Get to it. Now you can squirt. And he walks out of the room again. Then they squirt. He comes back into the roomyou can hear him on the tape, and hes sort of describing, This liquid is everywhere. Cause in some cases it can be quite a lot of fluid coming out; the world record for squirt is 1.35 literswhich dont make me translate that into gallons [laughs].Feltman: [Laughs] No, thats a lot, though.Zukerman: Its a lot of liquid. Its a lot of liquid. Think about ...Feltman: Yeah, Americans know that a big bottle of soda is 2 liters, so we have a frame of reference [laughs].Zukerman: Yes, okayI thought so!So then he does another ultrasound of the bladder after the squirt is done, and what is really curious is that he saw that at the peak of arousal, before they had squirtedso remember: their bladders were empty cause theyd peed ...Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Before this whole process begins. Then he ultrasounds their bladder at peak of arousal, and he can see the bladder has filled up again.Feltman: Hmm.Zukerman: Yes, which is very curious and very interesting for anyone who has had the experience of going to the bathroom before a sexual activity, having sex, and then peeing straight after and wondering, Thats so crazyI just peed 15 minutes ago.But this is a very interesting phenomenon, and another study that got two folks, a straight couple, to have sex in an MRI, also noticed that the woman, their bladders filled up during arousal.Feltman: Hmm.Zukerman: So it must be something about, you know, heart rates going, bloods moving around, processes are moving faster. Were not exactly sure why this happens. Butso bladder fills up. Then the squirt happens. Rachel, you wanna guess whats going on with the bladder?Feltman: I would guess that it empties, probably.Zukerman: It did.Feltman: Yeah [laughs].Zukerman: The bladder was empty, telling us that the liquid was coming from the bladder.Feltman: Right.Zukerman: Yes. And Sam also looked at the chemicals inside the squirt cause he had all the liquid there, and he could see various chemicals that we tend to find in urine, so urea, uric acid, things like this. Other studies have found this as well, when theyve looked at the chemicals in squirt.Feltman: Mm.Zukerman: Its sometimesone study found that it was quite diluted.Feltman: Right, I was gonna say, it would make sense for it to be pretty dilute if the bladders sort of quickly filling up again.Zukerman: It would, although when I asked Sam about this, he said sometimes its dilute and sometimes its not ...Feltman: Mm.Zukerman: And soand he actually had a photo of the squirt, and it looked like yellow pee.Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Maybe not the most concentrate pee one has ever produced, but it definitely did not look like water to me ...Feltman: Got it, yeah.Zukerman: And so from that studyits only seven women, but theres some very curious research that we also talk about in the episode thats also suggesting that the bulk of this fluid is coming from the bladder.Feltman: Right, so that mystery solved, but you also created this big survey that I think you said thousands of people responded to, so tell me a little bit about that.Zukerman: Although mystery solved, there is a tiny bit more mystery, which explains why you have this battle online. Because although the bulk of the fluid is coming from urine, in some cases there is a little bit of this sort of other substance ...Feltman: Mm.Zukerman: That ends up in squirt, which comes from the female prostate. And we discuss at lengththeres a lot of sort of mystery, controversy around this gland. But bothif you have a penis, a vagina, you do have sort of this prostate gland, although it looks quite different. And so that is where the bulk of this fight comes from, is thatsort of this idea that, Okay, the bulk of squirt might be pee, but theres a little bit that comes from the female prostate and that therefore makes it different. And so, in our episode, we sort of discuss what on earth the female prostate is, some interesting new findings in that area, and whether that does sort of change the substance.At that point that becomes a sort of philosophical argument ...Feltman: Yeah.Zukerman: You know, is this an Arnold Palmer situation? Is it a Shirley Temple? Is it a Manhattan with a dirty olive juice? You know, we had many chats around the office about: What does, what does this mean? Is it changing it? Is it not? And I think that just depends on your perspective. But to go back to the survey, and I think that is where sort of thatit all kind of comes to the fore, is that because we do see this patternand so our survey found this, but other research has as wellthat for those who tend to think its pee, they generally feel more negative about squirting ...Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Which makes perfect sense. If you feel like you have just peed all over your partner or peed all over your bed, thats not necessarily a great thing, whereas if you feel like you have just ejaculated over your partner, well, you just had a sexy time. And so, in our survey, 45 percent of those with vaginas had squirted at least once in their lifetime. Other surveys show this as well. So that is a huge number of folks this is happening to. It tells us that this is a normal physiological process; you dont just get almost, you know, one and two of us. And I think you could feel good about it no matter what that substance is.Feltman: Yeah, were there any other surprising takeaways in the survey?Zukerman: The really interesting finding that I would loveI know science funding is in a tough spot right now, but perhaps in future days: so squirting is always talked about [as] a phenomena that just happens if you have a vagina. And theres sort of been this assumption that if you have a penis, you do not squirt because you ejaculate insteadthats the fluid coming out of you during sexy times. Because theres a lot of mysteries around the physiological process, we just thought wed ask people with penises, Have you squirted, too?We found that it was something like 7.6 percent of folks with penises said they squirted, too. And we explicitly said, you know, Were not talking about ejaculate ...Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Cum, this kind of thing. And that, we asked around to urologists about what they thought of this, and some were quite skeptical it would be that high, some thought maybe because, you know, we know that theres some mechanisms around the penis that if you are erect, you really shouldnt be able to pee because it sort of blocks off that process, which isthank you, evolution; you dont want someone peeing inside you. Theres a lot of variation in the human spirit out there, and so sometimes that mechanism doesnt work that well, and so it makes sense thatyou know, one researcher we spoke to said its possible that after a penis ejaculates, maybe if they then continue to be aroused, maybe then what comes out next is a bit more like pee. We really dont know. There was one case study in the literature that we found of someone with a penis who did squirtso this was sort of, like, a verified, singular case study of a man squirting. And then we have our survey, but thats all we know.Feltman: Yeah, well, a lot still to learn. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about this with us. Im really excited to listen to the whole episode on Science Vs.Zukerman: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.Feltman: Thats all for todays show. You can check out an extended version of this episode over on our YouTube channel. And dont forget to check out Science Vs for an even deeper dive on the subject of squirting.Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!