Squirting is mostly urine, but it’s not entirely urine. The fluid comes from the bladder and contains the same markers found in pee (urea, creatinine, uric acid), but it also frequently contains secretions from small glands near the urethra that produce proteins similar to those in male prostate fluid. The picture gets clearer when you understand that scientists now treat “squirting” and “female ejaculation” as two related but distinct things that can happen at the same time.
Squirting and Female Ejaculation Are Different
Researchers now distinguish between two phenomena that people often lump together. Squirting refers to a larger gush of clear, watery fluid, typically 10 milliliters or more, expelled through the urethra during orgasm or intense arousal. Female ejaculation, by contrast, is a much smaller secretion of thick, milky fluid, usually just a few milliliters. The two can and often do happen simultaneously, which is part of why there’s been so much confusion about what the fluid actually is.
The source of each fluid is different. Squirting fluid comes from the bladder. Female ejaculate comes from the Skene’s glands, two tiny glands that sit on either side of the urethra. These glands develop from the same embryonic tissue that becomes the prostate in males, which is why they’re sometimes called the “female prostate.” The fluid they produce contains proteins similar to those found in male semen, including prostate-specific antigen (PSA).
What the Bladder Studies Show
A widely cited 2015 study used ultrasound imaging to track what happens inside the body during squirting. Women emptied their bladders, confirmed empty by ultrasound, then were sexually stimulated. As arousal built, their bladders refilled noticeably. After squirting, the bladders were empty again. The fluid itself contained urea, creatinine, and uric acid at concentrations comparable to urine.
A 2022 study went further by having women drink a blue dye that gets filtered through the kidneys into the bladder. When the women squirted, the expelled fluid was blue in every case, confirming visually that the liquid had passed through the bladder. In four out of five participants, though, the fluid also tested positive for PSA, the protein produced by the Skene’s glands. This tells us the squirting fluid is primarily dilute urine mixed with small amounts of prostatic secretion.
Why It Doesn’t Look or Smell Like Pee
Many women who squirt report that the fluid seems different from their normal urine. It’s often more dilute, clearer, and less pungent. This makes sense given the circumstances: the bladder refills rapidly during arousal, so the fluid hasn’t been sitting and concentrating for hours the way regular urine does. The presence of Skene’s gland secretions also changes the composition slightly. So while the chemical building blocks are the same as urine, the final product can look, feel, and smell noticeably different.
Where the Fluid Actually Comes From
The Skene’s glands are small structures located at the lower end of the urethra, in the front wall of the vagina. They share a developmental origin with the male prostate, and the milky fluid they produce contains similar proteins. These glands vary considerably in size from person to person. Some women have well-developed Skene’s glands, others have very small ones, and this anatomical variation likely plays a role in whether a woman produces noticeable ejaculate and how much PSA ends up in the fluid.
During arousal and orgasm, the Skene’s glands release their secretion into the urethra. If squirting happens at the same time, the two fluids mix and are expelled together. This is why lab analysis of squirting fluid often picks up PSA even though the bulk of the volume is bladder-derived.
How Common Squirting Is
Surveys suggest fewer than half of women experience ejaculation or squirting during sexual activity. An international survey published in BJU International collected data from 320 women who reported experiencing ejaculation, but the researchers noted this represents a self-selected group. The actual prevalence is hard to pin down because many women may experience small amounts of fluid release without noticing it, while others may feel it but not identify it as ejaculation.
Whether squirting happens can depend on the type of stimulation, the level of arousal, pelvic floor muscle tone, and individual anatomy. Some women squirt only with manual stimulation, others only during penetration. It is a normal physiological response, not a sign of a medical problem or loss of bladder control, even though the fluid does originate from the bladder.
The Short Answer
Squirting fluid is chemically very similar to dilute urine and comes from the bladder. It is not purely urine in the way your body produces it during a normal bathroom trip. It often contains small amounts of prostatic secretions from the Skene’s glands, and it forms rapidly during arousal rather than accumulating over hours. Female ejaculation, the smaller milky secretion, is a separate process that originates from the Skene’s glands and is not urine at all. In practice, most women who “squirt” are releasing a mix of both.