Shiofuki and the art of female
ejaculation
"Doctor, is it true that any woman can ejaculate?"
Kyoko, a 21-year-old Tokyo University student, asked me this as she
shut the door and entered the consultation room at my clinic. Both
myself and the clinic's gynecologist rolled our eyes.
"But my boyfriend tells me everyone can do it."
So, on to our theme this week of female ejaculation, or shiofuki,
as it's called in Japanese, taking the term also used to describe a
whale spouting water.
Shiofuki has become a household word in Japan largely through the
efforts of one man -- Taka Kato, the 44-year-old adult movie actor
who has made a name for himself by making so many of his on-screen
female companions ejaculate. Female ejaculation became a common
theme when Kato, variety performer Kuniko Yamada and I appeared
together as co-hosts of LaLa TV's "Perfect H."
Kyoko, the young woman worried about female ejaculation, had left
her boyfriend sitting in the clinic waiting room with the other
mostly female patients waiting to see me. We called him into the
consultation room to talk about shiofuki. Among the first words he
uttered were "Taka Kato."
"Taka-san says he can make any woman he performs with ejaculate,"
the boyfriend said.
Bearing in mind that adult movies are supposed to be a form of
entertainment and thus a performance, I asked the young lad to show
me his fingernails. He thrust his hand out at me and I took a
look.
"With these fingernails, working on the G-spot would probably end
up rupturing the vaginal walls. Before you try to copy Taka with
anything else, first copy the way Taka keeps his fingernails cut
short."
I spoke about the G-spot. Well, this is the organ where shiofuki
occurs. Strictly speaking, the G-spot is actually the Grafenberg
Spot, named after Berlin gynecologist Ernst Grafenberg who
discovered that stimulating the inside front wall of the vagina
could spark sexual arousal. China and India with their rich sexual
histories have known about the organ for centuries, but the G-spot
was only given its name in Western medicine in the 20th century --
a path often followed in the medical world.
Lying on your back, it's close on impossible to find the G-spot.
Gravity forces the body's organs downward and it becomes
inaccessible from the opening of the vagina. It's best for a woman
to try finding it while sitting on the toilet. She should raise the
front part of her vaginal wall with some force using one hand and
use the other hand to push down on her pubic bone just above the
groin. The quarter-sized organ that feels incredibly good when you
touch it is the G-spot.
If the woman has a partner, it's easy to find if she lies down on
her belly, spreads her legs and raises her hips a little so they
can be rotated. Her partner should move their flattened hand
underneath her, then insert the middle two fingers and push firmly
into the front of the vaginal wall. By moving the pelvic area and
touching around, the partner can find the G-spot when the woman
feels good.
While working on "Perfect H," Taka Kato and I once had a torrid
exchange about shiofuki, or female ejaculation. The self-professed
shiofuki expert said that the female ejaculate was urine. But, we
had a discussion about the ejaculate, with Kato saying that because
it didn't have the ammonia smell that builds up after a long time
spent in the bladder it could only possibly be fresh urine. What
weakened Kato's argument, however, was that the vast majority of
actresses upon whom he had performed shiofuki had been to the
toilet shortly beforehand.
Having heard Kato's arguments, I took it as my responsibility as a
doctor to look into the mechanism. I picked up a medical
terminology book and found there was no entry for the G-spot, but
instead it was referred to as Skene's glands and that female
ejaculate contains acid phosphatase, a liquid also found in the
prostate. Put simply, the G-spot performs some similar roles in
women as the prostate does in men and that's why shiofuki is also
called female ejaculation.
Why did this quarter-sized organ gain the capability to ejaculate?
The answer to that question lies in the b r e a s t s, or the
mammary glands, to be more precise. Mammary glands are not like a
milk tank that can disperse b r e a s t milk simply by twisting or
turning some trigger. B r e a s t milk comes out when the b r e a s
t s are sucked. Glands need to be set off to work. The G-spot
(Skene's glands) is the same, emitting more liquid the more it is
stimulated. Female ejaculation is kind of like blocking a running
hose and then relieving the pressure and watching the water spurt
forth.
Nonetheless, the probability of finding the G-spot is very limited,
at about 60 percent. And long fingernails can be dangerous, causing
blood to spurt forth from ruptures rather than any shiofuki. And
people should also remember that female ejaculation doesn't
necessarily come simultaneously with an orgasm.
