Juice: A History of Female Ejaculation

by Stephanie Haerdle, Elisabeth Lauffer (Translator)

The fascinating, little-known history of female sex fluids through the millennia.

For over 2000 years, vulval sex fluids were understood to be a natural part of female pleasure, only to become disputed or categorically erased in the twentieth century. Today what do we really know about female ejaculation and squirting? What does the research show, and why are so many details unknown? In Juice , Stephanie Haerdle investigates the cultural history of female genital effluence across the globe and searches for answers as to why female ejaculation—which, according to some reports, is experienced by up to 69 percent of all women and those who have vulvas upon climaxing—has been banished to the margins as just another male sex fantasy.

Haerdle charts female juices from the earliest explanations in the erotic writings of China and India, to interpretations of the fluids by physicians, philosophers, and poets in the Middle Ages and early modern period, to their denial, contestation, and suppression in late nineteenth-century Europe. As she shows, the history of ejaculation and squirting is a history of women, their desires, and the worship and denigration of the female body, as well as the cultural concepts of pleasure, sexuality, procreation, the body, masculinity, and femininity. By examining the fantasies and fears that have long accompanied them, Juice restores female gushes to their rightful place in our collective understanding so that they can once again be recognized, named, and experienced.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Sexuality, History, Health, Audiobook

244 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 2020

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why am I crying at the end of a book about female ejaculation? This book is not just about female ejaculation, it’s about the centuries of oppression of the female body. I learned things about my own body that I had never heard while reading this book, and there is still so much that is completely unknown. This lack of knowledge is largely due to how men have perceived our bodies and decided on how they should be. That’s it, no more research, men had is figured out. It’s upsetting. Will I ever truly have autonomy of my own body? Every person should read this book.

[Olivier Cossette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bien plus qu’un livre sur l’éjaculation féminine, ce livre pris dans une vision plus large démontre les inégalités homme-femme présentes depuis des millénaires.

[Chanel Chapters]

Caution: slippery when wet

For a book about such a juicy topic, the writing was real dry.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kann dieses Buch bitte Schullektüre werden?!
Historische Abhandlung, Forschungsüberblick, politisches Manifest und fun facts in einem.

[Lexi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and validating of the female experience (in sex and in their experience in medical spaces).

[Catherine Dubé · Rating 4 out of 5]

Au croisement de l'histoire culturelle et de l'histoire de la médecine, cet ouvrage retrace la chronologie des perceptions, représentations, attitudes, discours, théories et travaux concernant l'éjaculation vulvaire - jusqu'à tout récemment qualifiée de ''féminine''. Des traités d'érotologie de la Chine ancienne au Kama Sutra indien, on constate d'abord que l'éjaculation des femmes occupait alors une place importante dans les représentations d'une sexualité idéale et épanouie. Avec la médecine de l'Antiquité, de même que celle du Moyen Âge et au delà, s'amorce une médicalisation du phénomène. Quel rôle cette ''semence'' joue-t-elle dans l'acte de procréation? Les théories s'énoncent aussi vite qu'elles se réfutent, se contredisent. Plus on avance dans les siècles, plus le phénomène est occulté. C'est au XIXe siècle que débutent les travaux d'anatomie visant à élucider le mystère de l'éjaculation: D'où provient ce liquide? Que contient-il? Comment est-il émis? Chercheuses et chercheurs avancent à tâtons. Certaines découvertes sont étonnamment très récentes et le phénomène comporte encore certaines parts d'ombre aujourd'hui. Parallèlement aux avancées de la recherche, la théorie freudienne de la sexualité féminine, la deuxième vague féministe, les mouvements underground queer, surtout lesbiens et la pornographie ''mainstream'' influenceront tous à leur manière la perception et la réception de ces travaux. Ouf, c'est beaucoup d'information en 250 pages! Rajoutez à ça quelques apartés et digressions tous plus passionnants les uns que les autres (extraits de textes pornographiques, perceptions culturelles variées du phénomène) ainsi que des annotations nombreuses et une bibliographie abondante. C'est du beau et bon travail. Je retire de ma lecture de nombreux apprentissages de même qu'un certain sentiment d'empouvoirement. Comme le revendique l'autrice en conclusion, il est important que ce savoir soit transmis largement et que l'éjaculation vulvaire soit à nouveau perçue comme une composante normale de la sexualité humaine, sans pour autant créer un sentiment d'injonction ou de pression chez les personnes qui n'expérimentent pas ce phénomène.

[Tessa]

Uff, was für ein Buch! Ich las noch nie irgendwas vergleichbares, und zudem war es unglaublich unterhaltsam, dieses Buch in der Bahn zu lesen und schräg angeguckt zu werden, denn dieser Titel scheint zu provozieren.
Absolut wundervoll recherchiert spricht die Autorin ein Thema an, welches von vielen lieber unter den Teppich gekehrt wird. Tatsächlich behandelt sie hier die Geschichte weiblicher Sexualität und Ejakulation und bezieht sich darauf nicht nur auf die westliche Welt. Ich liebe es, wie offen mit dem Thema umgegangen wurde und wie unterschiedlich weltweit mit weiblicher Ejakulation umgegangen wird. Ich habe das Buch fast an einem Tag komplett verschlungen. Absolut lesenswert!

[Halle · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book definitely wins cover of the century award lol.

genuinely, though, this was a great nonfiction book, meaning it was engaging the whole time, and informative. I think now more than ever it's important for women to learn more about our bodies, and this isn't a bad place to start in that pursuit of knowledge (though maybe if you know nothing this could be a bit jarring?).

[lavendread · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating how oppositional biology pushed by male sexologists (and later some feminists trying to claim vulval ejaculation as innately feminine) is so reflected in our socialization of men and women that it’s become a “cultural prescription in pursuit of an ideological goal.” Binaries! Opposites! Women and men cannot reflect pleasure because it makes male faculties (ejaculation) obsolete. It’s interesting what goes unsaid adjacently about same sex relationships too. I picked this book up on a whim and was taken by surprise. Fantastic. Really intriguing/enlightening when lined up side by side with The Invention of Heterosexuality by Katz; makes me deeply sad, too. Gender socialization feels like one giant hallucination until you realize sexologists/biologists have spun history too and realize it’s the birth of bioessentialism.

[Natacha Lalande · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai vraiment beaucoup aimé le livre. certains passages m'ont fait rigoler par le ridicule de la pensée envers l'éjaculation féminine dans le passé. Savoir que le point G n'a été nommé qu'en 1982, soit 1 an après ma naissance était un petit choc à quel point que c'est récent dans l'histoire de l'humanité.

[Colleen Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5, closer to a 5 than a 4. Must read for all vulva havers. Just be warned that if youre not reading in total seclusion that this book does contain pictures lmao

[Alik · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much information about female pleasure in one book! As a trans man, I enjoyed this book so much! Right of the bat, it acknowledges that not only women have vulvas and vaginas, which made me feel seen and made me comfortable to educate myself with such topics.
It's not a light read, but it is written in a way that laypeople can understand and it gives you so much information and so many resources if you'd like to continue your education on female ejaculation.
As a trans man, it changed the way I look at sex and my own body.

[Diana Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

💦aka the holy sperm versus the demonized female fluids💦

This is my favourite nonfiction book read in 2021. What an incredibly well-researched piece of writing with an extensive bibliography (+ illustrations)! It’s dense, overflowing with shocking facts regarding the treatment of women’s bodies (in medicine, philosophy, psychology, literature, and more). I already want to reread it to better absorb the information.

This book focuses on female ejaculation and its history from ancient China to the present day. How was female ejaculation perceived and described before and how has this image evolved through time? How is it perceived today? As Titiou Lecoq presents in her book about the forgotten history of women (2021), when history is analysed focusing on women, it is not linear. Oppression and freedom seem to be the two faces of the same coin, fluctuating according to the ideas vehiculating during a specific time period (e.g., the famous enlightenment period was hellish for women’s rights). It’s the same thing for female bodily fluids. The absurdities uttered by so many influential men throughout history built a strong foundation of not only erasure but straight-up dangerous, violent, and intrusive practices against women and their bodies. It’s absolutely astounding to me that, despite the research done on the female prostate (still not enough compared to the research done on the male prostate), it is still an invisible organ today. Female ejaculation will continue to linger in the shadows as long as the female prostate remains invisible.

Read this If you think female ejaculation is a myth or simply have no idea what that is, or if you’ve never heard of the female prostate (a quick search in a dictionary shows me that the prostate is an organ in a MAN’s body), or if you think female bodily fluids are disgusting and/or are ashamed of them. I feel like this is the perfect read for women to regain control of their bodies and for men to start respecting women’s bodies.

[Carolin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So. Spritzen.

Das Buch war anstrengend durchzuarbeiten (dare I say: ziemlich trocken im Angesicht des Themas), aber zu keinem Zeitpunkt langweilig. Es hat mich wütend gemacht, emotional, neugierig –die weibliche Ejakulation hat eine bewegte Geschichte hinter sich, und wenn ich noch einmal lesen muss "laut Untersuchung ist es kein Urin, wirklich ehrlich hört auf zu fragen", beiße ich jemanden. Dass ein ganzer Organkomplex bei einem Geschlecht so schlecht erforscht ist, dass er im Allgemeinwissen quasi nicht existiert – komplett absurd. Und doch real. Ich wusste nicht, dass ich Schwellkörper und Drüsengewebe habe! Ich dachte, die Skene-Drüse wäre die weibliche Prostata" (Isse nicht.). Ich bin gar nicht auf den Gedanken gekommen, dass beim Mann die Harnröhre ganz selbstverständich Teil der Ejakulation ist, und da heult auch niemand rum wegen Urin.

Der größte Teil des Buchs ist die Geschichtsstunde quer durch alle Kulturräume. Wie Männer über Frauenkörper entscheiden und wie diese Entscheidungen unsere Gedanken prägen. Wie schnell Wissen verloren gehen kann, wenn es politisch/gesellschaftlich unerwünscht ist. Wer Siegmund Freud vorher noch nicht gehasst hat, wird es jetzt tun (und ich begrüße alles, was zu mehr Freud-Hass in der Gesellschaft beiträgt). Das war sehr gut nachskizziert, wenn auch langatmig zu lesen.

Ich war kein Fan davon, dass sich das Abschlusskapitel nur auf ausgewählte nordamerikanische Aktivistinnen konzentriert hat. Am Ende kam zum Glück mit Laura Méritt noch eine europäische Stimme dazu.

8 von 10 Femmes Fontaines (was mein neues Lieblingswort ist)

[Carrie Bize · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich habe das Buch sehr gerne gelesen. Wir erfahren viel über die Anatomie der weiblichen Geschlechtsorgane, insbesondere über die Prostata.

Auch auf die geschichtliche Entwicklung im Bezug auf das Wissen um weibliche Ejakulation wird umfangreich eingegangen. Ich fand es sehr spannend, zu erfahren, dass dieses Wissen schon sehr früh vorhanden war.

Interessant war auch die Differenzierung zwischen squirting und weiblicher Ejakulation und die gesellschaftliche Sicht darauf in den letzten 20-30 Jahren (zb. in der Pornoindustrie und der faminstischen Bewegung).

Das Buch ist sehr verständlich geschrieben, auch wenn es zum Teil sehr medizinisch wird. Man hat nicht das Gefühl, erst Medizin studieren zu müssen, um den Ausführungen folgen zu können. Mir hat auch die Gliederung gut gefallen und wie viele angrenzende Themen mitbeschrieben wurden.

[Jordan Guillaume · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loin d’un manuel ou guide de pratique, ce livre est une excellente collection de recherches scientifiques et anthropologiques sur l’ejaculation féminine. Au fil du livre nous découvrons avec étonnement le lien étroit entre l’evolution d’une société bien majoritairement machiste, et l’effacement de l’éjaculation feminine et de no connaissances à son sujet. C’est interessant et vraiment éducatif d’un point de vue humain, féministe, et societal.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read of 2025 was a fascinating history and anatomy lesson. It's amazing how contested the inner workings of vulval anatomy have been throughout the years. And how much ideology has shaped the way information has been disseminated in the past century. This was a straightforward read of the backs and fourth of the appreciation/awareness/conversations of vulval ejaculation and I ~soaked~ it all up.

[Monica Rusinowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay it may have taken me a VERY long time to read hit omfg this book was so good. Squirter or not, I highly recommend this book to anyone who fucks. It’s pretty academic and dense but every 2 paragraphs there’s a blow your mind whole body in awe kind of fact drop that keeps you wanting more. Loved it. Buy it.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not really sure how to rate this book because it reads a lot like a textbook. It was really interesting and informative, but not really a page-turner. I definitely preferred the historical part of the book at the beginning.

[Kati Ber · Rating 5 out of 5]

super buch!
habs an einem tag gelesen, weil es so interessant ist!

[Amélie Barsalou · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai appris beaucoup de choses, mais la traduction n'est pas toujours adaptée (selon moi).. quelques redondances en milieu de livre.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and fun, this was a very interesting book to find at my local library

[KT · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting history of vulva ejaculation

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

veldig spennende tema, men oversettelsen bærer ganske sterkt preg av at den originalt er skrevet på tysk.

[Noor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yawn.

[olly millar · Rating 5 out of 5]

highly recommend, this was an awesome read

[Shea L. Burchill · Rating 5 out of 5]

MUST READ.

MUST READ; so much important information for so many reasons.We have been divorced from experiencing our own bodies for too long.

[Abbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The gender binary, which presents biologically born men and biologically born women as utterly unlike creatures, doesn’t have room for women’s sexual power- or their ejaculation”

[ashley]

it is sooo crazy that science didn't differentiate between the different goops until like, yesterday. i have been vexed by this for ages so it's nice to get clarity

[ellie 🕊 · Rating 4 out of 5]

trying to be chill at the function but can’t help noticing how misogyny bleeds through the cracks of scientific discovery