I'm Proud to be a Squirter

My First Time is a column and podcast series exploring sexuality, gender, and kink with the wide-eyed curiosity of a virgin. We all know your "first time" is about a lot more than just popping your cherry. From experimenting with kink to just trying something new and wild, everyone experiences thousands of first times in the bedroom—that's how sex stays fun, right?

This week we're talking to adult performer Heidi Switch about her first time squirting. You can catch My First Time on Acast, Google Play,Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I had just come out of a long-term relationship with a woman. Before we broke up, we'd stopped having sex. Then I started dating this couple, and they made me feel so comfortable about my body. I became totally confident. I'm a big girl; I've got stretch marks and varicose veins and cellulite, and I was bullied a lot at school for having a fat ass. One day I just thought, I'm going to own this. I'm going to be a sexy goddess. From then on, I became more in tune with my body, and that relaxed me.

I was fooling around with this couple at their flat. We'd put some music on and laid down some duvets and lit some candles. I'd been giving them both oral sex for nearly two hours. The woman got up to go to the toilet after having had a few orgasms, and I thought, I'm going to please myself now. I slipped my glass G-spot dildo inside me, and it felt so good because I'd been waiting for something to penetrate me. When I pulled the toy out, this jet of fluid flew across the room.

It didn't feel like anything I'd ever felt before. It felt amazing, all down the sides of my vagina. I squirted across the room and it landed on the computer table. I said, "Oh my god! Did you see that?" The guy and I got up to investigate the liquid, and tested the viscosity and stuff, but it didn't feel like water or urine. It felt like thin semen. There was maybe half a shot glass full.

It's an involuntary reflex that feels like urination, but it's not. I'd known about squirting before it happened, but I'd never tried to make it happen to myself. Since then, when I've squirted I need to be completely turned on for it to happen, and I'll get a feeling that it's going to happen right before. Weirdly—for me at least—it only tends to happen when I'm ovulating. I think it's because I'm more turned on.

I feel like more people are aware of squirting nowadays, compared to when I was growing up. The Internet has played a big role in that, for me: being able to talk with other people in chatrooms and learn about what people enjoy sexually. That's when you learn the truth.

I remember when I was 15, my best friend was sleeping with this guy and she confided in me that when they were having sex, she would often urinate. At the time, I didn't know what she meant, and asked if she minded it. "It's really embarrassing," she said. But now I don't think kids would find it so embarrassing—I think they would find it liberating. Sex education is much better than it was when I was growing up. Back then, you'd learn how to put a banana on a condom, and that was literally it.

I don't like the fact that squirting is so fetishized within mainstream porn—there are so many sites devoted to it. Mainstream porn has a massive impact on people’s perceptions of how female anatomy works. In a lot of the hardcore porn people see, the women are just urinating because it's easier than squirting and looks aesthetically pleasing—but it's for the male gaze. I prefer adult films from feminist filmmakers like Erika Lust myself.

At the same time, partners love it when I squirt. I date men and women, and in my experience, men like to think that it's something they've produced. They want to see it, because it's unusual and they've never seen it before. My girlfriend is a squirter too, so it's really intimate when we squirt together. It feels really nice to be able to share that with someone and be okay with it and not disgusted by it.

The thing about squirting is that you shouldn't aim for it. I don't try and squirt, and I don't try to control it when I do. I just embrace it when it happens. A lot of people think you can squirt on demand, but you can't. You need to be super-aroused for it to happen.

If you're squirt-curious, it's a good idea to practise on your own. Get a G-spot toy, ideally one with a bend in it, and lay down lots of towels on the bed. If you feel like you need to pee, just pee. Really embrace letting go. If it feels good, keep doing it. That way, when you learn what feels good for you—whether its squirting, or something else—when you're with a lover, you can show them what you can do, and they may like it too.

Over my life, I've learned that you have to accept good things: like my body, or how I look, or squirting. I would say to anyone who feels scared or apprehensive about squirting, "don't!" I love my body because it's the only one I've got. And if someone else were to find it disgusting, I would break up with them—or educate them, if I really liked them.

Squirting is something I do for my pleasure, and it's not a bad thing or something that should be stigmatized. It's not abnormal. I'm proud to be a squirter.