Some women can barely pee in a public bathroom in a private stall. Imagine being able to ejaculate on command while lying spread-eagle on the floor of your local sex shop with a crowd gawking and passersby on the street just feet away.

According to those who study such things, Shannon Bell is in the "easy expulsion group," meaning she can ejaculate in 30 seconds or less. I can vouch for her. So can the other people who watched her do it during her recent workshop at Come As You Are in Toronto. And we’re not talking a little tinkle here. More like a perfectly arched, soak-the-surgical-pad-she’s-laid-out-on-the-floor spray. People moved back to avoid getting soaked. Hey, don’t laugh. Once, after a workshop, a guy told Bell that the couple times his girlfriend ejaculated, he’d been going down on her and got a nose full of come–he was genuinely concerned about drowning. I’m not sure female ejaculation is quite lethal but Bell will be the first to tell you it’s powerful stuff.

"It’s about power and pleasure and what your body can do," the political science professor tells the couples attending the workshop. One of the things she loves about female ejaculation, according to her book, Whore Carnival (Autonomedia Press), is that, "It dethrones male ejaculation—a linear progression of excitement and release of body energy and fluid—and positions it as just a trace of the female ejaculatory experience."

Well, that and the fact that you can have "who can spray the farthest" contests with other female ejaculators.

Oh, and that it feels fantastic.

Bell, who’d never had any type of orgasm until she was 29, taught herself to ejaculate in 1989, and has been teaching, writing, performing, and making art about it ever since. Back then, there were only a handful of women promoting female ejaculation (though there were plenty denying it was even possible). These days, a Google search turns up almost 300,000 entries for female ejaculation: Squirts ‘Til She Hurts; Seniors Who Squirt, Cowgirls Who Squirt... well, you get the idea.

Historically, female ejaculation has always gone in and out of style, explains Bell. Up until about the mid 18th century, for example, the debate wasn’t about whether or not it existed but whether it was simply for pleasure or necessary for conception to occur.

By the turn of the 20th century, psychiatrist Richard Von Krafft-Ebing claimed it occurred only in deviant populations such as female prisoners and lesbians, that is, women perceived to be more sexual.

Then Ernest Grafenberg "re-discovered" it in the ’50s and named it after himself–thus the "G" spot. Female ejaculation reentered pop culture in the ’80s and gals like Deborah Sundahl, aka Fanny Fatale (former editor of the lesbian porn mag, On Our Backs), really put the G-spot back on the map. Sundahl’s video, How to Female Ejaculate: Find Your G-spot, is still one of the classics. Toss in a book like A New View of a Woman's Body by the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers and you’ve suddenly got a new view of female anatomy and female ejaculation.

Whereas the clit was previously viewed as an external organ with all the bits inside sold separately, these women described it as a much larger organ. Its shaft runs along the inside of the vaginal wall with the urethra running down the middle–sort of like an inverted penis. The clitoral sponge encircles the urethra and is the area known as the "G" spot or, if you prefer, the female prostate.

Then videos like Bell’s arty Nice Girls Don’t Do It and books like Cathy Winks’ The G-Spot grabbed the baton and next thing you know, women are squirting–sorry, Bell prefers ejaculating–all over the place.

Bell says she lost track of how many futons she’s gone through. She suggests getting a zip-up plastic sheet from a surgical store. Her current beau, however, isn’t so into it. He accepts the political importance of female ejaculation, says Bell, but he just doesn’t want it in his vicinity, so now the shower is Bell’s designated ejaculation area. "Only when he’s not in it," she laughs.

As Bell settled in for a live demo, she slid a plastic speculum in sideways and shone a flashlight so we could see the corrugated roof of her vagina and her urethral opening. Bell invited us to insert a gloved finger if we wanted to get a feel for it. No one took her up on the offer. I guess it seemed rude to go rooting around in a stranger’s pussy.

While Bell took a Hitachi Magic Wand to her clit and inserted a metal Kegelsizer (like a barbell for your pussy), she further explained that when the clitoral sponge fills up with liquid, it often causes a sort of burning sensation like you have to pee. If you go against instinct and push when you feel this, and if you stimulate the area between your clit and your urethral opening, you might ejaculate, which she did.

"It’s something you have to train your body to do," she continued, as she prepared for another in her repertoire of ejaculation styles, this one while on her knees. Strengthening your PC muscles with Kegel exercises (squeezing your vagina like you’re stopping the flow of urine) is a good place to start.

After her third and final ejaculation of the evening, and a round of applause, one woman explained that, while she gets to the point where she feels she could ejaculate, she still worries she’ll pee. Bell assured her that as long as you go beforehand, while there may be traces of urine in female ejaculate, it is not pee. She’s even had hers analyzed to prove it.

As for criticism that all this talk about female ejaculation puts added performance pressure on women and has folks desperately rummaging around looking for the magic button, Bell simply says, "Good sex is good sex." And I’m not about to argue with that.

Josey Vogels is Canada’s premiere sex-and-relationships columnist and author of The Secret Language of Girls (Thomas Allen). jvogels@mymessybedroom.com