Sex Q&A: Can I Pee Inside My Wife?

What’s one more bodily fluid between friends, right?

Welcome to the new BuzzFeed Sex Q&A, where you can ask us your awkward, confusing, gross, embarrassing, or thought-provoking questions, and we'll provide answers from leading sexual health experts. Have a question about sex or sexual health? Send it to [e-mail].

This week’s question:

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Q: My wife and I (both 23) have what I would call an extremely healthy, adventurous sex life. I have a question about something we do once in a while. Can I safely urinate inside my wife during intercourse? We don't do it all the time, but it feels amazing and turns us both on a lot. What are the risks to this? I haven't been able to find much information on it. We have done this in the past with no problem, but she is pregnant right now and we want to be safe. Thank you for the help; I was really excited to see you guys are doing this for people!

—Joe S.

Hi Joe! Thanks so much for your question. To help answer it, we checked with sexual health expert Madeleine Castellanos, M.D., author of Wanting to Want, and certified OB-GYN Mary Jane Minkin, M.D., clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine. Here's what they had to say:

Urine play during sex (also referred to as watersports, golden showers, or urolagnia) is generally safe when you’re peeing ON somebody.

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That's because urine is typically sterile, though it may contain some bacteria if you have an infection, like a bladder infection. "If a person's healthy and doesn't have any bacterial infections, there's not a whole lot of bacteria coming through urine, and if there is, it's the same as what would be in ejaculate," says Castellanos. So getting some pee on you isn't really anything to worry about health-wise (as long as it's consensual).

But peeing INSIDE your wife might come with a few risks.

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The only real concern would be messing with vaginal pH levels, which is the natural balance of acidity and bacteria in the vagina. A healthy vagina is naturally acidic, with a pH between 3.8 and 4.5, which helps protect against infections, says Castellanos. Tons of things can affect vaginal pH, including semen, but it's usually too small an amount to cause much trouble.

Although pee is also generally pretty acidic, it is possible that it could throw the vaginal pH out of whack, says Minkin. If this happens, it could make your wife more susceptible to things like yeast infections and bacterial vaginosis. "Some women — but not everyone — may be more susceptible to infection just because of the bacteria already present [in the vagina]," Castellanos says. "And this is assuming the urine is totally sterile."

But every vagina is different — while some are more prone to infections, others very rarely get them. If your wife has never ever experienced any irritation from this and she's never gotten a vaginal infection since you've started doing it, it's probably fine. "If [you] want to do it every once in a while, it probably wouldn't be a problem especially if she's not that susceptible to infections," says Castellanos. "But if it's done very frequently, some women might find it irritating afterwards."

That said, there are a few more things to keep in mind…

There’s a small chance you could pass something along to your partner this way.

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You definitely wouldn't want to do this with a bladder infection, since that could pass bacteria along to your wife. You should also be careful if you're diabetic, since there's a chance some glucose could pass through your urine, and you definitely don't want to introduce sugar into the vagina, warns Castellanos.

STIs are another concern, since anything that could be passed along through sexual contact could be passed when urinating inside your partner. "These do not come from the urine or bladder itself, but can be passed along from the inside of the urethra or prostate during urination," says Castellanos, since urine passes through prostatic tissues on the way out.

This could even be an issue if you're peeing externally and you have an STI that could infect regular skin, like herpes or HPV. It's highly unlikely, but it's possible that traces of the virus could be carried along from the urethra, says Castellanos. But if you and your wife are mutually monogamous and have recently been tested, this wouldn't really be an issue.

So you ~maybe~ shouldn’t do this while your wife is pregnant.

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Even if you're both free of STIs and totally healthy, there's still a chance that urinating inside of her can screw with her vaginal pH levels and make her more susceptible to infections. "I would imagine that most physicians would advise not doing it during pregnancy because why increase your chance of infections, even if it is very slight?" Castellanos says. Still, she suggests checking with your wife's doctor if you're concerned.

But really, it's kind of a judgment call.

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It's not like the urine is really going to go anywhere but the vagina, says Minkin. While there's a remote possibility it could get up into the cervix, it really wouldn't do anything as long as your urine is free of bacteria. (This is especially true during pregnancy, when the cervical mucus is much thicker and harder to penetrate.) If you want to be extra safe, you can get a urinalysis to make sure everything's in order down there. As an alternative, you could always try peeing on her instead of in her. It's not the same, but it's completely safe.

The bottom line: As long as you're both infection-free, you only do it occasionally, and your wife doesn't experience any irritation from it, you're probably in the clear.

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