This Peeing Trick Was Thought To Keep You Healthy. Spoiler Alert: It Might Not Work.

Regardless of which genitalia we have, most of us have heard this piece of seemingly sage advice at some point in our lives: Make sure you pee right after sex.

The idea that urinating post-sex can save us from the agony of a urinary tract infection has been touted everywhere from high school sex ed to TikTok.

It makes sense, right? Logistically speaking, perhaps a strong stream will rid us of any unfamiliar bacteria in that area that doesn’t serve us, thus preventing a UTI. Now that we say (write?) it out loud, though, it seems a little too good to be true. That’s because it probably is.

“I’m going to really dismantle some big folklore here,” Dr. Yaniv Larish, urologist and surgeon at Fifth Avenue Urology in New York, recently told us, Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast.

Listen to the full episode by clicking play:

“The idea is that you’re flushing everything out… We salute you for doing that but it’s not going to prevent your UTI. [That advice is] not based on any data. [With] vaginal douches, it’s the same thing. [Studies show] no difference in UTI.”

Our jaws hit the floor when we heard that because it’s a pretty bold claim, especially considering that the CDC recommends tinkling after you tickle in its official UTI prevention guidelines . So what’s going on here? Dr. Larish says there just isn’t enough clinical research to prove that urinating after sex really does prevent a UTI. Here’s not alone — there are many other reliable sources, studies and recent statements from experts like sex researcher Dawn Lisa Hamilton that corroborate Larish’s stance.

Many articles still endorse peeing after sex, especially for people with vaginas who are far more prone to UTIs, and