The Best You'll Ever Have (17 page)

The butt is the hot seat of the American sex paradox. As a nation, we’re fixated on it, constantly examining it (others and our own). We love high, round cheeks, not too flat and not too fat. A great behind can launch an international multimillion dollar entertainment industry (look at J.Lo). A sexy ass can be a national treasure (like Britney Spears’s). We examine our own butts down to each dimple. We go to exercise classes that focus solely on the gluteus muscles (New York fitness guru Lottie Burke has made a singular career out of ass-lifting aerobics).

Despite the laser focus on the shape of our butts, we are mostly ignorant of the ass’s inner workings. As a society, we maintain strict aversion to the butt’s role in sex. We shy from probing it in depth. But(t), despite this, the subject of anal sex comes up, eventually, in every relationship. Usually, the man mentions it first. He may simply ask permission to go for it or start a discussion about it, as in, “Do you take it up the ass?” Or, more delicately put, “Have you ever, you know, done that, you know, the anal sex thing?” Shrieking in horror and humiliating him for asking (as in, “Of course not! What are you, some kind of latent homo pervert?”) will
not
further your sexual or emotional intimacy. That said, you shouldn’t just do it to please him. You should do it because you’re curious or adventurous or looking for new ways to have fun in bed. Having the straight facts about anal sex/stimulation will be useful in any event. Ignorance is not always bliss. Sometimes ignorance is what stands in the way of bliss.

The Final Frontier

No one talks about anal sex. If your boyfriend/husband said he wanted to do it with you, would you call your friends to discuss the matter? From what I’ve heard at Safina Salons, this rarely happens. What’s even rarer: women admitting that they enjoy anal sex, even if they do. They’re ashamed of their interest in something they consider seedy or bizarre. Most women—of the women I’ve met, I’d say around 90 percent—find the idea of anal sex dangerous, dirty, and potentially painful.

When I began hosting Safina Salons and came face-to-face with such violent distaste for the subject, my first thought was to skirt the whole area as a topic of discussion. My second thought was to remind myself that the chief operating principle of my company is to get sex talk out in the open. Not to hold back. Not to make any sexual practice a taboo. Shying away from any pleasure source was antithetical to my ideals. I resolved to go there, to the butt. It was my job, my obligation, to explore the terrain most women feared to tread. How do people do it? How does it work anatomically? Emotionally? Hygienically? To get to the bottom of anal sex (as it were), I would have to open my own mind and then try to open the minds of others.

The Only Thing to Fear Is Fear Itself

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I want to remind you all that you’re just
reading
about anal sex here. Passing your eyes across words and sentences doesn’t mean you’ve actually done anything sordid. Read with an intellectually hungry mind; consider the tantalizing possibility that there are pleasures you’ve never dared to exploit.

It’s funny, even now, to talk blithely about pleasure in conjunction with such a place. After all, the anus is not a sexual organ per se. It’s a digestive one. The phrases we associate with homosexual anal sex allude to this: “fudge packing,” driving down the “Hershey highway.” It’s particularly unappealing when you put it that way, and the residue of hearing these things for years is in your head.

Now, if you must, please take a moment to giggle, grimace, and/or groan. Okay. Deep breath. Done? Good. Now say “ewww” and “gross” a few times. Excellent. Have you worked that out of your system? Have you put aside your primary, visceral reaction to anal sex? The next step: viewing the butt in a new bright, cheerful light so we can have a rational discussion about using it sexually without a negative cloud of distaste hanging over your mind.

As I mentioned above, I wavered on how to handle this subject in my early Safina Salons. Language, as always, is crucial. I decided to refer to the area as the “tush.” This might seem a little silly. It is a little silly. How else to lighten the subject matter than by injecting a bit of silliness into the conversation? You can’t say “tush” with dramatic weight. It’s a light word, so I use it. “Butt” is a good alternative because it’s neutral. While we are all very comfortable with the word “ass,” it has a harsh edge to it. “Ass” still doubles as an insult. Certainly, “asshole” has the potency to offend. If I use “ass” at all, it’s for effect. You can see how riled it makes you.

“Anal sex” and the equally unsavory “anus” give me the willies. It just sounds awful, clinical, medical, deviant. There’s no measuring the nonsexy mood these words conjure. Plus, the ear isn’t used to hearing them. I have rarely even heard anyone say “anal” or “anus” out loud. Who says such things, outside a proctologist or gynecologist’s office? I’ve almost never heard them in conversation.

Henceforth, I’ll use tush and butt mainly and try not to use the other words too often. That might help you get through this chapter in the proper frame of mind. After all, tush is fun. Butt has possibilities.

The Damage of Myths and Fear

As we grow up, girls learn next to nothing about the butt. Wipe front to back to avoid dreaded mysterious infections. Otherwise, zilch. Also, girls are quickly indoctrinated into the size issue (relating to the cheeks, not the opening): bigger is not better. The tush is dirty, bad, icky, and unsanitary. The negative messages from childhood stick. I had to force myself to seek out information on the subject because of my unquestioning acceptance of the tush taboo. I wasn’t interested in knowing more because I thought I knew enough.

In truth, I knew nothing. I’d never had anal sex. I, myself, Shannon, the nice Midwesternish Irish-American girl, couldn’t fathom the idea of doing
that.
Could having your butt penetrated feel good? I didn’t think so, and I wasn’t interested in finding out. The rectum seemed too small and dry for something as demanding as a penis. Maybe if I had a prostate, I thought (see chapter 5), then tush sex would have a point. But since I’m a woman, and therefore prostate-free, I didn’t see what was in it for me. Besides which, as far as a man’s interest went, why would he want to be a backdoor man when there was this lovely, well-lubricated vagina, front-and-center? I assumed that any woman who consented to have anal sex submitted to it for a man’s pleasure alone, which was an even grosser thought than actually doing it.

But many women do like it. Some love it. And there are books to prove it. I found a couple that were dedicated exclusively to tush sex. The titles are off-putting. I didn’t want to buy them in a bookstore (back to childhood embarrassment), so I ordered them online. They are
Anal Pleasure and Health: A Guide for Men and Women
by Jack Morin, M.D., and
The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women
by Tristan Taorimino. I found both very illuminating and worth reading.

The main benefit of my research was to normalize the idea of anal sex. This wasn’t a perversion or aberration. Not to Dr. Morin and Taorimino, who is the queen of anal sex (and has made a cottage industry of it, selling same-themed videos starring porn actors as well as her book). Taorimino just loves it. She can’t live without it. She says it’s safe, painless, easy, nothing to be afraid of. Like anything unfamiliar, it’s frightening until you try it. And then, once it’s familiar, anal sex is downright normal.

Turns out, she’s right. In the name of research, proving my dedication to Safina, I went out and got me some. I followed Taorimino’s directions to a tee—lots of communication, lots of lubricant, and very slowly . . . So now that I’ve been indoctrinated, I’m able to put the myths and fears about tush sex aside. For your sake, I’ll break them down and tackle them, one by one.

MYTH NO. 1: Tush Sex Is for Gay Men

It’s not even necessarily for them. You’ll probably be surprised to know that some of my gay male friends report that tush sex isn’t part of all gay men’s lives. What do they do instead? Blowjobs, hand jobs. In a recent study of how gay men self-identify regarding the activity, 18 percent didn’t see themselves in any anal sex role (top, bottom, or versatile). The fact that there are gay men out there who don’t want anyone near their butts makes plenty of sense when I think of it. After all, gay men grow up with the same negative messages we all got. Gay sex means carnal activity between two people of the same gender. Which sexual activity is besides the point, and not orientation-specific.

MYTH NO. 2: Tush Sex Is Perverted and Dirty

Once upon a time, not too long ago, a blowjob was an unspeakable act of perversion. In 1948, Alfred Kinsey found that fewer than half of the men he interviewed had any experience with fellatio or cunnilingus, even if they were married. John Updike published
Rabbit, Run,
his groundbreaking novel about infidelity, in 1960. The book climaxed with what was then a scandalous blowjob scene, portraying the act as the ultimate unobtainable desire of American men—and something a good wife would never do. The sexual liberation of the 1960s and the interest women started taking in having their own orgasms helped the cause of oral sex. By 1977,
Redbook
magazine reported that 93 percent of wives in their survey had received cunnilingus and 91 percent had performed fellatio. Following on the heels of the ’70s, fear of HIV in the 1980s capped the transition of oral sex from slutty to acceptable to typical.

For the religious right and pregnancy-fearing teenagers, oral sex is a satisfying alternative to vaginal intercourse. These teens, in fact, don’t count oral sex as “sex.” Sex is still defined as vaginal intercourse by our culture. To wit, a 1991 Kinsey Institute study found that 60 percent of college students would not say they “had sex” if their activities were limited to mouth on genital; a 2002 survey by the makers of LifeStyles condoms reported that one-third of teenage girls said oral sex is not sex. Despite their not having “sex,” teens are awful busy having “not sex.” Twenty percent of them have oral sex by 15; half of all teens do it by 17.

The point to this blowjob digression? If fellatio was once a forbidden act, isn’t it entirely possible that, a few years from now, tush sex will also transition from freaky to commonplace? The mainstreaming has already begun. In the first
Bridget Jones
movie, Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant have a brief anal interlude. The 2003 movie
Bad Santa
had a running butt sex joke. Any straight porn movie made nowadays has as much anal action as vaginal. And according to reports from health care workers, more teens are having anal sex as an alternative to “real” sex to avoid pregnancy—and to maintain virginity. As more and more people do it, and talk about it (this may take a while), the word will get out on how to have tush sex safely and joyfully.

So much for the concept of perversion. As for tush sex’s alleged “dirtiness,” it is not much dirtier or germier than vaginal sex. Yes, there are bacteria in the butt. Yes, you need to be careful not to transfer anything between the vagina and anus, in either direction, or you may suffer, among other things, a urinary tract infection (which, as we all know, is painful as hell and to be avoided at all costs). You might not realize that the rectum is relatively clean. It’s not a storage area for feces. Waste passes through it but isn’t stored inside it. So unless you feel the urge to defecate, the rectum is devoid of matter. The rectum itself is about a foot long. Unless your partner’s penis is more than twelve inches long, he won’t come into contact with waste. To avoid the
fear
of dirt, take a shower or a bath. Use a baby wipe on yourself. And, as always, have your partner wear a latex condom. This eliminates worry and prevents the transmission of fluids. HIV is estimated to be ten times more easily transmitted to the receiver of tush sex than the giver. Condoms are not foolproof. Herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases are still transmittable even when he wears one. It’s advisable for both partners to get tested for every possible disease first and to stay monogamous.

So butt sex is not perverse. It’s not dirty. But what of the strangeness, the illogicalness? Anal sex is going in the out door. It’s entering an exit. It just doesn’t make sense, does it?

MYTH NO. 3: Tush Sex Doesn’t Make Sense

When you think about it, the vagina is a two-way street. Penis in; baby out. But let’s not limit sex to the reproductive. Sex is about sensation. There is not a person on this earth who hasn’t felt powerfully wonderful tingling sensations at some point when—forgive my bluntness—she’s taken a shit. This goes beyond psychological and intestinal satisfaction. The anus, you see, is densely packed with nerve endings.

Flash back to chapter 4. Recall the “excitement” phase of orgasm. Blood rushes to the genital region and causes vasocongestion, which leads to the erection of the penis, the engorgement of the clitoris, and the lubrication of the vagina. The anus, next-door neighbor to the vagina, two doors down from the clitoris, also goes through changes as you heat up. According to
Anal Pleasure and Health
’s Dr. Morin, during the excitement phase, the anal tissues also get a blood infusion and secrete moisture; the anal muscles spontaneously contract, and the nerve endings around the anus and along the perineum perk up.

It’s all connected. The tush entrance is part of the pubococcygeus (PC) muscle floor. There are two anal sphincter muscles, one internal and one external. Both tighten and loosen, but one is voluntary and the other is involuntary. When in the excitement phase, just a wee bit of external stimulation (touching the anus manually) causes the anal muscles to expand involuntarily. Put pressure on the anus and it opens up. The tight pucker widens, nerve endings surge and tingle.

The tush gets just as happy and ready for sex as the vagina. It’s crying out for attention. This is anatomical fact. Surprised? I was too.