Anal sex gets a bad rap. It’s not hard to understand why. It’s been considered taboo for centuries and often considered to foster homosexual tendencies. But I am a warm blooded woman that happens to love anal sex.

I get why (even I back then) women are cringing at the thought of a man’s you know what coming even close to their back doors. It’s a sexual act only shown on the adult websites and never in coming of age or romantic movies. It’s been made to sound painful and dangerous by scores of women that had a terrible experience with it. Awful, because I feel sorry for their experience, yet that’s understandable. But even more appalling are the ridiculous articles by women who do love anal sex as a degradation to the female race.

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Dr. Hilda Hutcherson, author of Pleasure: A Women’s Guide to Getting the Sex You Want, Need, and Deserve, loves sex toys, believes the world is much too porno-phobic, and thinks more women should give anal sex a try.

In other words, she’s the gynecologist every guy wants his girlfriend to meet.

Among the many sexually taboo topics, anal sex is probably one of the most well known.

All guys seem to want it, while all girls seem to hate it.

But Dr. Hutcherson believes that more women might actually find out that they like it if they give it a try. Women who don’t enjoy anal sex, she says, are probably doing it wrong.

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That’s the question a Quora user asks. The majority of responses give the correct answer, namely that this happens normally and naturally and that anal sex does not cause one to become permanently “loose”.

Your anus will resume its normal size after anal sex. During and immediately after anal sex, it’s normal for the anus to gape open, but it will quickly return to normal.

It’s a myth that anal sex will “ruin” your anus. I’ve been enjoying anal sex for sixteen years and my anus is as tight as it ever was. What does happen with regular anal experience is you learn to relax your anus quickly to stimulation so that penetration is quicker and easier.

I had regular anal sex with my partner for past 10 years and my anus is same size as ever. My younger sister wo wants to retain her virginity till marriage is also having anal sex with her bf on regular basis and no change in size. Yes, post sex its a bit open for an hour os si but will go back to its normal size after that.

One response suggests they experienced permanent change:

Just like yours, my anus does not really go back to its size anymore. I stopped worrying about a couple of years ago. Guys actually seem to like it now even more after it became lippy and more open.

Since all of the sex I have (including masturbation) is purely anal, it did have long term effects on my anus.

However, since they exclusively have anal sex and masturbate anally regularly, it is far more likely that they simply are more relaxed and prepared for anal sex because they are doing it frequently, and know how to relax their anal muscles easily and at-will, which can even happen subconsciously. Even people who are extremely experienced with anal need to train and warm up again if they go for a few weeks, months or longer without any anal penetration. Actual long-term looseness only happens as a result of nerve damage, which is extremely rare.

Many people’s first introduction to the idea of anal sex is through pornography. While there are certainly those who simply choose to try it on their own, either through curiosity and experimentation with their own body, or with a partner, many see it in porn and are drawn to how sexy and appealing and pleasurable it looks there. And it’s true—it is sex, appealing and pleasurable.

But porn is entertainment, not real life, and while it can provide positive exposure to anal and show people its ideal form and how appealing it can be, it doesn’t show the full picture.

Anal Porn Doesn’t Represent Proper Training and Warmup Techniques

Anal sex requires anal training and warmup of the anal muscles beforehand for most people in order to be safely enjoyed without pain, discomfort or injury. This involves gradually stretching and warming up the muscles with smaller toys or objects, working up in size until anal sex itself can be enjoyed.

Most people need to go through an extended period of anal training for days or weeks or potentially even longer, depending on their own personal needs, before they’re ready to even try anal sex. Even once that initial training has been done, foreplay is needed to relax in the moment and prepare for sex, whether through rimming, fingering, butt plug wear before sex, or the use of a smaller dildo.

Porn often doesn’t show these steps. Some porn producers have gotten better about this and include it as part of the start of a scene, with an actor starting the scene wearing a butt plug, removing it, enjoying some rimming and fingering, and then moving on to sex. But there is still a lot where the warmup was done off-camera and they’re ready to go when the scene starts. For entertainment purposes, there’s a lot to be said for doing it this way, it just needs to be understood by anyone looking to try it themselves that they will most likely need more than what is shown on-camera.

Anal Porn Often Doesn’t Show Proper Lubrication Techniques

Anal sex requires supplemental lubrication of some sort, whether artificial lube, vaginal juices, or saliva. Aside from the lucky few who produce an increased amount of anal mucous and can enjoy anal sex without adding any other lube, the anus is not self-lubricating.

Watching porn, however, you often wouldn’t know that. Most anal scenes start with the actors simply sliding into the women’s anuses with no preparation, or with just a little bit of spit. Again, this is generally because they’re already warmed up and pre-lubricated internally, and the addition of saliva is just enough to get inside and access the other lube.

There are certainly those who have anal sex regularly enough that they don’t need much more than saliva and their natural anal mucous to enjoy sex, but that’s an advanced technique that doesn’t apply to most people, and usually should not be attempted by beginners unless they’re confident that it works for them.

Anal Porn Doesn’t Show Hygiene Techniques

A big issue some people have when reconciling their anal experiences with those shown in porn is the cleanliness factor. By the very nature of having sex in the anus and rectum, you’re interacting with a place that also holds and transports feces, so cleanliness is a common concern for many people. In porn, anal sex is always spotless, and this can set a false expectation of anal sex for people whose only experience is through porn.

In reality, porn actors often fast in advance of anal scenes, do enemas, and in the event any mess happens during the shoot, cut, clean up, and edit that out. We’re all humans, we all poop, and inevitably there will be some messiness as a result of anal sex if you do it enough.

If you’re mature about it and understand that sometimes it might just get messy and it’s not a big deal to just clean up if that happens, you can have a sustainable and usually quite clean experience with a healthy, balanced high-fiber diet and supplemental use of a small anal douche/enema bulb.

Pornography is a Visual Medium

Because porn is a visual form of entertainment, many compromises are made to add to the aesthetic nature of the scene, which in practice is often not ideal for actual sex.

Positions are optimized for visual access and being able to see penetration, rather than for pleasure or intimacy. Positions that people may prefer in real life are often ignored in favor of ones that look good on camera even if they aren’t as pleasurable.

Ejaculation is often done externally rather than internally, or even if it is internal, it’s done in a shallow manner so it can be pushed out afterwards for the camera. In real life, deeper ejaculation is usually preferred, both for mutual pleasure and to keep the ejaculate deep inside where it can be absorbed or plugged inside to stay throughout the day.

Anal Porn Actors Are Professionals With a Lot of Experience

Porn often shows quite deep, fast, aggressive anal, as well as advanced techniques such as the use of large toys, double and triple anal penetration, fisting, etc. These are all things that can be safely enjoyed by ordinary people as well, if that’s something that interests you, but you need to start small and slow and work your way up to that gradually, listening to your body along the way.

The majority of people probably won’t be personally interested in those things, and that’s fine too, but even with just a single partner, it’s good to know your limits and recognize that what you see in porn and may want to mimic is being done by experienced professionals, and you may not be able to just dive right in to that same level immediately. Enjoy and be entertained and inspired by porn, but don’t use it as an informative education. Do a lot of additional research. Read our Guide to Anal Sex and the Anal Only Lifestyle. Ask questions. Experiment and explore, on your own and with a partner.

Anonymous: I appreciate you finding articles and discussions to post here and respond to from your perspective, but it is frustrating to see just how negative and ignorant people still are about anal sex!

It’s easy within our bubble of anal love and positivity to forget that a lot of people still haven’t discovered the truth about anal sex yet and not only buy into the pervasive myths that still surround anal, they continue to spread them to others despite having no experiences of their own to base them on.

Things are still improving overall, however, and there’s more easily accessible information than ever about how to enjoy anal. As more people speak positively about anal sex and the anal only lifestyle, and open up about them to friends, sharing personal experiences that supplant the impersonal myths, jokes and general negativity and encourage people to explore it for themselves. If you love anal, and you have friends that you feel comfortable talking about sex with, start talking to them about it, and if they have questions, try to be helpful and encouraging.

For more information on this topic, see our Helping to Advocate the Anal Only Lifestyle to Others page in our new Anal Sex & Anal Only Lifestyle Guide.

That’s the question asked by user on Quora, and while they get a few uninformed answers (some of which have since been removed), the majority of the responses are very positive and accurate.

Plain penetration of the vagina by the penis does not do it for most women. They either need additional stimulation of the clitoris, or a special alignment of the penis so it presses directly on the clitoris. Or alternatively, forget the clitoris and concentrate on the g-spot.

On the other hand, a very high percentage of women orgasm regularly during anal. Not sure why, but for deep throbbing orgasms, anal is the way to go!

This is absolutely the case. More women report being able to orgasm from just anal than vaginal, and those same women often can’t orgasm from vaginal on its own. Not everyone can orgasm from anal on its own, at least without more practice or training, but anal is certainly the way to go if you want more pleasure, whether with or without clitoral stimulation.

It is actually more likely for a woman to orgasm through anal penetration than vaginal penetration, hence why most women who don’t engage in anal can only achieve orgasm through being eaten out or fingered. There are more nerve endings in the anus than the vagina and it’s typically easier to reach the g-spot through the anus. Most of the women I’ve been with prefer anal sex for that reason. Pity that more women don’t engage in anal, due to the taboo that has been placed on it plus the semi-misconception that the anus is “exit only.”

The more women experience anal for themselves, on their own terms, and discover the pleasures that it can provide them, the more women are going to vastly prefer anal to vaginal and come to recognize vaginal sex as the pale imitation of pleasure and intimacy that it is in comparison.

Continue reading on Quora

Some guys are boobs men. Others are legs men. But in the bedroom, all are bum men. I do not know a heterosexual woman alive who has not, at some point, experienced a partner trying to use her backdoor instead of the front. There are the curious gents, gently investigating if the key fits. Others are as unsubtle as the pile of junk mail flyers that stumbles through your letterbox every week. But the male goal is the same: they want in.

This isn’t universally true. Not all men are remotely interested in anal, as discovered by some of the female members of the anal only community as they meet resistance from potential new partners. As with all things, some men and some women love it, some like it, and some want nothing to do with it. Most of those who want nothing to do with it have either only had one or two bad experiences, or haven’t tried it at all.

Interest in anal certainly is on the rise, however, for men and women both.

Only, why do they? And why don’t we? I know plenty of women who’ve tried anal play, but I don’t know a single one who initiated it – or who’d admit to it without that other essential lubricant, wine.

Plenty of women do want anal, and do initiate it. Many don’t admit to it because of continuing stigmas and attitudes surrounding it and fear of being judged negatively by their peers for making that admission, because sex negativity and slut shaming remain big factors that keep people from being open and positive about sex and their enjoyment of it. But even this is slowly changing for the better, and people are becoming more open about sexual topics and sex positivity. The more people talk with their friends about enjoying anal or being anal only, the more some of that stigma can be combated and others can feel safe opening up as well, and trying anal for themselves if they haven’t already.

“It’s all that internet porn men are watching,” I hear you cry – and, yes, true. Over the last six years, PornHub has reported a 78% increase in the number of searches for anal clips.

Porn can have some influence by exposing people to a wider range of sex acts and making them curious about trying it for themselves, but it doesn’t determine your preferences. A lot of people—again, men and women both, because women love porn just as much as men do, they just don’t admit to it as openly for the same reasons as above—are watching more anal porn because anal is what they enjoy, what gets them off, and what they prefer watching.

From here, the article really goes off the rails.

At its most basic, men crave novelty more than women

“If a woman finds something that she likes sexually, she usually wants that repeated again and again. Whereas men seem to need different stimuli to stay engaged. The anus and anal sex is more taboo than vaginal sex; it’s perceived as ‘dirty’. If a woman is open to it, it implies that your sex life is ‘dirtier’, too.” And ‘dirty’ is a label that novelty-addicted guys crave – not fear.

Novelty and taboo might make people curious about trying it in the first place, but that’s not what a long-lasting interest in or preference for anal will be based on. One might come for the novelty, but stay for all the other benefits of anal.

Anal sex avoids intimacy – cue the commitment-phobes

“The most common position in anal sex is for the woman to be bent over, with the man on top or over her, looking at her back. For men, a sense of power and domination comes with that. There’s also no real connection: there’s no face-to-face interaction, no eye contact, it avoids intimacy and is not seen as a ‘relationship experience’. In our culture, men’s emotions are more supressed than women’s. So men might find anal sex more comfortable because of the lack of intimacy, while women might find it less satisfying because of the same thing.”

I don’t even know where to begin with this absurdity.

First of all, this sounds more like a critique of the doggy style position, which is commonly used for both vaginal and anal sex, and has no specific connection to anal. Anal can be, and is, done in a wide variety of positions.

Secondly, anal sex can be one of the most intimate forms of sex possible. It all depends on context, as with anything else. If you’re in a close relationship with someone, anal sex is the using and sharing of one partner’s most private and intimate part of their body for sex, and the trust and care involved, combined with the increased shared pleasure, makes it incredibly intimate. In fact, talking to women who regularly engage in anal sex with their partner, or who are anal only, the intimacy of it is one of the things most commonly cited as a reason they love it so much.

Men are secretly fascinated by their own bums

“There’s a deep psychological thing for guys because their anus is the source of enormous pleasure for them, with the prostate located there (in the rectum). Men may not have experimented with that, but in their psyche they’ll know that part of the body is capable of giving great pleasure. Because of lingering homophobia in our culture – even though homosexuality is normalised, good and healthy – there’s still this internalised idea, “If I enjoy having something up my arse that means I’m gay, and I am not gay.” So men displace their own desires to experience pleasure in that part of the body, and put them onto women.” So there’s an ulterior – well, posterior – motive, after all.

This one does at least touch on some legitimate issues with myths surrounding anal pleasure and the association of anal with homosexuality in combination with homophobia, but it draws an absurd conclusion from it by claiming that men who secretly want to play with their own asses are suppressing that desire and expressing it through anal sex with women instead, which is just so utterly stupid I can’t believe I just read it.

Guess what: men want to have anal sex with women because they enjoy anal sex with women. It feels great for men, and done right can feel better than any other form of sex for women as well. It can give some of the most intense and explosive orgasms for a woman, and men like their partners to enjoy sex as much as they do. It’s intimate, it’s passionate, it’s sexy, and it’s just an all around good time. Some men also like receiving anal pleasure, and there’s nothing wrong with that either. Anal pleasure can and should be enjoyed by anyone who wants it, without any judgement.

The above is more or less the entire article, since there was so much to respond to, but you can, as always, continue reading at Glamour.

Met someone on POF who`s company i adore.
We`ve been out a few times. She spent the weekend at my home. We really get along, and our time we spend together is really amazing!We babrely left my apartment.

Each time we engaged in sex, she would only allow me to enter her anally.I was taken aback by her request.She seemed to like oral sex performed on her as well as my hands caressing her.Yet, each time i attempted to penetrate her vagina she refused.

She explained to me, its nothing personal, but, until she becomes comfortable with me, she doesn`t allow anyone to enter her.
Don`t get me wrong, i`m not complaining,but i do find this preference rather odd.
Has anyone else experienced this before?

His reaction to a woman who only wants anal sex is unfortunate, acting like it’s somehow unusual or strange for a woman to prefer anal sex or only want anal and not want him to penetrate her vaginally. The responses he receives are similarly disappointing, ranging from insulting her…

“Odd” isn’t the word for it. I’m thinking more along the lines of “nutjob.”

…to accusing him of making up a fantasy story…

haha, sounds like you have quite the active and elaborate fantasy life. anyway….

Has anyone else experienced this before?

strangely, i find the question itself to be of greater interest than your absurd story. do you hope the answer is “yes”, do you wonder if it is “no”; are you merely taking a poll (against forum rules) or are you asking for advice but haven’t quite figured out a way to frame your anally fixated question; and… either way, what will you do with the information once you get it? also, have you written your daily posting to ass.fetish.blogspot.com yet or did they delete your account for violating TOS and is that why you came here?

…to the classic accusation that she is actually a man in disguise…

are you CERTAIN she’s a SHE???

a real SHE???

Honestly, it’s an incredibly frustrating look at the ignorance towards anal sex that still remains in the world and which can make it a challenge for anal only people to meet partners and communicate their desires without judgement. Most everyone is making hostile and crude jokes or being downright insulting towards the idea of preferring anal sex, or the concept of anal in general. However over the course of the 16 pages that this crazy thread goes on for, a few more reasonable people do turn up, fortunately, but… wow.

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That’s the topic of a thread over on WeddingBee, where a user asks:

I am just curious if others prefer anal over vaginal sex..I was diagnosed with having uterine fibroids which cause me to have bad cramps and pain everyday plus I am going through menopause so I have vaginal dryness..When we start foreplay I am fine but not long after I dry up so I much prefer anal cause it seems to feel better plus I can orgasm…I thought about using creams for the dryness but kinds concerned of the affects from the creams…Anyone else experience the same problem and prefer anal?

I’ve heard similar stories many times, where with age, pregnancy, or as the result of various medical conditions, women find vaginal sex becomes very uncomfortable, unpleasant, or even painful, and turn to anal for continued intimacy, pleasure and sexual expression, finding it far more enjoyable and quickly coming to prefer it.

Of course, anal already has a lot going for it even without an inability to enjoy painless vaginal sex, but for those unable to have vaginal, anal provides a welcome alternative.

While some of the responses are positive and supportive, or even curious, others are very opposed to the idea and spread false myths:

The back door is an exit only. It is not meant for that kind of… attention. So take special care. A surprising number of people end up in the ER due to anal sex mishaps. I don’t see why you wouldn’t just use lube. It’s not as if your anus is self-lubricating, so I assume you are already using lube. Anyways, if you like it, that’s fine but vaginal lubes are perfectly safe.

It’s time for this myth to die. Anal sex will not cause you to end up in the ER. And she’s not using lube for vaginal because she, in her own words, says that she prefers anal. Good grief.

Some others do share a similar preference, however.

Yep! It is actually what I started with.. and did for years, so I came to prefer it. It hurts doing it the “regular way” -_- Of course, it can hurt also if you don’t take certain obvious precautions lol..

I love it, probably more than vaginal sex!! My fiancé isn’t as keen but he complies  I’m a bit weird, I love the feeling afterwards, I like the pain, like he’s left his mark hahaha! I’m sick I know

And others comment on the judgmental attitudes expressed by some:

Wow, there’s a lot of judgy folks on here! Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s inherently “gross” or wrong. There’s lots of sexual activities that I’d admit don’t interest me, but have large followings for other people who DO enjoy them.

I really like anal, and we do it pretty often, but not all the time. I have to be in the right mood for the intense pleasure it offers. It’s certainly not “only an exit” (as evidenced by all the people who LIKE it an an entrance!) nor does it guarantee a mess all over your partner (has never happened to me in 6 years of anal). I don’t do any special preparation other than usually only doing it if I’ve already “emptied” earlier that day 

It’s all about what makes you and your partner feel good! If all parties consent that’s all that matters.

All told, however, it shows the persistent and pervasive myths and negative attitudes towards anal that many people hold, and which need to continue to be countered by positive accounts and honesty about what it’s really like when done properly from those who enjoy it.

Continue Reading at WeddingBee

Vaginal sex has never been any good for me. It’s not especially painful – only at first and then I feel mostly numb and a bit icky. I’ve always done it in relationships, but when my fiancé guessed I didn’t like it much we stopped completely. That was over a year ago. Since then we’ve explored alternatives and our sex life is great. I’ve found the best way for me to orgasm is through anal sex and using a vibrator on my clitoris. My boyfriend, I think, would prefer vaginal. Last night I went to a talk about women, confidence and pleasure. One of the speakers was asked about anal sex and said it was just something that was fashionable – that no woman likes it; those who do it are just pretending to be cool to keep their boyfriends happy; and that men who want it are likely gay or bi. They also said it’s a health risk and harms your body, but didn’t explain how. This has made me very anxious. Should we stop?

So begins an article at The Telegraph. This is why people who don’t know anything about anal sex shouldn’t be talking authoritatively about it and spreading myths and fear. Here’s a woman safely practicing anal sex and the anal only lifestyle, and greatly preferring it to vaginal, and she’s being falsely told that she’s wrong to prefer it because no woman actually likes it, and that it’s harmful.

I wasn’t at the talk you went to – but it’s a real shame you left an event about ‘women, confidence and pleasure’ feeling worried and uncertain.

It’s also not clear if the speaker was sharing their own opinions about anal sex, or if they were speaking in a more official, educational capacity.

Either way it doesn’t really matter.

They may have their reasons for disapproving of anal sex. But not all they said was accurate.

Unfortunately, the response ends up taking a similar tone towards the end and though it hedges it a bit by saying that it’s her choice to prefer anal, she should try to enjoy vaginal sex instead.

While enjoying anal is evidently your preference and choice, I did want to pick up on why you don’t like vaginal sex. You say “It’s not especially painful, I just feel mostly numb during it and it feels a bit icky”.  I don’t want to talk you into something you don’t like, but if vaginal sex has always been a source of physical discomfort it might be worth finding out why, rather than dismissing it.

Not everyone enjoys vaginal sex, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Stop trying to make it what’s “normal” and disliking it “abnormal”, and instead recognize that some prefer vaginal, some prefer anal, some prefer oral, and some have other preferences yet. Being anal only is a perfectly valid choice and preference for many people.

Continue Reading at The Telegraph