Let’s Talk About Butt Stuff

 In For Your Information

Butt stuff can be scary for a lot of people. Due to various reasons, we’ve not only been led to believe that anal play is inevitably painful, but also gross and taboo. Which is silly, because lots of people are really into buttstuff and we shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed of that.

Let’s get this out of the way right now : you shit from there. The likelihood of you having some massive poop related catastrophe is very very slim, but this is where most people get hung up on anal play so let’s just confront the situation with poo in mind. Unless you’ve had an enema recently (which most of you probably haven’t), there might be poo. It might get on you. We have to accept this. If we cannot accept this, we cannot do butt stuff because in your butt is where your poo is. Even if you were to rinse your butt out ahead of time with an enema…you are in some capacity still being forced to deal with your own poo (enemas can get sort of involved and messy if you’re doing them yourself for the first time). So let’s just take a deep breath and be adults about this.

How do we deal with the poo? A couple of ways. 

-In general, putting down a towel (not your good monogrammed white bath towels, I mean the crappy bleach stained towels on the bottom of the stack that you keep around for large spills or drying the dog or playing with your butt) is never not a good idea. Why go through washing all the bed sheets or steam-cleaning the sofa if you can just ball up the towel when you’re done and toss it in the laundry? Spare towels are great for lots of sex play.

-Having baby wipes** or tissues on hand (I mean right next to you, not buried in your nightstand drawer on the other side of the room, get them out, we’re being prepared here)

-Using disposable gloves or condoms helps with clean up.

-Being aware of what you eat. If you’re in the mood for butt stuff this week, skip taco bell. This should seem like common sense. In that same vein, try not to engage in butt stuff when you have a full bowel. Everyone’s bodies work differently, some of us spend hours working up to that “I gotta poo soon” feeling while others are completely oblivious to their bodies digestion cycle until a moment before they need to relieve themselves. If you feel like you gotta go (or will soon), it’s probably not a good idea to try to hold it. Once you start engaging those butt muscles they’re going to want to do what they do…which is push the poo out. So lets aim to be empty, kind of like you pee before you leave the house, it’s just a good idea.

-Have good hygiene when using the toilet throughout the day.

-Have a shower or bath beforehand just to be sure. At the very least, remember those baby wipes.

-Doing an enema/anal douching. These really aren’t necessary but if you’re super self-conscious about the poo thing then you can give them a shot. BE VERY CAREFUL here, do your research and watch out for what you buy if you’re doing them at home. Typically the drug store kind are for relieving constipation, not just rinsing your butt out, so they’re going to have laxatives and other things in them that may cause you discomfort (and more pooing! the opposite of what we want!) if you’re using them and not actually constipated. All you truly need for an anal-prep enema is warm water. Thats it. You also don’t need to put a whole gallon of water in your ass, that will probably hurt if you’re not used to it. You don’t need to rinse out the entirety of your bowels, just the first 4-8″, so try a cup (or less) of water to start. You can also, instead of getting the enema bag set up, use what is called an enema bulb (like those bulb suckers you use to clean babies ears out, but bigger) You can do these yourself at home with a drug store kit or you can pay someone else to give you one (colon cleanses are a thing these days, you can even find them on groupon) If you want to go this route I highly suggest trying them once or twice on your own before you try doing them prior to butt activity, especially with a partner. You’ll want to get a feel for what exactly it does for you and how it makes you feel, as well as how it affects your bowel movements for a day or more afterwards. To be blunt, all the liquid may not have drained out when you thought it did, and one minute you might be having blissful poo-free buttsex and the next you might be pooing poo water all over the place because the sex shook everything up, or you may have that cramping I talked about, or a number of other possible side effects. So yeah, take a test run before you get too hot and heavy with these things.

-Accept that poo is still going to happen. You cannot take a scrub brush to the inside of your butt so some small trace (or bigger traces) of poo will be present. You did the best you could. When you’re done, you’re gonna get up and go wash everything off with soap and water and it’ll all be fine. If we cannot be okay with this, then butt stuff is just not going to be an enjoyable experience.

The reality is that it probably wont. 9/10 times whatever you put inside of and pull out of your butt is going to come out poo-free (I mean, it’s not sparkling clean but it’s not covered either) but we should be prepared for that 10th time and not freak the fuck out when it happens because we’re all adults who like butt stuff and have accepted the consequences of that. Okay?

Now that we’re ready to embrace our butts, how should we make sure the experience is as wonderful and painless and stress-free as possible? 

Pretty much the same way we do everything else regarding our genitals.

-Relax

-Go slow

-Use enough lube

-Use the right instrument

-Use the right position

Relaxing when you’re about to shove anything into a part of your body that historically things have only ever come out of might sound stupid, but seriously, give it a try. If you’re tense this will not go in your favor. Find a comfortable position (probably lying on your back), maybe play with your other parts to get you in the mood, hell maybe you even orgasm first to get that sexual tension out of the way, do what makes you feel good. I often don’t do any anal play without a vibrator also working my clit.

When I say go slow, what I really mean is go slower than you think slow is. Trust me here. Your butt has the potential to be quite accommodating, but you need to work up to it, and to do that it takes time. Playing with your butt is probably going to feel different, maybe a little weird, but it’s not supposed to hurt. You’re not supposed to strain or tear anything, you’re not supposed to be white-knuckling the sheets and gritting your teeth, this should be enjoyable, and you can go as slowly and take as much time as you need to to feel good.

Lube is a tricky thing. A lot of people recommend using more lube than you think is necessary, and on one hand I agree with that. The butt doesn’t self-lubricate like a mouth or vagina, so where you can get away with applying little to no extra lube to those places when having sex, the butt is going to need help. You’re going to need more, maybe much more, than you’d typically use for oral or vaginal sex. ON THE OTHER HAND, there is actually a thing as too much lube. Don’t just squirt an entire bottle into the ass of yourself or your partner, okay? Too much. The feeling of liquid in the butt can be really uncomfortable for a lot of people, being too slippery can feel a lot like very undesirable bathroom mishaps and the last thing you want to be reminded of when you’re trying to have sex is that time you got food poisoning. Be reasonable with your lube application, and remember that if it’s uncomfortable you can always (and should) stop and add some more.

The kind of lube you use matters. Your butt skin absorbs stuff, kind of fast, so lube doesn’t last as long as if you were just rubbing it between your hands or using it in places that already self-lubricate and keep things wet.

Waterbased is an obvious easy choice for all sex, condom, and toy use, but it does dry out faster.

Silicone is what I prefer for buttstuff, but you have to make sure you don’t use silicone lube on a silicone toy**. I tend to stick to human parts or metal toys in the butt, so its a non-issue for me.

Petroleum Oil based lubes like Vaseline aren’t really recommended. For anything. Like don’t do it. Theyre bad for your body. SOME plant-based oils like coconut are fine for some people to use as lubricant, but you should test a tiny bit out first before slathering your whole genital area in it, just in case of sensitivity/allergic reactions. Remember that oil lubes of all kinds are not safe with latex barriers.

A related note on how the butt differs from other orifices. Your butthole is strong and tight. It’s fairly easy to get moisture around and inside of other holes, but your anus is going to want to stay clamped shut. What’s this got to do with lube? Well, you need lube inside your butt, and what can often happen when lubing up fingers or toys or other body parts, is that the lube goes all over those things and then just gets pushed around by the anus instead of actually making its way into the body via the object you’re inserting. Slippery buttcheeks and a puddle of goop at the base of your object aren’t going to help you, you need to get that lube in you, not just on you. It’s tricky, but it must be done. If you feel like you’ve used a ton of lube but insertion is still difficult and full of friction…there’s probably no lube inside you, just all over you.

Using the right instrument is crucial. Stop looking around your kitchen or bathroom for things you can put inside you, it’s not safe. Especially in your butt.

A lot of people’s first explorations with insertables are done with household objects rather than legit sex toys. This is problematic for a number of reasons. Often these items simply aren’t made to withstand the rigours of sexual activity and can break, inside you. You may not know what type of material they’re made from and if that material is safe to be putting inside your body and into contact with mucous membranes. If they’re not clean they can cause infections. And you can lose them. With a vagina, at least, you cannot lose an object, the cervix blocks anything from moving it’s way up into the body. The ass however has no end (anatomically speaking it obviously does but things-getting-lost-in-your-butt-speaking, it sort of doesn’t), and while typically your muscles are pushing things out of the body, they also have the ability to pull things in, and that thing will just keep traveling upwards and inwards until it gets caught on something and causes a blockage and thats going to be a big problem you’re going to need the ER to resolve, and you don’t want that. So please, stick to using actual sex toys (dildos and plugs) intended for this sort of thing. When playing with the butt, look for toys that have a flared base to stop the whole toy from slipping inside. If you completely lose a toy in your butt DON’T PANIC. Try to keep your butt muscles relaxed, if you tense they’re going to squish the toy up into you further. Pop a squat (probably over the toilet or in the bathtub), and make like you’re having a bowel movement. Don’t over-strain yourself, you could cause tearing, haemorrhoids, or just general discomfort, but do push. If you can get a finger or two into your ass, you may be able to pull the toy back out. DONT go sticking other foreign objects into your butt trying to get the first foreign object out. Worst case scenario you end up in the ER. Luckily, they’ve seen it all before, but if this doesn’t sound like fun to you, seriously, stick to flared-based toys.

If you’re a butt newb I’d suggest starting with your fingers. Clip and file your nails and wash your hands. For added ease of clean-up, wear a pair of disposable gloves or finger cots. Lube up and be kind to your butthole. Maybe for a while all you do is touch around the outside, maybe you slip a fingertip in and no more, maybe you get really into it and can get a few fingers in. Whatever you’re comfortable with. Obviously thoroughly wash your hands (get under your nails) again when you’re done.

And finally, choose the right position. The way that you situate yourself either flattens out or puts bends in your insides. Additionally, the curve or straightness of toys or fingers and other people-parts are going to matter. You might not be able to use a straight 8″ dildo on your butt while you’re contorted into a human pretzel, but someone might be able to fist you in that position because they can bend their body to match yours. You might find the typical doggy-style position to be excruciating but lying on your back or being on top is quite enjoyable (doggy is my personal least-favorite with anal) When playing with yourself you might find it easier to put your arms behind you than to go at it from the front. If something doesn’t quite work, don’t write off anal completely just like that, experiment, try making some minor (or major) adjustments first. Any kind of sexual play is not one-size-fits-all, what you see in porn or what your best friend says feels amazing may not work for you, switch it up.

Where you go from there could be a lot of places. You can stick to just fingers (and thats okay!). You can try rimming with a partner (oral sex on the ass. Be extra diligent in your pre-sex prep, when tongues are coming into contact with your butt your partner is at risk for bacterial exposure, and some very harmful bacteria live in your butt – E. coli for one. You can always use dental dams for rimming) you can try out toys with yourself or a partner (again, use stuff made for sex), you can get into anal stretching with bigass toys, you can try PIA (penis in ass) sex with a partner, you can work up to anal fisting…your possibilities are…not completely endless but you have a couple options! Or, you may decide that butt stuff is not for you, and that’s okay too.

*** Baby wipes, wet wipes, charmin wipes, etc etc are generally not good for your genital region (particularly the vulva but also the anus). Yes, even the ones labeled as “gentle”. For this reason I absolutely do not recommend them for regular use, only if you really feel it’s necessary as preparation for anal play.

*** Some silicone lube blends are compatible with some silicone toys. You can either do a small patch test on the bottom of the toy and see if anything gets sticky or weird, or just stick to a different type of lube for these toys.