Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with analsex

Safe lubricants?

zeek321 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:13:45 -0800

Natural, safe lubricant? NSFW It seems like the latest trend in lubricants (whether for anal sex or otherwise) is to minimize the number of chemical-sounding ingredients (yes, I know everything is a "chemical") and then add one really nasty preservative. I really don't like the idea of certain things drying out on skin and sitting inside moist, mucous-membrane lined orifices for hours. Case in point, though not to single out this brand:

http://store.babeland.com/safe-sex-lubes/sliquid-sassy-anal-lube

Polyquat whatever, fine, but this:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient.php?ingred06=702196&nothanks=1

Seriously? I'm not sure I care that it's the last ingredient and probably an infinitesimal amount.

I've tried:
http://www.yesyesyes.org/
http://www.fireflyorganics.com/

These meet my safety criteria, but, not surprisingly, they don't have the consistency of the more synthetic lubes. What I really want is an astroglide made of sunbeams and rainbows.

So, is there anyone out there as paranoid as me that has found a water-based lube that's reasonable in terms of both safety and performance for vaginal intercourse and anal sex?

Should I tell my wife about my new fetish?

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:01:47 -0800

Should I try to ask my wife to let me try a sex act that I know she'll think is gross? My wife and I have a good sex life. We're both attracted to each other and love having sex. I love her and am really hot for her and we have really good sex, but I also have a very strong libido and masturbate when she's either not around or unwilling, and she's cool enough to be fine with that. We're totally in love.

But a couple weeks ago I was masturbating while she was away for the weekend and I guess I was curious, so I put a finger in my butt near the end, and the feeling I had when I finished was *amazing*.

I want to be stimulated that way while I have sex with her, but I know for a fact she'll be grossed out by it. I brought up having anal sex with her a long time ago, and she thought the idea was gross ("there's poop in there" was I think the biggest deal). So there's no way she'll want to reach back and stimulate me that way. If she's grossed out with me doing it to her, then I'm pretty sure no way she'll do it to me. I could do it to myself, but I'm worried it would freak her out and make the sex not as good for her, which is the most important thing to me.

But the deal is that I feel like it's wrong that there's something that I'm enjoying without her, like it's the kind of secret you shouldn't keep from your wife. I'm not going to try to talk her into it, because I know she's really disgusted with the whole idea, but I feel like keeping that a secret is wrong. On the other hand, if she wouldn't like it, I feel like maybe bringing it up would do more harm than good.

Should I tell her, and if I should tell her, how? The idea really scares the hell out of me. I don't want to change the way she sees me. And yeah, I know, if she *really* loves you she won't run away -- I don't think she would leave me over something like this at all, she's great, but coming out about something like this is hard for me.

Anal on Saturday night, how to prepare Friday or Saturday?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:09:05 -0800

I'm going to have anal sex, for the first time, on Saturday night! What do I do on Friday night or Saturday morning? I'm a girl and my partner's a guy. I've never had anal before, but he has a lot of experience, and we've been doing a lot of play together. I've also read a lot of guides. So I'm not asking any questions that can be answered with "more lube, more patience." There's the long-term prep you do over the course of months -- fingering, gradually working your way up -- and the short-term prep over the course of an hour -- massages, rimming, relaxing more. What I'm asking about is the medium-term prep -- a day or two.

Basically, this time, cleanliness is a priority for me. On my own, I have no trouble handling my waste. But I really, really want to prevent any appearance of feces (or even of santorum) when my partner's present. I know total prevention may be impossible, so let's say I'd like to minimize it. My partner is knows what he's getting into, and he definitely will be cool with it, so it's really for my sake -- it's my first time having anal sex and I'd really like it not to end with shit everywhere.

I'm confident I can get the bottom 3-4" of my digestive tract -- as far as our fingers reach -- to be squeaky clean. We've tested that more than enough, and never come up with a trace. But I'm concerned about the next 4-5" inches, because that's how deep his penis is going to go (yes really, we've measured him). I'm not at all sure that when I clean myself out in the shower, I'm cleaning out the feces stored 7-8" inside me.

To clean myself, I just wait until I'm in the shower and use my hands. It works better than an enema in the shallow range. I don't think an enema could work any deeper, either, because of all the twists and turns. So for what I can reach, I'm happy sticking with what's worked so far. It's the rest of my digestive tract I'm concerned about.

Basically, I think this is what I want to do:
- eat a lot of fiber (and drink a lot of water?)
- shit my heart out Saturday morning
- not eat afterwards
- wash up Saturday afternoon
- have anal Saturday late afternoon/evening/night
- have a late dinner Saturday night
- go on with normal routine Sunday morning and onwards.

So assuming this plan sounds good to you, when do I eat all this fiber? I want my digestive tract empty as of Saturday afternoon, so do I eat this fiber Friday night? Saturday morning? How fast does it work? I really don't want to take it Saturday morning and have it kick in Saturday night, you know?

And what form should the fiber be in? Soluble? Insoluble? I'd rather eat real food, but if pills will work better, that's okay too. I feel like fiber is probably a better plan than laxatives, though.

After my first time, I plan to get a lot more casual about this, probably just cleaning the way I do for anal play now. I want to assure you that I'm not totally hung up on the first time must be perfect -- Saturday isn't a meaningful date (anniversary, etc.), we've already put it off once or twice, we completely expect me to queef and him to trip and us both to misunderstand each other and bonk heads and have to stop while we laugh. We've done all of that before, and there aren't any rose-petal illusions about this. If we run into some feces, he's not going to do more than shrug.

But I'd really prefer not to, this one time. So just once, I do want to take extraordinary effort to clean out the bottom 8" or so of my digestive tract.

My body stores feces in the rectum -- weird, but is it bad?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:33:23 -0800

Every anal-sex manual says not to worry, feces isn't stored in the rectum. Well, my body doesn't know that. Could this cause, or be the effect of, any health problems I should know about? Text gets explicit. I've used the politest words I know so I don't gross you guys out -- but if your interest is prurient rather than medical, you still aren't going to want to eat while reading this.

My boyfriend -- an anal expert -- has been wanting to explore that route with me. (I'm a woman, mid-20s.) I hadn't done any anal play before, but I'm GGG enough to be willing to give it a shot. I read a couple of books and websites, and although they all were clear about the need for cleanliness, they all said that the colon, not the rectum, stores feces.

So one night in the shower, exploring on my own, I inserted a finger. I've repeated this experiment a whole lot, and something's wrong with either the books or my body. Once I make it past the sphincter, there's not just traces remaining from my last bathroom visit -- even if I've just defecated and feel like I'm empty, I have little trouble reaching (with a finger or two) plenty of feces. I do have to twist and turn as soon as I make it past the inner sphincter.

All this doesn't put a stop to his exploration, although he knows to go slow; so far he's only rimmed and fingered me. Before we get involved with anything in the area, I hop in the shower and get as clean as I can inside and out (yes, I scoop it out with my fingers, drop it in the toilet, and flush...yes, it took me a few tries to be okay with that). Then I rinse the inner area thoroughly, use tons of soap on my anal area (outside only, obviously), tons of soap and Purel on my hands, and we're good to go. An enema might be another option, but he says I'm perfectly clean after I do what I do, so I'm okay with that.

My question is why I have to do it.

For anal it doesn't really matter. So I jump in the shower beforehand -- so what? The logistics aren't important to me. But is storing feces in my rectum a sign or a cause of some important digestive health issue I should know about? I'm including everything I can think of that could possibly be related. Feel free to ask more relevant questions if you want Jessamyn to deal with TMI e-mails from me (sorry, Jessamyn).

I go to the bathroom a few times a day, but mostly to urinate; I only defecate once or twice a day, and never without urinating.

I don't feel like I have to push or strain. When I'm done, I feel like I'm done, not like there's more hanging around inside my rectum. I've tried bearing down after I feel I'm done, but with no results.

I have no trouble wiping clean or washing the exterior -- what I'm worried about is well inside the anus.

I average about 20 grams of fiber a day as part of a healthy diet. The fiber comes from fruit, vegetables, hot and cold cereal, and whole-grain bread/pasta. If I add, say, a bran muffin to my day, I can't go far from the bathroom and am very unhappy all day -- but the problem described above doesn't change. (Side note: I keep track of everything I eat, so if you have any more questions about my diet, I can answer them accurately.)

Corn is a food widely noted as being visible in feces. I also experience this with some other vegetables, including peas, green beans, spinach, and spaghetti squash. I'm not sure if this is normal or not.

I drink a fair amount of skim milk, but I have no reason to suspect I'm lactose-intolerant (no excessive gas, bloating, constipation, discomfort, etc., and no race-based risk factors). When I stopped drinking milk for awhile, nothing changed.

Let me know if any other information would be helpful. Again, I'm really not looking for clean-up tips or whatever -- both he and I are totally fine with what I'm doing now. I just want to make sure this aberration isn't a health concern worth taking to a doctor.

Dental damned if you do....

Jake Apathy — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:08:46 -0800

Sexfilter : How risky a behavior is analingus? Websites (including Wikipedia) make it sound super-risky. If I know that my partner has no STDs and no hepatitis, what are my risks, realistically?

I figure I'd want her to take a shower first. Also, one website suggests cleaning the area with a Tucks pad. Is this a good or bad idea?

Also, is it really necessary to use a dental dam?

Ouch!

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:50:32 -0800

[SexFilter] After much bruising, my boyfriend and I would like to try again. After trying a few times, we've been unsuccessful in anal sex (It's my first time trying with anyone). Usually it leaves me in intense pain and bruised. I'm usually the one leading the action, often in a "doggystyle" position, and very plentiful with the use of Astroglide. What are we doing wrong? What hints/positions/techniques are known to work? I'm female, by the way.

Anon because I didn't know if it was appropriate. If you prefer to also be anon with responses, e-mail me at kalatamahara AT hotmail DOT com.