by Betty Dodson
The first time I experienced anal penetration I was twenty-two and madly in love with Tommy. One night after attending a party where we’d had quite a few drinks, we started tearing each other’s clothes off the minute we got home—just like they still do it in movies. We didn’t make it to the bed but fell to the floor instead. I was on my back trying to wiggle out of a Playtex girdle with my legs in the air when my truly beloved pulled up and nailed me in the wrong hole. When his penis jabbed into my virginal butt, I felt a hot, searing pain. Letting out a howl, I kicked him away, and for the next twenty years no one ever got near my rosebud again.
In the early seventies, on one of my many trips to San Francisco, my friend Arlene Elster was in court defending her right to show porn in the little movie theater she ran on Polk Street. She won her case eventually. One afternoon, while waiting for her, I was standing in the back of the darkened theater watching a scene of a young hippie couple that obviously loved analsex. A close-up of his fat, glistening dick gracefully sliding in and out of her blissfully relaxed rosebud sent a surge of primal desire rushing through my body. From then on, butt fucking was incorporated into my masturbation fantasy repertoire with one variation: the woman was always tied down and helpless.
A year later, my gay friend Bobby and I were talking about sex, per usual. As I listened to him lovingly describe analsex, I admitted I was a little bit interested in trying it some day. Later that afternoon Bobby offered to demonstrate analsex with Billy, my young bisexual lover, while I watched. Billy was a pitcher, not a catcher, and he wouldn’t go for it, so I surprised myself by asking Bobby if he would do analsex with me. The healthy seventies were free from AIDS, so all we needed was a bottle of massage oil and our mutual consent. After all, a rosebud is a rosebud is a rosebud.
Bobby worshiped assholes, and for the next ten minutes, he devoured mine with such loving care I was blown away. It was my first experience with analingus. As his mouth and tongue lapped at my tight, defensive little buttyhole, the muscles gradually relaxed. By the time he gently pushed the head of his big oiled dick against rosebud, I was so open and turned on that he eased inside with a minimum of discomfort. Then he slowly fucked me doggie style as I played with my clit. The orgasm was unforgettable. We only did it a couple of more times before Bobby left town, but I’ll love him forever.
The following year, during my affair with Laura, we often took turns doing anal penetration with a well-oiled finger while the other one was masturbating with a vibrator. With us it was more health-oriented, although it was also pleasurable. She had a long history of constipation and it was my theory that having an orgasm with anal penetration would help to relax a part of her body that had only been a source of tension. It actually helped me, too. I also began doing anal penetration with some of my self-loving sessions. The best way to approach anal sexual pleasure is to do it with oneself first.
Still, I remained skittish, and very few lovers ever got inside rosebud. It seemed that analsex was a High Holy Day kind of sex that took place only once or twice a year. When it did happen, I always found it to be erotic, but the day after, I had the feeling of an impending bowel movement. There was no pain. It was simply unusual to have this kind of awareness in my anus. Normally, rosebud was totally out of sight and out of mind except when I got constipated. Then she dominated my entire life. Maybe it was raw pleasure anxiety, something I could easily diagnose in others but had difficulty seeing in myself. Meanwhile, analsex remained one of my favorite fantasies for masturbation.
In the beginning of my relationship with Eric, he was so interested in analsex that I was suspicious he might be hiding homosexual tendencies. He told me the desire emerged as a moment of clarity in his typical male adoration of a woman’s butt. It was a longing “to experience the sculpted, visceral beauty of the female ass to its fullest.” But only if it could be done when the woman took just as much pleasure in the experience as he did.
Another of the many reasons he claimed to like analsex is that he felt most of his girlfriends had responded to it more authentically than vaginal sex. Even when a woman is with an assmaster, the first few moments of anal penetration are a challenge until the muscles fully relax. Seeing one of his college girlfriend’s eyes close and jaw drop as she dug her fingers into the carpet was more captivating than when she bucked and screamed passionately during vaginal sex.
As we were talking, I remembered a well-known psychoanalyst once telling me that the most frequently recurring fantasies or repressed desires in his heterosexual male patients was fucking their wives or girlfriends in the ass. He said it came up more often than men wanting to have sex with two women, which I always thought was the number one male sexual fantasy. Maybe this was why so many American men are pathologically homophobic—they are concealing a serious longing for ass fucking.
Naturally, Eric wanted to do some butt loving with me when we first got together. Although I was definitely interested, I explained that during the previous ten years analsex with myself had been with a small buttplug. When I had a woman partner we used either our fingers or the occasional modest strap-on dildo. I wasn’t all that sure I could handle his penis inside my usually tight ass. He assured me he’d take great care in going slow. Just talking about analsex was turning me on, but first, I wanted to take an enema to rinse out the lower bowel.
My first enema took place in childhood when my mother used a red bulb syringe to cure a bout of constipation. She was always gentle while applying Vaseline and easing the small black tip inside while saying, “Relax your little buttyhole, Betty Ann.” Then, during my fasting and cleansing days in the seventies, I used the standard enema bag and had several series of high colonics. I also have a metal hose with a screw-on cylindrical tip that attaches to the shower, a gay men’s anal douching technique—a highly efficient method. Currently I have an expensive, transparent-white, silicone enema bag with a nice long hose and a small case that has several exotic attachments. It is proudly displayed as an objet d’art hanging in my shower.
Although Eric and I have since shared enemas as foreplay to analsex, I prefer taking an enema alone so I can turn the experience into a meditation to mentally prepare myself for this special kind of intimacy. Eventually I learned it was better to clean out my lower bowel a couple of hours before analsex. Otherwise rosebud gets too sensitive from being overstimulated. Besides, right after an enema, some of the water can be retained and come out during analsex. One time a bit of enema water combined with ejaculate came out an hour after we’d had sex while we were sitting in the restaurant having dinner. Waiting helps eliminate these possibilities.
Even better than an enema is when I have a full evacuation with nice firmly packed feces. Simply washing rosebud and inserting my finger is enough preparation then. Residual fecal material just inside the rectum will cause an unpleasant burning sensation for me as well as a thick, dragging sensation on his penis. Now that I have embraced analsex, no one can say, “You don’t know from shit!”
That first time Eric and I did analsex and I was clean as a whistle, he began with analingus. In spite of this special treat, I still felt a burning sensation as he began penetration with his well-oiled penis. He kept stopping so I could breathe and relax. At one point, when rosebud finally got over being so nervous and she cooperated, all seven inches glided in smooth as silk. The sensation as always was extremely erotic. He then held still while rosebud got used to having a visitor. With a vibrator on my clit along with his fluid movements and oiled palms smoothing their way over my happy bottom, the orgasm that followed was definitely worth writing home about.
After several months of practice, I began to master the necessary skills that enabled me to enjoy all aspects of quality buttloving. When I am kneeling on the edge of the bed in the knee-chest position with my behind totally exposed, knowing that I am going to get fucked in the ass turns me on. I’m sure this is because analsex has been such a prominent feature in my masturbation fantasies, where I imagine being forced to
surrender control to endure this forbidden kind of sex—shades of the Story of O. It’s one of the few instances when I relinquish control and surrender to my partner.
Eric stands behind me slicking up his dick with Charlie Sunshine massage oil. As I’m vibrating my clit, my buttyhole gets warmed up with gentle stroking followed by finger penetration. At this point I’m relaxing the anal muscles. When I feel his dickhead brushing back and forth across rosebud, my desire builds until I reach a level of anal craving. His cock maintains a constant medium pressure against rosebud as I push back into him while tightening and releasing my anal muscles. Breathing and vibrating my clitoris, I rhythmically squeeze the muscle tight, relaxing a moment and then pushing out just a bit. By repeating the process of squeezing, relaxing, and bearing down slightly, my ass literally sucks his dick inside—little by little. After full penetration is achieved, he holds still a moment to give rosebud time to adjust to the sensation of fullness.
This technique for anal entry is great because there is less initial discomfort than with the traditional method, where the other person does all the pushing into a tight, passive orifice. The other important element is that before anal penetration ever begins, the receiving partner needs to be sexually aroused.
I keep the vibes going over my clit as his oiled penis begins to move back and forth at a sweet, languid pace. Indescribably voluptuous feelings spread throughout my entire body. Again, with perfect control, he maintains gentle movement, his inquisitive divining rod probing every inch of my receptive canal. After several minutes I usually request a little more oil to maintain a smooth consistency. As each wave of earthy ecstasy rolls over me, his seamless fucking sends tingling currents up my spine or down my legs. The heat builds until I back up into him, swallowing his hard on with a hungry buttyhole, wanting all I can get.
The sounds I make are often unfamiliar: whimpering baby sounds, the low moans of an experienced whore, or deep bestial growls that come from a primal place within. The wrenching come starts with the orgasm sensation in my clit and spreads into my ass before racing up my spine and out the top of my head into the universe. Just as it has been in the past, the same is true today: First-rate ass fucking always makes me feel extremely vulnerable, and yet, at the same time, oh so powerful.
The first few months we were doing analsex, I dipped in and out of fear. Maybe I was damaging myself or, as the folklore goes, it was unhealthy “going the wrong way on a one-way street.” Sometimes my bowel movements seemed fuller and easier, but other times, when I tended toward constipation, I worried that his cock was pushing the shit up into my colon. After all, I’d often heard the expression “fudge packers.”
Talking with my gay friend Robert helped to calm many of my unnecessary fears. He assured me that most were based upon myths created by a homophobic society filled with men who feared anal eroticism. I kept forgetting about those reccurring repressed desires in my doctor friend’s male patients who longed to fuck their wives in the ass.
Rereading Anal Pleasure and Health also eased some of my fears. Jack Morin has the distinction of writing the first comprehensive book on this subject. At one point Jack says it is a good idea to get a sense of how the anus reflects our own lives. Emotions of anger, fear, frustration, or hurt can be expressed by tension held in all our poor little buttyholes. Fear seems to be my specialty. He was right on target when he said we would all benefit from having an imaginary conversation with our mothers to reclaim our anuses from traditional and often cruel toilet training, clumsily administered enemas, or negative messages we received as children from our parents and siblings and later from society.
Although my potty training was gentle and the few enemas I got were sweet, I clearly remember how dedicated Mother was to seeing to it that I didn’t bear down to empty my bowels. She was convinced it would cause hemorrhoids later on. She wanted me to relax, rub my tummy, and let my body do the job naturally. This childhood training was so entrenched it took me some time to learn how to bear down slightly in order to facilitate anal penetration.
The first step in beginning to explore your anus is to actually look at it. Many people go through life without a visual image of their sweet little rosebuds. Just as with our genitals, women only look when something is hurting or we think there’s a problem. In order to see your anus, you will need a mirror and a good light. There are several positions—standing and bending over, sitting, or kneeling. Be creative and get a good look. I believe this exercise is as important for a woman as examining her vulva. Both men and women need to explore this important opening so they can stop believing the anus is an undesirable part of their bodies.
We all have hair surrounding the folds of our pink or beige puckered buttyholes. Many keep the area shaved—some for appearances, others for cleanliness. I do it for both reasons. There is nothing basically dirty about the anus. While feces have bacteria, most of the organisms are harmless. Excessive fear about anal germs is the result of all the negative messages we get from a society that basically loathes and fears the human body, especially waste products like feces and urine. A recently evacuated bowel with a carefully washed rosebud has fewer bacteria than the average mouth. However, whenever you engage in analingus outside of a fluid-bonded relationship, use saran wrap for protection.
As fixated as we are on personal hygiene and purity, most Americans are walking around with shitty behinds because we rely on a dry wipe after defecation. This is a joke. Once I became sex positive back in the seventies, I used a wet washcloth to wipe my buttyhole after taking a dump or I rinsed off squatting in the bathtub. Now I keep a box of wet wipes on the back of the toilet, which makes it easy to clean up. Every time I wet wipe rosebud these days, I send a few loving thoughts along with some gratitude for all the pleasant bowel movements and hot orgasms she has given me.
If you are new to anal penetration, it’s a good idea to begin with your own finger. By tensing and releasing the pelvic floor muscle, it’s easy to feel how much movement is present. Along with the perineal muscle supporting the space between the anus and the genitals, there is the pubococcygeal, or PC, muscle that is attached to the front of the pubic bone and circling the anus. Breathing is as important as tightening and releasing the PC muscle, so taking deep breaths all the way down to your anus, and then letting go as you exhale, will help relax the two rings of sphincter muscles that circle the opening of your bottom.
Using plenty of massage oil, gently stroke the entire area surrounding your little puckered friend pressing around at the opening until you feel the muscles letting go. If you have long fingernails, it’s a good idea to file them down or at least cover them with a latex glove. Gently push your finger through the folds using the finger pad, not the tip. At the same time, slightly bear down to open the sphincter rings. Before you enter this unexplored place, make sure to add stimulation to your clitoris or penis to commingle positive feelings of sexual arousal with anal penetration. Go slow. Be sweet and gentle. Before attempting anal intercourse with a penis, both partners need to get to the place where they enjoy anal penetration during masturbation.
Remember, one of the basic principles when using a toy for anal penetration is to make sure it has some kind of flared base so it won’t get lost inside your body. Anal dildos or buttplugs come in a wide variety of sizes, so start small and gradually increase the size when your buttyhole loves the feeling.
Betty’s Blue Hitachment is ideal for those new to anal eroticism. This silky smooth vinyl cap fits over the head of the Magic Wand vibrator and has a graceful, curved four-inch dildo. Keeping the Wand on the low setting, the vibrations are a great help in relaxing anal muscles. Once your cute little rosebud surrenders, the vibrating dildo will be invited inside and the fun begins! Combining anal penetration with masturbation enhances orgasm for both women and men.
Two of the most important things to remember while doing anal penetration is to keep everything well oiled and to go slow. Forcing the muscles open before relaxation occurs will
produce a burning sensation. Once full penetration is achieved, stop a few moments to feel the new sensations radiating throughout your lower body. Men can lie on their backs and use the tip of the Hitachment to press up into the top wall of the lower bowel. It might take a little experimentation to find the right place, but eventually a new sensation will emerge with vibrations and pressure on the prostate gland. This, combined with manual stimulation of the penis, can result in a totally unique and powerful orgasm.
Those of you who are having trouble with hemorrhoids may discover that anal eroticism can become part of your self-healing process. The inflammations are caused in part by chronically tense sphincter muscles. After having a few orgasms with anal penetration, many of us can stop being such bad-tempered tight-asses. Women must remember not to go from the anus to the vagina with the same dildo to avoid getting a urinary tract infection from incompatible bacteria.
During the past few years, I’ve experienced some of the most erotic analsex of my life with Eric. When I began to get a series of urinary tract infections or UTIs, I was sure it was pure pleasure anxiety. The entire time I was menstruating, I never had a UTI from any kind of partner sex. But now that I was postmenopausal, perhaps I didn’t have enough naturally occurring friendly bacteria to maintain an acidic vaginal and urethral environment to ward off foreign invaders like E. coli and staph bacteria.
ANAL SEX. This woman is enjoying anal penetration on her back while using her vibrator on her clitoris. Her feet are resting on his chest with her hips supported by pillows. Any position with the woman on her back is the safest for anal intercourse. Gravity keeps the anal lubrication running away from her vagina or urinary tract, avoiding the possibility of a UTI.
At one time or other, many women get a UTI, which causes a burning sensation during urination and the feeling that you need to pee frequently. When it’s from first-time partner sex it’s called “honeymoon cystitis.” Although my urologist said there were many factors that cause a UTI, such as bacteria from the skin, I thought mine were the result of my recent analsex. Since I like having analsex on the edge of the bed in the knee-chest position, whatever lube we are using will sometimes seep down, bringing traces of incompatible bacteria into my urinary tract or vagina.
