Men and Anal Sex

Great Debates
1

OK, this is a kind of “personal” topic, but I want to get some input slightly more well thought out than “OMG LOLS GHEY SEX”

Secondly, I’m defining “anal sex” loosely. It doesn’t necessarily mean penetration with a penis - it could be touching, fingering, dildos, licking, or whatever your deviant mind includes.

Thirdly, sorry if this is disjointed, I’m playing City of Heroes right now and typing in between fights. :wink:

Anyway, on to the meat and potatos. What are men’s hangups? Physical or psychological?

I know there is a perception of pain involved with the process. I think most people “in the know” would say that it is only painful if you do it wrong.

Are they afraid of it being dirty (in the literal sense)? In this case, why do many men find anal sex with a woman perfectly fine, but shudder at the thought of a man?

Are they simply uneducated about anatomy? Not understand the prostate and nerve connections around the anus?

Then there is the psychological. Setting aside the “it is evil” rhetoric for now, is there some psychological block? I mean, I realize it isn’t for everyone, and people are wired differently - if it isn’t your thing, it isn’t your thing.

But is there a psychological block on the order of “I will feel violated”? If so, how is this different from how a woman feels?

Then there is the obvious social stigma - anything touching the butt is gay, and gay is bad. However, is it “gay,” or simply for pleasure?

Any other thoughts on the subject?

2

All I know is that when the doc shoves his finger up my ass, it feels like he’s trying to fit his entire arm in there. If some people enjoy that, fine, me, I’d rather keep large objects out of my rectum.

3

It’s revoltingly unhygienical. Period. If I were gay and saw this as a primary source of sexual gratification, it might be an option. As things are, I’m quite content without someone else’s fecal germs on my wang (or hands, or tongue…)

Then many people fail to make a logical connection here.

4

I find the thought of anal sex with anyone (male, female, or other) unpleasant.

5

Huh? Why does there have to be a logical connection? Sex is not logical. Straight men also don’t like kissing other men, but we’re all aware that it’s hygienically no different than kissing a woman. So what?

It’s like those rare occasions when you see a nice butt and think, “Ooh, nice butt!” then you realize it’s actually a man’s butt, and you go “EWWW!” and the perception of what you are seeing changes instantly. It’s all about basic urges and hardwired brain response. Logic doesn’t have anything to do with it.

6

hehe, fair enough. Though maybe it is because you are tense? It is generally bad to just start shoving things into your body without preparing for it.

Well, I read in PopSci last month that there is this new invention called a condom, and that some people use it for just this reason. :slight_smile:

I think it is interesting that men have such a different viewpoint on bodies than women. We expect women to accept/swallow/whatever anything that we happen to shoot into them, but we are revolted by the same fluids and junk.

Actually, most gay men perform oral sex much more frequently than anal.

7

This distinction has always interested me.

If you were shown a picture of a nice bare ass with no indication of gender, you would get excited either way. There is something conscious in most people that, when they are told it is a man’s ass, makes them switch this attraction “off”… I want to know what that is. It may have a great deal to do with physiology, but this does not really explain the outright REVOLTION at it being a man’s ass. You may stop being so attracted to it, but there is somewhere where that stops being hard wiring and starts being a psychological distinction, or even a conscious choice (as in men who are homosexuals but refuse to admit it who do this).

I describe myself as “mostly straight,” with everything that implies - I call a nice ass a nice ass, either way. :wink: More to enjoy in the world that way.

8

Hardly. A woman with ‘man-ass’ is an unfortunate woman indeed.

9

Hygiene is overated and harder than you think. Did you know that houses that are cleaned more often are often dirtier (in a hygiene sense) than those that aren’t cleaned often? Did you know that everytime you flush the toilet with the lid up, microparticles of feces are essentially sprayed over everything in the room, including you? Did you know that kids who pick their noses and eat the boogers, don’t wash their hands very often, etc. are often healthier than those that don’t?

You have fecal germs on your hands, wang, tongue and so on right at this very moment. Go try to wash them off. Even if succesful, it won’t last very long.

Given all that, it’s not clear why anal sex has to be any more unhygienic than any other daily activity.

Some people just don’t like santorum, and that’s fine, but it washes off just like eveyrthing else.

10

I’m quite aware of this. However, they are my own and inevitably there. I do try to maintain optimum hygiene whenever it’s plausible (flushing with the lid down, etc) and doesn’t require too much effort.

It’s likely that vaginal sex is nearly as unsanitary. However, I don’t think of it that way, and my perception is more relevant to me than the objective truth :stuck_out_tongue:

11

I’ve ridden the Hershey Highway with a woman on two occasions. What inspired us was essentially that we had done every other conventional (and some mildly unconventional) sexual act many, many times, and heard through the grapevine that bum luv could actually be an erotic experience. So, we were in the mood for something new, I guess, and figured it could be fun.

Quite honestly, it wasn’t really, for either of us. We gave it our best, but it just didn’t seem like a really good alternative to the usual oral and vaginal pleasures to which we were accustomed. First, getting in there was difficult for all parties. However, once things were losened and lubed up sufficiently, sensation, dulled as it was by condom and copious amounts of KY, wasn’t anything to get all that excited about. She found that having me moving around in there certainly wasn’t going to induce an orgasm, even with whatever reacharound service I could provide. After two times with no good results, we just didn’t see the point, and I’ve never been tempted to try anal sex again with other partners. I certainly like gazing upon a nice smooth female ass ass much as the next hetero guy, and rubbing around on that region means fun for all. But I’m not going to be sticking Mr. Happy up the poop chute any time in the forseable future because I’ve found pussy suits me better.

No major hangups here. I didn’t feel like some closet homo for wanting to try, and given the amount of straight porn is out there featuring buttfucking, I’d have no real reason to conclude any such thing, even if I were a latently gay homophobe. Actually, I’ve heard a fair number of assuredly red-blooded heteros confess drunkenly to wanting to give it to some saucy beauty up the pooper, given the right circumstances. I assume this desire comes partially out of ignorance: They haven’t actually tried it yet, and don’t know that it’s really not any better (quite the contrary) than a mouth or a vagina.

I have, and, hand-on-heart, I say anal sex is a waste of time, given there are better alternatives available to me.

12

honestly, it is better with 2 men that just one man. Not into airtight, I bite occasionally :eek:

13

Find it disturbing. It’s an exit, not an entrance. But to each their own.

14

Well, I mean, really, is oral sex any less disturbing from a “it ain’t meant fer that” perspective? You’re putting your mouth all over the opening of either sex’s urethra. And does a mouth full of semen or vaginal juices, for lack of a better way to put it, look on paper anything like a worthwhile thing to pursue?

Strangely, I find the whole act of going down on a woman to be hugely pleasureable, and I do it with great enthusiasm. It’s bizarre behavior, on reflection. My wife finds the idea of going down on a woman (alas!) to be thoroughly disgusting, and I, likewise, have no desire to perform fellatio on anyone, ever. And why would anybody? Yet some of us do have this urge when in a horny mood, and the motivation is obviously a desire to please, coupled with some kind of personal erotic payoff.

The fact that the anus is an exit point for smelly nastyness was never the problem for me. Things can be made quite sanitary down there with the proper cleaning and voiding, as experience has shown. For me, the initial deterrent was that it’s highly unconventional and taboo, and one hesitates to even ask a woman if she’d like to try (I actually never had the courage to, it somehow came up, so to speak, and was a mutually agreed-upon endeavor). Then, after having tried, experience taught me that if I’m starved for something new, anal sex is a unrewarding end to pursue (so, so sorry!).

The whole “don’t fuck where you shit” philosophy breaks down for me when I consider plenty of people can suck and lick where they piss just fine. After a good scrubbing, the nether regions are perfectly hygenic. If there’s pleasure to be had down there, just wash up and have fun. I’ve found there isn’t enough pleasrure to be had in the rear exit to go that route again. I suspect many have found the same if they’ve been adventurous enough to try, or anal sex would be more conventional among hetero couples.

The fact that homo male couples seem to go for it has always been, quite frankly, a source of confusion for me. They do have alteratives, so why bother?

15

One word : prostate.

16

So you’re saying getting the prostate prodded from inside is sexually pleasureable? I’m not trying to be sarcastic here, I’m honestly asking: Is that what makes man-on-man anal something worthwhile, for those so inclined?

17

Yes, it is quite pleasurable. Plenty of straight guys like to have their prostate stimulated during sex as well, it’s not like it’s a “gay thing”.

18

and woman with fingers or toy worthwhile as well. As was said, with proper voiding and washing, and plenty of lubricant it pleases some people when properly done. Conversely, some women like fisting and I could never understand that… :eek:

19

Since we’re already in TMI zone here (and I think that I can thank Loopydude for breaking that wall wide open) I’m going to be forthcoming:

For me, I never really wnated to have anal sex with a woman. With one girlfriend I joking asked if she wanted to, but even if she had said “OK” (and she most certainly did not), I don’t think I could have done it, for 1 simple reason: shit comes out of there. I like to think that I keep myself pretty clean, but it’s not like I stick a sponge 6" up my ass when I shower, and I don’t think that anybody else does either. It’s just nasty. (And I also always close the toilet lid before I flush. Admittadly, I’m a bit anal(har har) about germs, etc.)

As for with a guy, you have to add 2 more factors:

  1. I’m not gay
  2. I assume that most guys, like me, have a lot of hair down there (and not the small, soft, invisible kind that girls have)

So it’s really a no brainer. An as Loopydude mentioned, there’s a…, actually 2, far better alternatives.

Incidentally, when I was fairly young (old enough to know what sex was, but before I had had it) I recall reading somewhere (I think that it was actually in a Dear Abby column) a guy mentioning using anal sex as a means of birth control, and thinking “Good golly, there’s got to be better methods than that.”

Incidentally, I didn’t mind too much when my ex-girlfriend pushed a finger up there during 69, but she better wash her hands well later (again, I’m kind of anal about germs.)

20

Defnitely not. It’s not because you and your partner don’t enjoy anal sex that it’s any less enjoyable than regular sex for everybody. It just means that you aren’t in that. Personnally, I feel the same way you do in the sense that I’m not fond of anal sex, either. But I know more than one person who do practise and enjoy it, and some enjoy it more than regular sex. It’s not a desire coming out of ignorance. Besides, desire itself plays a major part in what we find pleasant, sexually speaking. You apparently weren’t interested at the first place, since you tried it only after having “exhausted” all the other possibilities you could think of. So, it’s no surprise that you discovered it wasn’t that great. Concerning sex, interests vary widely, and there’s no general rules ( X is more pleasurable than Y) one can make. It totally depends on the partners’ desires.