Bottoms up
The butt is the new vortex of sexual bliss, and you need to get behind it.
By Ananya Shekhar February 12th, 2015We all remember our first time. Mine was a quick deflowering, on a narrow, creaky bed in the middle of a sweaty afternoon, curtains pulled shut, cries bitten back in the terror of being caught with our pants down, which admittedly created a heat and urgency that is simply missing from the modern-day luxuries of single living and old, deaf neighbours. It was also absolute agony (‘Stop stop oh god it hurts IT HURTS’), ended a few miles short of climax, and was followed quickly by a UTI that made me feel about as sexy as a rusty razor, which is also what it felt like to pee.
My second ‘first time’, however, was far less painful thanks to copious preparations and fierce arousal, gave me one of the strongest orgasms I had ever experienced, and introduced me to what I had always suspected: dirtier is better. Yes, friends and strangers, I am talking about driving the Hershey Highway. Plowing the back field. Cleaning the chocolate chimney. Cornholing. A good ol’ bit of buggery.
All right, now. There’s no need to panic. Anal sex is no longer the elephant in the room. The elephant is now sitting on your couch, sipping a cup of tea and asking for a biscuit. If you think that’s adorable, do consider that Dumbo will be shoving his cute little trunk up your arse once he’s done with his Earl Grey (sorry to ruin elephants for you). Because ready or not, the erotic obsession of the moment is going to have you biting the pillow.
We live, after all, in a time that is all about that base. J-Lo’s once-insured million-dollar behind has nothing on Queen Bey’s twerking, tighty-whitey-clad booty, which in turn pales in comparison to Nicki Minaj’s so-abundant, jiggling-in-slow-motion, supposedly-post-feminist ass. And then Kim Kardashian comes along to break the internet with what can only be described as a memorable cover for Paper magazine, with a moneymaker that seems to follow you wherever you go, sort of like a modern-day Mona Lisa. Miranda may have bemoaned anilingus in Sex And The City all those years ago, but the new season of Girls features the now-infamous scene of Marnie leaning over a sink while her bloke indulges in a bit of “ass-motorboating”, as they put it. And spanking has gotten so vanilla that even the awkward, easily embarrassed girl in Admin will admit to some light smacking in bed before lovemaking and a cuddle. You can thank Fifty Shades.
Not that there’s anything new about ‘going to brown town’. All the good girls protecting their virginity over the millennia have known that the way to keep your hymen immaculate, and prevent conception with nature’s finest contraceptive, is to offer up your backdoor to the happy fella. It’s been a birthday/anniversary/India-won-the-World-Cup treat for many a flagging marriage. It has been the doable taboo, which still feels dirty — both the Catholic church and Section 377 deem it ‘unnatural’, making it either immoral or illegal, depending on where you’re kneeling — but not as dirty as, say, getting down with Vikas Uncle at the family Diwali party.
A lot of Indian men tend to focus on the bosom — don’t ask me to qualify that, it is an anecdotal inference purely from personal experience, which I put down to a nation-wide Oedipal legacy — so when my then-boyfriend confessed to being an ass-man, and brushed a questioning finger, and then an insistent tongue, across my ‘chocolate starfish’, I felt a kind of unparalleled joy. Once I got over the fear of farting in his face, that is. It was exciting, and filthy, and I wanted more. Armed with equal amounts of KY jelly and blind trust, I arched my back, unclenched my buttocks and allowed myself to be violated. And it was life-changing.
When talking about what it feels like to take it up the ass, a friend made a crude and obvious, but accurate, observation. It’s like doing a poo. That deeply fulfilling, near-euphoric feeling of going number two. We’ve all felt it. We’ve all enjoyed it. And we want it in the bedroom, minus the mess. This is perhaps the biggest change of all: women are choosing anal not to satisfy male fantasy, but because it feels amazing, incredibly intense. That knot of nerve endings back there is made for more than just biological function. In fact, a study by The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that of women who had vaginal sex, 65 per cent reached climax. For oral sex, this climbed to 81 per cent. And of those who had anal sex, a massive 94 per cent climaxed. That’s an A+, people. That’s the kind of grade that gets anal into Harvard.
Still squeamish? Start small. Maybe have a shower together and make sure both of you smell like The Body Shop down there (a splash of Listerine helps too, minty fresh!) Remember: A clean bum doesn’t really taste or smell of anything, the only flavour is the tart tang of forbidden fruit. You don’t have to clean out all the pipes either, unless you love a good enema, in which case who could blame you? But really, a fibre-rich diet is all you need for sparkling insides (Isabgol is good in a pinch) and an anal douche for some shallow rinsing is perfect for the pernickety. To prepare for penetration, or just play, nothing beats a lubed-up finger or two, while anal beads or a small butt plug are great when you want to go hands-free. Be patient and relax into it, and stop thinking about poo; your body is not as disgusting as you imagine it is. Do use a condom to keep things safe and extra-hygienic, and to stop the peen from exploding with joy the minute it enters you.
If you like receiving oral (who doesn’t?), extend it to rimming — it’s right next door! The sensation is exquisite, you’ll feel it in your belly button and then all over your body. If you like giving oral (who doesn’t?), and don’t mind teabagging, offer him the same — it’s right next door! The ass has gone from being a homosexual bastion to acceptable hetero territory, you see. Ever since realising that poking a little finger in the tail pipe just before he comes makes his orgasm twice as intense, and after much reassuring that this does not make him gay, man has opened up to the idea, as it were. Assplay for him is now a thing. Not that you’ll see Christian Grey doing it just yet.
Indeed, as you watch the most hotly anticipated movie of the year, out this month, and wonder how a mediocre but admittedly effective piece of erotica got made into a film with less chemistry than peanut butter and jam, remember this: There is one scene that will be quite noticeably missing from the film, the scandalous yanking-out-the-tampon-before-period-sex move (as Anastasia no doubt put it, “Oh My!”). Perhaps that’s the next big scandal in sex; we will only know when it gets thrown into an HBO show and we find ourselves doing a how-to series. Meanwhile, why not engage in a bit of “kinky fuckery”?
Mr Brown will see you now.
Photograph: Liz Collins / Trunk Archive
We all remember our first time. Mine was a quick deflowering, on a narrow, creaky bed in the middle of a sweaty afternoon, curtains pulled shut, cries bitten back in the terror of being caught with our pants down, which admittedly created a heat and urgency that is simply missing from the modern-day luxuries of single living and old, deaf neighbours. It was also absolute agony (‘Stop stop oh god it hurts IT HURTS’), ended a few miles short of climax, and was followed quickly by a UTI that made me feel about as sexy as a rusty razor, which is also what it felt like to pee.
My second ‘first time’, however, was far less painful thanks to copious preparations and fierce arousal, gave me one of the strongest orgasms I had ever experienced, and introduced me to what I had always suspected: dirtier is better. Yes, friends and strangers, I am talking about driving the Hershey Highway. Plowing the back field. Cleaning the chocolate chimney. Cornholing. A good ol’ bit of buggery.
All right, now. There’s no need to panic. Anal sex is no longer the elephant in the room. The elephant is now sitting on your couch, sipping a cup of tea and asking for a biscuit. If you think that’s adorable, do consider that Dumbo will be shoving his cute little trunk up your arse once he’s done with his Earl Grey (sorry to ruin elephants for you). Because ready or not, the erotic obsession of the moment is going to have you biting the pillow.
We live, after all, in a time that is all about that base. J-Lo’s once-insured million-dollar behind has nothing on Queen Bey’s twerking, tighty-whitey-clad booty, which in turn pales in comparison to Nicki Minaj’s so-abundant, jiggling-in-slow-motion, supposedly-post-feminist ass. And then Kim Kardashian comes along to break the internet with what can only be described as a memorable cover for Paper magazine, with a moneymaker that seems to follow you wherever you go, sort of like a modern-day Mona Lisa. Miranda may have bemoaned anilingus in Sex And The City all those years ago, but the new season of Girls features the now-infamous scene of Marnie leaning over a sink while her bloke indulges in a bit of “ass-motorboating”, as they put it. And spanking has gotten so vanilla that even the awkward, easily embarrassed girl in Admin will admit to some light smacking in bed before lovemaking and a cuddle. You can thank Fifty Shades.
Not that there’s anything new about ‘going to brown town’. All the good girls protecting their virginity over the millennia have known that the way to keep your hymen immaculate, and prevent conception with nature’s finest contraceptive, is to offer up your backdoor to the happy fella. It’s been a birthday/anniversary/India-won-the-World-Cup treat for many a flagging marriage. It has been the doable taboo, which still feels dirty — both the Catholic church and Section 377 deem it ‘unnatural’, making it either immoral or illegal, depending on where you’re kneeling — but not as dirty as, say, getting down with Vikas Uncle at the family Diwali party.
A lot of Indian men tend to focus on the bosom — don’t ask me to qualify that, it is an anecdotal inference purely from personal experience, which I put down to a nation-wide Oedipal legacy — so when my then-boyfriend confessed to being an ass-man, and brushed a questioning finger, and then an insistent tongue, across my ‘chocolate starfish’, I felt a kind of unparalleled joy. Once I got over the fear of farting in his face, that is. It was exciting, and filthy, and I wanted more. Armed with equal amounts of KY jelly and blind trust, I arched my back, unclenched my buttocks and allowed myself to be violated. And it was life-changing.
When talking about what it feels like to take it up the ass, a friend made a crude and obvious, but accurate, observation. It’s like doing a poo. That deeply fulfilling, near-euphoric feeling of going number two. We’ve all felt it. We’ve all enjoyed it. And we want it in the bedroom, minus the mess. This is perhaps the biggest change of all: women are choosing anal not to satisfy male fantasy, but because it feels amazing, incredibly intense. That knot of nerve endings back there is made for more than just biological function. In fact, a study by The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that of women who had vaginal sex, 65 per cent reached climax. For oral sex, this climbed to 81 per cent. And of those who had anal sex, a massive 94 per cent climaxed. That’s an A+, people. That’s the kind of grade that gets anal into Harvard.
Still squeamish? Start small. Maybe have a shower together and make sure both of you smell like The Body Shop down there (a splash of Listerine helps too, minty fresh!) Remember: A clean bum doesn’t really taste or smell of anything, the only flavour is the tart tang of forbidden fruit. You don’t have to clean out all the pipes either, unless you love a good enema, in which case who could blame you? But really, a fibre-rich diet is all you need for sparkling insides (Isabgol is good in a pinch) and an anal douche for some shallow rinsing is perfect for the pernickety. To prepare for penetration, or just play, nothing beats a lubed-up finger or two, while anal beads or a small butt plug are great when you want to go hands-free. Be patient and relax into it, and stop thinking about poo; your body is not as disgusting as you imagine it is. Do use a condom to keep things safe and extra-hygienic, and to stop the peen from exploding with joy the minute it enters you.
If you like receiving oral (who doesn’t?), extend it to rimming — it’s right next door! The sensation is exquisite, you’ll feel it in your belly button and then all over your body. If you like giving oral (who doesn’t?), and don’t mind teabagging, offer him the same — it’s right next door! The ass has gone from being a homosexual bastion to acceptable hetero territory, you see. Ever since realising that poking a little finger in the tail pipe just before he comes makes his orgasm twice as intense, and after much reassuring that this does not make him gay, man has opened up to the idea, as it were. Assplay for him is now a thing. Not that you’ll see Christian Grey doing it just yet.
Indeed, as you watch the most hotly anticipated movie of the year, out this month, and wonder how a mediocre but admittedly effective piece of erotica got made into a film with less chemistry than peanut butter and jam, remember this: There is one scene that will be quite noticeably missing from the film, the scandalous yanking-out-the-tampon-before-period-sex move (as Anastasia no doubt put it, “Oh My!”). Perhaps that’s the next big scandal in sex; we will only know when it gets thrown into an HBO show and we find ourselves doing a how-to series. Meanwhile, why not engage in a bit of “kinky fuckery”?
Mr Brown will see you now.
Photograph: Liz Collins / Trunk Archive