Tristan Taormino: The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women

Yes, I admit it—I love anal sex. The first time someone put a finger in my butt, I almost went crazy from the pleasure. The sensations I experienced were so intense, incredible, and heavenly that it was mind-blowing. I felt high from the experience, and I couldn’t wait to do it again. The first time I put my finger in someone else’s butt, the results were just as fabulous—I felt entrusted with my partner’s deepest vulnerabilities, in awe of the ecstatic pleasure I could give. Then came more fingers, tongues, vibrators, small dildos, bigger dildos, butt plugs, a penis, bigger butt plugs, even an entire small hand.

Each time I could take a little more and give a little more, I felt more sexually alive and powerful. As I incorporated anal eroticism into my sex life, my sex life became better and better.

The sex got hotter, my partners extra adventurous, my orgasms fierce and explosive. The physical sensations were undeniably some of the best I’d ever felt in my life. I confess too that beyond the deep body gratification, the naughtiness of it all really turned me on. Even my most kinky, sexually liberated friends weren’t doing this—or if they were, they never talked about it (and I knew the intimate details of everything else they were doing in bed). Only sexually voracious gay men fucked each other’s asses with abandon the way I was. Neither my partners nor I identified as gay men, so what did we think we were doing?

Growing up in this culture, it is nearly impossible to escape the taboo of anal sexuality and all the myths surrounding it. From an early age, we are taught that our assholes are private, dirty, and shouldn’t be touched in a sexual way. Whether we learn about the birds and the bees from popular books or in sex education class, the anus is rarely mentioned, unless to say it’s behind our genitals. As I grew up, I heard “fag jokes” about men who “do each other in the butt”; these men were derided for their practice of anal sex. If we do hear about people other than gay men having sex, they are usually labeled “kinky” or “perverted,” and the sex is clearly considered abnormal. When anal sex is acknowledged as an erotic preference in sex research and popular advice columns, it is portrayed as a fantasy of straight men whose women partners endure pain in order to please. There are rarely representations of women who enjoy anal sex with either men or women. Most recently, anal sex has been linked to the AIDS virus and represented as dangerous and even deadly.

I became sexually active in the eighties, just at the beginning of the AIDS crisis; by the time I became more sexually literate and experienced and discovered the pleasures of anal sex, AIDS had become epidemic. Because gay men were becoming infected in alarming numbers, they became designated the high-risk group. According to the majority of safer sex guidelines at the time, anal sex was how you got AIDS. And I was having anal sex. It’s scary when major medical institutions tell you that one of your favorite things to do in the world is no longer just naughty, but actually life-threatening.

The progress made in the sexually liberated 1970s and the decadent 1980s, which contributed to a wider acceptance of many sexual practices previously considered taboo (including anal sex), was squelched by AIDS phobia in the 1990s. For example, in the first edition of the very popular The Joy of Sex , published in 1972, Dr. Alex Comfort writes:

This [anal intercourse] is something which nearly every couple tries once. A few stay with it usually because the woman finds that it gives her intenser feelings than the normal route and is pleasurably tight for the man. [1] 1. Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), 126.

However, in The New Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking for the Nineties, Comfort describes the rectum as “a canal primarily engineered for other purposes.” He dismisses the practice of anal sex because of the risks associated with HIV infection: “In the light of present knowledge, this is best avoided altogether.” [2] 2. Alex Comfort, The New Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking for the Nineties (New York: Crown Publishers, 1991), 244.

When the fear of AIDS first became widespread, much of the so-called safer sex guidelines were rife with misinformation.

The same institutions releasing propaganda about safer sex claimed that heterosexuals and lesbians weren’t at risk. Then heterosexuals and lesbians started getting sick. Members of the gay community and AIDS activists realized that the key to saving lives was having correct information and making it widely available. The problem is that myths and misinformation about anal sex are rampant in our society, while accurate statistics, facts, personal experiential accounts, and healthy, positive representations are nearly impossible to find.

Soon, activists realized that they had to start producing their own information.

Of the little that has been written about anal eroticism, much has been by and for men who have anal sex with other men. In fact, in spite of the cultural taboo and largely because of AIDS, many members of the gay community have openly acknowledged that gay men have anal sex. In general, gay men seem to embrace anal sexuality and discuss it more honestly than others. In the wake of the AIDS epidemic and its devastating effects on the gay male community, exploration of the practice and risks of anal sex has become a way to save lives. Yet, because discussions, informative workshops, and literature tend to be community-based, people outside the community don’t always have access to them.

This book is written primarily for women who want to learn more about anal sex and health and to explore insertive and receptive anal pleasure with women, men, and transgender people. My work focuses on the particular psychological, emotional, physical, and health-related issues that women face.

Although the book concentrates on the experiences of women, many of the guidelines and generalizations about anal sex apply to everyone, regardless of gender.

It is surprising to me that only one book exists that is devoted solely to anal eroticism: Anal Pleasure and Health by Jack Morin. While it is an incredibly groundbreaking, informative, and insightful work, it seems odd that it is the only one in a field populated by so much selection and variety. 1 recently decided to investigate just what sex books are being sold in America’s bookstores. As my test site, I chose a well-known national chain bookstore in a fairly conservative neighborhood of Manhattan.

As I perused the shelves of the “Sexuality” section, I found an extensive selection. The majority of the books were devoted to improving the sexual awareness and the sex lives of readers—they discussed how to have hot sex, better sex, orgasmic sex, more sex, and safer sex. There were books by sex therapists, sexologists, sex researchers, sex workers, sex advisors, and other sexuality specialists. There were even a half-dozen titles dedicated to fairly alternative sexual practices, such as sadomasochism (S/M), dominance and submission, pain and pleasure, and bondage and discipline. Obviously, there is a significant market for sex books. This is due in part to our society’s obsession with sex and sexuality, but it also reflects the importance of sex in our lives. People are hungry for information, ideas, and advice on all aspects of sexuality.