Everything You Need To Know About First-Time Anal Sex
By Ashley Ross
Anal sex can be one of three things: terrifying, terrible, or terrific. Maybe you’ve heard horror stories (thanks, Tucker Max) and you’re not even remotely interested in letting something, let alone someone, go up there. Perhaps you’re tempted, but you don’t know where to begin. There are reassuring, pleasurable ways to go about anal sex, though, and it can be glorious if you know what you’re doing — and so preparation is key.
“It’s not as easy as it looks in porn,” sex psychologist David Ley, PhD tells Refinery29. “If you try to do it the way most porn does, it will be like learning to shoot from watching Steven Seagal movies: Somebody will get hurt.”
Step away from the porn, and set aside your worries and fears about the back door. All you need is this step-by-step guide to having comfortable, communicative, and mutually satisfying anal sex, which we’ll be updating regularly. Click through, then go forth without fear — and have fun!
Talk it out
Anal has long been tainted with stigma and fears — that it’ll hurt, that something will go wrong, that you’ll poop in the middle of it. But the shame surrounding anal sex “assumes that anal sex is unhealthy and should be rare,” Ley says. “That’s a morally-based assumption, not a scientific or medical one.” The best way to bring up the idea of anal sex to your partner is when neither you nor your partner is aroused. This way, you can talk about it without feeling pressure to do things too soon or in a way that feels rushed.
Figure out your comfort zone
With new sexual territory, boundaries are key. “It can be helpful for both partners to be aware of each other’s’ ‘dos and don’ts’ and anything in between,” says Kyla Black, a sex therapist and clinical social worker.
Ley suggests broaching the subject by discussing anal play as part of your sex life. “Discuss including anal stimulation in a variety of ways, with fingers, toys and tongues,” he says. “This is how a couple can introduce the anus as an area of pleasure and sensation, without jumping too quickly to the theoretical finish line of penis-in-anus sex.”
Get in the right mindset
In order to keep things comfortable, you’ve got to continue the conversation. Ley says that couples should be aware of each other’s fears around any new sexual behaviour, especially one that’s often associated with pain. He suggests broadening the conversation so you and your partner can avoid anything that could hinder the pleasure of anal.
“When [people] believe their first experience with sexual intercourse will be painful, it often is. When they don’t believe that, it isn’t,” Ley says. “The difference is the expectation, and the psychophysiological connections with that expectation. If you think anal sex is going to hurt, you prepare for that, tighten up in fear, and it does. If you prepare to enjoy it, negotiate it, prepare your body for it, and discuss ways to manage the experience, then discomfort is absent or greatly lessened.”
Plan your foreplay
Whether anal sex is new for you or not, every partner will be aroused differently and will have different levels of experience. “This may be an easier conversation than you expect, but a lot depends upon sexual characteristics of the couple,” Ley says. “If you’re a couple that has limited sexual experience and only ever has sex in missionary position with the lights off, then it’s going to be a much more challenging conversation.”
Bogdonoff says that anal, like all sex, is part psychological and part physical. “The anus will naturally relax, making insertion easier, when you’re relaxed and aroused,” he says. Talking to your partner about how you want to warm things up for both of you will help you both relax.
Practice safe sex
Some research has suggested that giving unprotected anal intercourse with a penis can increase the risk of a prostate infection from bacteria getting into the urethra, Glickman says. And of course, unprotected anal intercourse is much riskier for STIs because of how delicate the rectum is. The FDA states that condoms are more likely to break during anal intercourse than vaginal “because of the greater amount of friction” — all the more reason to relax and prepare with foreplay and lube.
Originally published at https://www.refinery29.com.
