The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex (50 page)

Vaginal intercourse, side by side

My partner is quite fond of the spoon position, and I love it because it gives him access to my neck. I have a bit of a neck fetish and love him to bite my neck while we do it. He likes this position because he can thrust hard and deep like with doggie-style, but he doesn’t ram my cervix quite as much.

Once I did something fabulous when we were in the spoons position. I bent over so that I was perpendicular to his body. It was very easy to move and set rhythm freely, and penetration was at a very nice angle.

Sitting:
The sitting positions create a relaxed and intimate mood. They allow for lots of full-body contact without intense genital stimulation. Like side-by-side positions, they’re good for older people or those with disabilities that limit stamina or mobility.

I love vaginal or anal from behind, usually while lying on my side. This is useful for times when my hips and legs are painful from the fibromyalgia. I love face to face as well, though I can’t be on top for long because my arms don’t always hold me up very well. Sitting usually works better for face to face if I’m going to be on top, as it’s less stressful on my joints.

You can sit intertwined on a bed or you can sit on a chair, with your partner straddling you. Intercourse on a chair can be a particularly good position for couples with a wide discrepancy in size, pregnant women, or any women who want to control the depth of penetration.

Definitely my favorite position is with my partner sitting “Indian style” with my legs around his waist and our arms wrapped around one another. This not only gives the richest penetration, but it also allows us to touch and have our hands free to roam one another’s body. It is a good intimate, as opposed to sexual, position.

My current favorite is a variation of the woman-on-top position—screwing on a chair. The chair position is great, because it’s restful, allows full stomach-to-stomach contact, and gives the man the chance to caress the woman’s neck, back, shoulder blades, ass, and anus—hmm, delightful!

Standing:
Couples who happen to be the same body-type may enjoy intercourse standing up. While standing up is not the most common position for intercourse, you may enjoy variations of this position in which your partner is sitting on a counter, tabletop, or airplane bathroom sink while you stand facing her. Standing positions lend themselves to the fantasy that both of you are so swept away by passion that you have to grab each other no matter where you are—which gives them an undeniable and widespread appeal.

I love to sit on the bathroom counter with my feet up on the counter while my lover moves right up to my pussy. We can watch ourselves in the mirror.

Anal Penetration

There are just as many physiological reasons for both men and women to enjoy anal penetration as there are for women to enjoy vaginal penetration. The anus is rich in nerve endings and participates with our genitals in the engorgement, muscular tension, and contractions of sexual arousal and orgasm. Pressure and fullness in the rectum feels pleasurable to some men and women, just as vaginal fullness feels pleasurable to some women. Anal penetration can stimulate both the perineal area and G-spot in women and the bulb of the penis and prostate gland in men. Many of us find anal stimulation intensely pleasurable.

I enjoy both vaginal and anal penetration. I think my anus is more sensitive than my vagina, and I don’t admit this to a lot of people.

You may already have discovered that anal stimulation greatly enhances and intensifies masturbation, oral sex, or intercourse. After all, it’s hard to miss that power-packed little bud of erogenous sensitivity located only inches from your genitals. Anal stimulation is an integral part of many folks’ sex lives. Some individuals with disabilities that numb sensation in their genitals retain the capacity for pleasurable sensation in the anus. Women who have grown to be uninterested in vaginal penetration, perhaps after childbirth or with the onset of menopause, may prefer exploring anal penetration. Anal penetration offers men the experience of being physically entered, while countless men and women alike describe anal penetration as being a uniquely relaxing and meditative experience.

Despite these physical truths, those of us who enjoy anal play are understandably reluctant to stand up and be counted. From the time we’re old enough to start toilet-training, we’re taught that the anus is the dirtiest part of our bodies and that it needs to be brought under strict control. The same orifice that was a source of innocent pleasure during infancy becomes a source of shame and confusion in childhood. Many of us learn to hold a lot of tension in our anus, and the resulting health problems such as constipation or hemorrhoids convince us that the anus is, at best, a neutral area and, at worst, a painful one. It’s no wonder that many adults are unable to conceive of the anus as an erogenous zone.

As for anal penetration, I’ve never tried it because it seems kind of awful. Doesn’t appeal to me personally though people I know enjoy it.

Although our focus here is on encouraging you to get to know and love your anus, we should note that feelings of shame and transgression can be highly erotic, and that some people doubtless enjoy anal play in part because they feel they’re messing around where they shouldn’t. If the anal taboo is preventing you from taking pleasure in this sensitive and stimulating portion of your anatomy, we hope the information in these pages will help you overcome your negative associations. But if the anal taboo is enhancing your pleasure, let us be the first to assure you that anal play is naughty, kinky, and downright nasty.

Recent years have seen a slight lifting of the anal taboo: Anyone in the adult entertainment business can testify to a surge of interest in anal pleasure. On the one hand, the AIDS epidemic has spawned general confusion around the relative risk of anal play—popular perception has conflated anal sex and disease-transmission to such an extent that many people incorrectly believe that HIV can be transmitted via anal intercourse even if neither partner is infected with the virus. On the other hand, the mere fact that anal intercourse is now routinely referred to in newspaper articles, public health brochures, and schoolrooms across the nation has brought anal stimulation out of the closet. Once something is normalized as a topic for discussion, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to normalizing it as an activity.

Inhibitors

FEAR OF FECES: Probably the most common factor that inhibits folks from experimenting with anal play is the fear of encountering feces. To address this appropriately, let’s review a little anatomy. The anal canal is less than an inch long and leads into the rectum, which is anywhere from five to nine inches long. The rectum leads, in turn, to the colon, which is where feces accumulate until you’re ready to defecate. The rectum is only a passageway, not a storage place, so it’s unlikely you’ll come across more than a few traces of feces in the course of your explorations. The fact that the rectum’s sexual status suffers due to its participation in the digestive process is somewhat arbitrary. After all, the digestive process starts with your mouth, and nobody considers kissing a disgusting activity.

Still skittish? You might want to take a bath together before indulging in anal play, or, better yet, you could pop on a latex glove or condom before making your first foray. Some people feel more confident if they rinse their rectum out with water, using a turkey-baster syringe or an enema. Unless you’re preparing for some deep penetration or anal fisting, we wouldn’t encourage the use of enemas. Enemas take time and finesse—you have to monitor the temperature of the water you’re using, the water pressure, and the height of the enema bag. A simple dip in the tub is sufficient preparation for most anal activities.

FEAR OF DISEASE: The second primary inhibitor to anal experimentation is the fear of disease transmission. Anal sex is so linked in the popular imagination with gay male sex, and gay male sex has unfortunately become so linked with HIV transmission, that many people assume that anal sex in and of itself will cause disease. Neither of these associations is particularly logical. Plenty of gay men never engage in anal intercourse, and plenty of heterosexuals and lesbians
do
. Specific activities don’t transmit disease; viruses transmit disease. Unprotected anal intercourse, like unprotected vaginal intercourse, is simply one way in which someone infected with an STD can conceivably transmit it to his partner.

The lining of the rectum is considerably more delicate and richer in blood vessels than the walls of the vagina, so it’s easy to scratch or tear the tissue of the rectum, and easy for bodily fluids to pass from the rectum into your bloodstream. You should never insert anything into your anus that does not have a completely smooth surface, and you should never engage in unprotected penis-anus intercourse without putting a condom on the penis, unless you and your partner have both tested negative for STDs. To prevent possible bacterial infections, never switch your attentions from a woman’s anus to her vagina without stopping to wash your hands, change your glove, or change your condom.

Forget my behind; that’s not a turn-on for me. All I can think of if someone messes with it is, “Quick! Scrub up with soap so you don’t give me an infection!”

Anal intercourse, missionary position

HOMOPHOBIA: Anal sex is inextricably linked in many people’s minds with gay male sex.

I have occasional anxiety about the homosexual act of anal play, but I like the forbidden nature.

I’ve discovered that I really enjoy anal penetration, but I’m afraid my wife thinks I’m going gay.

This is just one more manifestation of the tyranny of the notion that intercourse is the main event of any sexual encounter. If by definition sex presumes sticking a penis into a vagina, then gays and lesbians are presumed to simulate this one “true” sex act by engaging in anal intercourse or by strapping on dildos to penetrate each other. In fact, sexual orientation is not defined by how you fuck, but who you fuck. There are gay men who never engage in anal intercourse, lesbians who’ve never seen a dildo, and heterosexual couples who love anal sex. The fact that the taboo against anal sex is partially motivated by homophobia is one more example of how homophobia restricts not only the freedom of gay people, but ultimately the freedom of all sexual people.

Anal Do’s

DO RELAX: The anus is ringed by two sphincter muscles, one right on top of the other. The external sphincter is the one you voluntarily control when you allow yourself to defecate. The internal sphincter is involuntary. This muscle will tighten up reflexively if you try to force your way into your anus, resulting in the excruciatingly sharp pain familiar to anyone who has rushed anal penetration. With practice and patience, it’s possible to gain some control over this internal sphincter, but it will always serve as the guardian of the gateway, tensing up if you try to insert too much too soon.

Before you try to incorporate anal play into sex with a partner, set aside some time to do some anal exploration yourself. Lubricate both your finger and your anus, and position your finger at the anal opening. Concentrate on your breathing: Inhale and tighten your pelvic muscles, exhale and release those muscles. As you exhale, try bearing down slightly with your muscles, and sweep the tip of your finger into your anus. Leave your finger in place while you continue to inhale and exhale. You should be able to feel your two sphincter muscles contracting and releasing around your fingertip. If you’re comfortable with the way your fingertip feels, you may want to insert your finger all the way into your rectum. Try moving your finger in and out or in a circular movement. You’ll probably find it pleasant to angle your finger toward the front of your body: toward the perineal sponge and G-spot in women and toward the bulb of the penis and prostate in men. Maintain a relaxed pace. If anything hurts or causes your muscles to tense up, stop moving or stop what you’re doing altogether. The point is to enjoy yourself and to learn about what feels good.