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for Sexual Health Promotion. In recent
years, anal sex is a topic that comes up
frequently in the class. Herbenick says
some of her female students are curious
and want to try it. But more often, it’s a
subject of distress. “Many of my female
students feel pressured to do it,” claims
Herbenick. “One student wrote, ‘I laugh
my way through anal sex so I don’t cry.’”
A culture of coercion surrounds
heterosexual anal sex, according to a
2014 study of British teenagers. “Even
in otherwise communicative and caring
partnerships, some men pushed to have
anal sex with their reluctant partner
despite believing it is likely to hurt her,”
the authors wrote. The “try it and see”
approach was popular. Couples labelled
what happened as “slips”, the authors
of the study theorised, “to gloss over
the possibility that the penetration was
deliberate and non-consensual.”
Make no mistake. We may be
talking about anal sex, but the guys
who pressure women into doing things
they don’t want to do, or who test the
waters by “accidentally” sticking a penis
where it doesn’t have permission to go,
are the true arseholes in this story.Remember the vagina?
When did the vagina stop being the holy
land? When I was growing up (I’m 39),
the vagina was treasure to be guarded,
saved, used for special occasions with
special people. At my high school, we
were forced to take a class on safe sex
mandated by the Board of Education.
The 1000-year-old woman who taught
the class when she wasn’t overseeing the
school’s attendance made sure to pause
the mandatory sex videos to remind us
nice girls don’t have sex before marriage
and to stop writing down words like
condoms, as we won’t be needing them.
That may be a clue as to why we’re
suddenly anal-crazy. Many people are
being raised to prize their virginity till
marriage. But with women marrying
later, if at all, it can be a long road to
happily-ever-after these days, and you
gotta do something, so...
“Anal was my ‘everything but,’”
a religious friend of mine confided.
It’s not merely religious concerns
at play – there’s also a misguided sense
that anal sex is safer than vaginal sex.a
“As I opened my eyes and looked around,
I saw this was no longer a fringe topic.
Had I missed the anal revolution?”More than one interviewee in the British
study believed it was impossible to get
an STI from anal. Condom use was rare.
While the risk of pregnancy isn’t
a big worry, a lot of other things can go
wrong. “The rectal epithelial tissue is
thinner, especially in comparison with
vaginal tissue,” says Kimberly McBride,
assistant professor of public health at
the University of Toledo. “If you’re not
being careful about how you perform,
and especially if you don’t use lube, there
could be local trauma.” Those are the
fissures Naomi Wolf was talking about.Fissures also create an entry for
STIs. “We see research that suggests
HPV transmissions,” says McBride, “and
HPV is linked to anal cancers.” Not to
mention any other STI that just needs
a small slice of open skin to enter: HIV,
gonorrhoea, herpes, hepatitis.
You can prevent some tearing with
lube, but really, use a condom. You don’t
want the bacteria in your anus getting
into your vagina.
The good news is that not all the
rumours are true: rectal incontinence is
not an issue. According to McBride,