Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Top
Speaker 1: Works Nott. Come hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline. And as you might have judged
Speaker 1: from the title of this podcast, today, on this show
Speaker 1: we are going to be using straightforward language to describe sex,
Speaker 1: and specifically anal sex. So parents, if you're listening with kids,
Speaker 1: this is your heads up. Or people who just might
Speaker 1: be squeamish about references to behind, or people who just
Speaker 1: play our episodes full volume at their workplace. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: might be a headphones necessary episode to listen to. And
Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about taboo topics before on the podcast.
Speaker 1: We've talked about sex before on the podcast our bodies,
Speaker 1: our volva's vagiant and as clitteresses and also our butts,
Speaker 1: so it makes sense that we can talk about well,
Speaker 1: our butts again. You know, people have been requesting in
Speaker 1: anal sex episode for as long as I have been
Speaker 1: doing the podcast with you, Kristen, like I, I have
Speaker 1: been familiar with these requests for quite a while, and
Speaker 1: so here we are. Well in the years that stef
Speaker 1: Mob Never Told You has existed, Caroline, I've witnessed anal
Speaker 1: sex come more and more into mainstream conversations and even
Speaker 1: arrive on primetime TV shows. Yeah, I was actually really
Speaker 1: surprised to see uh, well not really surprised, but on
Speaker 1: Girls when Marnie gets some attention from her boyfriend, uh,
Speaker 1: not anal sex per se, but analingus. Yeah, the internet
Speaker 1: kind of exploded when that scene happened. There were lots
Speaker 1: of unnecessary think pieces about what does that mean? What
Speaker 1: does it? What does it mean? Well, there was even
Speaker 1: an episode of The Mindy Project. I think the episode
Speaker 1: is titled It Slipped that was pretty much all about
Speaker 1: anal sex, at least as the subtext. And in the
Speaker 1: words of one of my favorite lady comedians, a lot
Speaker 1: of Glazer a broad City. It's on the menu now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems to be. It seems like people are getting
Speaker 1: used to the idea that it not only uh can
Speaker 1: feel good, but it's okay for anybody to try. Well,
Speaker 1: And the thing is, it's been happening, especially if we
Speaker 1: consider women having anal sex, which is what we will
Speaker 1: focus this episode on. It's not just about anal sex generally,
Speaker 1: but more specifically women doing it because this is stuff
Speaker 1: Mom never told you, and obviously women have been having
Speaker 1: and enjoying and not enjoying anal sex since forever, but
Speaker 1: it's only been in really the last decade that it's
Speaker 1: been okay to even talk about and even experiment with
Speaker 1: ye to the point where was it a salon piece
Speaker 1: we read where the writer was discussing how it's becoming
Speaker 1: so mainstream to the point that it might actually sap
Speaker 1: the enjoyment out of it for some people who have
Speaker 1: been enjoying more so than just the act, but also
Speaker 1: the taboo factor. So so yeah, maybe maybe for those
Speaker 1: of you who really like the taboo. Sorry, sorry, we're
Speaker 1: ruining it. We're ruining we're making anal sex of vanilla
Speaker 1: as we speak. But the thing about it is there
Speaker 1: are issues that we do need to talk about and
Speaker 1: we will talk about around anal sex and consent and
Speaker 1: health issues and all these things, not to detract from
Speaker 1: people's enjoyment of it and desire to experiment with it
Speaker 1: or not experiment with it. It's up to you, um,
Speaker 1: but to help everyone get on the same page with it,
Speaker 1: because there there's so many how to guides now in
Speaker 1: mainstream magazines. Dan Savage on Savage love, love him or
Speaker 1: Loathe Him? Talks about it a lot. He gives lots
Speaker 1: of tips for first timers. Um, but there are still
Speaker 1: some nuances that are left out in a lot of
Speaker 1: those details. Um. But first up, let's move away from
Speaker 1: the tawdry and let's get down to some legitimate statistics,
Speaker 1: because really, the people who got everyone talking about anal
Speaker 1: sex more openly, it's not other than the Centers for
Speaker 1: Disease Control and Prevention here in Atlanta, Georgia, represents what
Speaker 1: up a p L. Feel free to invite us over
Speaker 1: any time CDC were available, but not in that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. It's been really interesting to see the C
Speaker 1: d C. Oh, that's so many c S statistics. Also
Speaker 1: see and C talking about the CDC here, C and
Speaker 1: C can see from the CDC statistics that more and
Speaker 1: more people are engaging in anal intercourse and it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of healthily jumped over the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: over the past like two decades actually so according to
Speaker 1: the CDC National Survey of Family Growth, and they were
Speaker 1: looking at men and women who were engaging in heterosexual
Speaker 1: anal sex. In particular, they found that just over thirty
Speaker 1: eight percent of men between the ages of twenty and
Speaker 1: thirty nine and about thirty two and a half percent
Speaker 1: of women ages eighteen to forty four have heterosexual anal sex,
Speaker 1: and those numbers came out in two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: Is so that would be looking at reports happening in
Speaker 1: the early odds um and that's a healthy jump from
Speaker 1: the survey which found of men and twenty percent of
Speaker 1: women were reporting having ever tried anal sex. And one
Speaker 1: notable thing about this data is that the uptick probably
Speaker 1: isn't a byproduct of hook up culture, because I feel
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of yearmongering around the rise in
Speaker 1: anal sex of like, oh, this is because these kids
Speaker 1: aren't getting married. They're going out and they're drinking too
Speaker 1: many wine coolers and then having anal sex. But that's
Speaker 1: probably not so much the case. Thank god, they don't
Speaker 1: make zema anymore. Also, who drinks wine coolers? Oh god?
Speaker 1: The first time I ever got drunk, it was a
Speaker 1: mix of smyrnoff, ice and rum and coke, all in wondering, No,
Speaker 1: not all in one drink, all in one night, though
Speaker 1: I was super ill, But it did not involve today's topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it turns out that according to these statistics. It's not
Speaker 1: part of, like christ And said, the hookup culture. It's
Speaker 1: actually least common among people who have never been married
Speaker 1: and aren't living together. It's most common among people who
Speaker 1: are in committed relationships and are living together. And that
Speaker 1: helps explain a lot of anecdotal reports that we ran
Speaker 1: across in our research for this episode about how for
Speaker 1: a lot of couples anal sex is actually a more
Speaker 1: intimate form of intercourse for them, and especially in the
Speaker 1: context of straight couples. But then the CDC got us
Speaker 1: talking about this again a few years later when there
Speaker 1: are two thousand eleven National Survey of Family Growth came
Speaker 1: out and found that even more anal sex was happening,
Speaker 1: at least reportedly, so not as huge of a jump,
Speaker 1: but still compared to two thousand six whereto of women
Speaker 1: between eighteen and forty four so they had ever had
Speaker 1: anal sex, that number went up to six percent, whereas
Speaker 1: for the men, forty four percent reported engaging it at
Speaker 1: some point. Well, so clearly people are getting more comfortable
Speaker 1: with it literally and figuratively, which is something that we
Speaker 1: will talk about as we go on through this episode.
Speaker 1: That it is that degree of comfort that is so important.
Speaker 1: And Chris and you were mentioning that these were time
Speaker 1: statistics that people who had ever engaged in anial sex.
Speaker 1: But it's also worth noting that in that CDC report,
Speaker 1: the percent of women A nine reporting having had anal
Speaker 1: sex in the past year alone had doubled to twenty since.
Speaker 1: And what I would guess has also doubled during that time, Caroline,
Speaker 1: or tripled or quadrupled is our cultural acceptance of it,
Speaker 1: at least among maybe the people under forty. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of uh moral panic around anal
Speaker 1: sex in particularly straight people engaging in it. But like
Speaker 1: we were talking about, I mean, it's it's so ubiquitous,
Speaker 1: almost part of the zeitguys, this one might say. And
Speaker 1: I think, piece it's so true. Our I mean, butts
Speaker 1: in general are so zeiteguys right now. We did a
Speaker 1: podcast a while back listeners in case you haven't heard it,
Speaker 1: called Fat Bottomed Girls, and it was all about our
Speaker 1: cultural fascinatnation right now and historically with women's behind. And
Speaker 1: I feel like this is kind of an extension of
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, well, I mean, judging by you know,
Speaker 1: we mentioned Marnie on Girls but like, judging by the
Speaker 1: pop cultural response, it's totally zeitgeiste. Yeah, if it's on girls,
Speaker 1: it is definitely zeitgeiste. But it was even in the
Speaker 1: premier episode of How To get Away with Murder, which
Speaker 1: I just started watching, and it was interesting. I was
Speaker 1: just listening to an interview with Shonda Rhymes on Fresh
Speaker 1: Air and Terry Gross was asking her about, uh, talking
Speaker 1: about sex on her shows How to get Away with Murder,
Speaker 1: Grace Anatomy and Scandal and um uh and how they
Speaker 1: have pushed the envelope in terms of depicting sex as well,
Speaker 1: and so so this is a clear example of that happening. Um.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's Nicki minaj is Anaconda rap
Speaker 1: song and video of what that includes her reference to
Speaker 1: a guy um pleasuring her named Romaine. So we'll let
Speaker 1: you fill in the blanks there dot dot dot um.
Speaker 1: And of course you do have like I feel like
Speaker 1: every other month, if you pick up a women's magazine
Speaker 1: or a dudes magazine, a men's health kind of thing,
Speaker 1: or g Q or Cosmo, there will be some feature
Speaker 1: on how to do it back there for the first time,
Speaker 1: or do it better, or how to you know, spice
Speaker 1: up your long term relationship with it. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just something that we're all talking about. And to
Speaker 1: the point to where a number of sex writers that
Speaker 1: we were reading liken it to the way oral sex
Speaker 1: was the new taboo thing that you just had to
Speaker 1: try when you and I Caroline were in high school. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: another thing that these writers are trying to figure out
Speaker 1: in all of these pieces about anal sex is why
Speaker 1: are so many more people doing it? We've seen the
Speaker 1: CDC statistics, so why is it taking off so much?
Speaker 1: And one big thing that a lot of people site
Speaker 1: is the pornification of sex or relationships or that hookup
Speaker 1: culture that you mentioned earlier. That part of the it's
Speaker 1: part of that moral panic stuff that you mentioned, Kristen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, And while anal sex is often depicted important
Speaker 1: to the point that they're at least anecdotally, are a
Speaker 1: number of straight guys who are like, WHOA, we don't
Speaker 1: really even want to see it all that much. Um,
Speaker 1: A lot of people consider that a knee jerk, short
Speaker 1: sighted answer, especially when it comes to the question of well,
Speaker 1: why would women want to do this? Because statistically guys
Speaker 1: are the ones and especially in heteronormative context, guys are
Speaker 1: the ones watching the porn. Women aren't watching it as much,
Speaker 1: so why would we need to be mimicking all of that?
Speaker 1: Um So, if we dig a little bit deeper, there
Speaker 1: are some layers to it, I think, such as a
Speaker 1: lessoning of homophobia that for so long preached the anal
Speaker 1: sex was only something that gay men would do, and
Speaker 1: that it was something dirty. And keep in mind people
Speaker 1: that it was only in two thousand three that the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court officially struck down anti sodomy laws in Lawrence Fee, Texas,
Speaker 1: even though a number of states still have anti sodomy
Speaker 1: laws on their books, and I mean just they're from
Speaker 1: for centuries and and things. In large part to many religions,
Speaker 1: the anus itself and anal sex has been depicted as
Speaker 1: un natural and something that is vile and dirty, and
Speaker 1: that since it's not procreative sex, that women shouldn't we
Speaker 1: should certainly not engage in it, you know. And and
Speaker 1: to that that topic of homophobia, though, we read a
Speaker 1: couple of interviews and anecdotal reports from guys who either
Speaker 1: were like, oh, well, yeah, it's just something I do
Speaker 1: with my partner. It's totally great, we both enjoy it.
Speaker 1: What ever, or there were also some quotes that we
Speaker 1: saw from guys who were like, well, it's fine if
Speaker 1: I'm the one doing it basically, so like I don't
Speaker 1: want to get to you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get to graphic with my language on sminty. But there
Speaker 1: are some attitudes still out there circulating under this sort
Speaker 1: of like homophobia. Umbrella almost were like, uh, it's not
Speaker 1: cool for for guys to be on the receiving end.
Speaker 1: That's just weird, right, because that is a more submissive position.
Speaker 1: Submissive but also related still in a lot of people's
Speaker 1: minds with gay sex. Yeah, and so I mean that's
Speaker 1: why I think it is totally valid for us to
Speaker 1: be talking about this on the podcast, not just because
Speaker 1: you know, we do talk about sex. I think it's
Speaker 1: important to talk about sex, but I I think that
Speaker 1: the rising acceptance of straight anal sex does say more
Speaker 1: than stay more than about just like our poor habits
Speaker 1: and things like that, because also we have to accept
Speaker 1: that people just have a natural desire for experimentation. Some
Speaker 1: people are just doing it because they want to do it,
Speaker 1: not because they feel some kind of pressure like oh
Speaker 1: now this is a new third base, and I have
Speaker 1: to do it. If I don't do it, then I'm
Speaker 1: not an adventurous woman. So you know, there's there's that
Speaker 1: whole thing and and just accepting that, oh well, some
Speaker 1: people do it because they enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not all about coercion and feeling like you're less fan
Speaker 1: if you don't. Although the whole coercion factors a huge
Speaker 1: deal and it's absolutely something that we should talk about
Speaker 1: and we should also mention too that sort of along
Speaker 1: the same lines as the coercion that can happen, especially
Speaker 1: if some one party is more interested in doing it
Speaker 1: than another. There's a whole birth control at aspect of like,
Speaker 1: oh well we need to do this because um you
Speaker 1: know that way you won't get pregnant, or the whole
Speaker 1: idea of it preserving your vaginal virginity. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: if there is a better argument. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: so so many arguments for good, solid, comprehensive sexual education
Speaker 1: in this country, but the idea, the weird ideas around
Speaker 1: preserving virginity but still wanting to be sexually active. But
Speaker 1: we're not going to call it sex because it's not
Speaker 1: the vagina. It's not a penis and a vagina, It's
Speaker 1: a penis and an anus. This is a huge outcry
Speaker 1: in my mind for the need for comprehensive sex ad because,
Speaker 1: as we will talk about, just because you have anal
Speaker 1: sex does not mean that you are protected from a
Speaker 1: pregnancy because mistakes happen and fluids can get other places,
Speaker 1: but also from diseases and sexually transmitted infections. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and and that was something too that was always
Speaker 1: concerning with the idea of oral sex being the third base.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that precedes the quote unquote real sex,
Speaker 1: which of course is incredibly head to normative and this
Speaker 1: gendered of you know, the real sex being a penis
Speaker 1: entering of vagina, where has like arguably these other acts
Speaker 1: of a specifically oral an anal are far more intimate
Speaker 1: in some ways than quote unquote real sex. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean people, and I see people in the mist general sense,
Speaker 1: like people tend to talk about anal sex and think
Speaker 1: about anal sex is this thing that's like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna do it because we're wild and maybe we're
Speaker 1: a little tipsy and I just met this person at
Speaker 1: a bar, when really, I mean, if you talk to
Speaker 1: people who are in relationships, and you look at statistics,
Speaker 1: Like we said earlier, this does tend to be an
Speaker 1: activity that's more between people who are committed to each other,
Speaker 1: whether that's opposite sex or same sex partners. But one
Speaker 1: thing that we do have to talk about is how
Speaker 1: the rate of anal sex becoming UM normalized has not
Speaker 1: has written faster than the rate of comprehensive sex education,
Speaker 1: and with that we do end up with a startling
Speaker 1: pattern of young people in particular engaging in anal sex
Speaker 1: in ways that are not pleasurable for any body. And
Speaker 1: a lot of this is while all of this actually
Speaker 1: is coming from study published in the British Medical Journal
Speaker 1: which focused on a relatively small group of straight kids
Speaker 1: between sixteen and eighteen years old who were having UM
Speaker 1: who had had anal sex at some point at least
Speaker 1: or multiple times. And it's a qualitative study rather than
Speaker 1: a quantitative study, so it really focuses in on their
Speaker 1: motivations and lots of interviews. UM. But what they found,
Speaker 1: even though um it's more qualitative than quantitative, are some
Speaker 1: pretty consistent patterns. Yeah. So they found that the first
Speaker 1: time that these people were experiencing anal sex was typically
Speaker 1: painful for the girls, and this indicates because a lot
Speaker 1: of people to just assume that anal sex will always
Speaker 1: end forever be painful when it doesn't have to be UM,
Speaker 1: but this indicates. This finding indicates that there wasn't adequate
Speaker 1: for play or preparation for it on either person's part,
Speaker 1: and this also tends to indicate basically a lackluster experience
Speaker 1: for the guys involved too. Yeah. A lot of them
Speaker 1: reported like, I mean, yeah, I didn't and it was
Speaker 1: it was okay, it wasn't as good as I thought
Speaker 1: it was gonna be. UM And there was only one
Speaker 1: girl that the researchers talked to who described any physical
Speaker 1: pleasure whatsoever associated with it. And then, even more disturbingly,
Speaker 1: or I don't know, I don't want to say that
Speaker 1: one is worse than the other. But condoms were rarely
Speaker 1: used in this case except as a fecal barrier, despite
Speaker 1: increased risks of SCI contraction via anal sex, because a
Speaker 1: lot of these UH teenagers did had no idea, UH
Speaker 1: that your risks of contracting s t I S is
Speaker 1: actually higher with anal sex. They thought that it was
Speaker 1: kind of the safest way they could have sex in
Speaker 1: regard to um health and also pregnancy. Caroline is doing
Speaker 1: her squinty eyes. Well, yeah, I'm doing my squinty eyes
Speaker 1: because I think this is horrifying and sad. Um. I
Speaker 1: am a huge proponent of comprehensive and radically in depth
Speaker 1: sex said because, as you and I have talked about before,
Speaker 1: and as anyone who agrees with me on the whole
Speaker 1: sex said thing knows, Uh, you're not going to prepare
Speaker 1: anyone for what people are going to be doing anyway
Speaker 1: if you don't teach them how to be safe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and also the need for her conversations about, yeah,
Speaker 1: the frank conversations that people are gonna want to do
Speaker 1: this and it can totally happen, um, but no no
Speaker 1: education about the lead up to it. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: there needs to be education about the lead up how
Speaker 1: to do any type of sex safely and responsibly and
Speaker 1: in a pain free way, both emotionally pain free and
Speaker 1: physically pain free. And also there needs to be the
Speaker 1: other layer of education that anal sex isn't like a
Speaker 1: chased substitute for vaginal sex, that it is still sex
Speaker 1: and it can still have the same repercussions that penis
Speaker 1: and vagina sex can have. Yeah, I mean, and reading
Speaker 1: all of these reports from these teenagers made me think
Speaker 1: so much about when I was in high school and
Speaker 1: when oral sex was essentially the anal sex of yesteryear,
Speaker 1: and I could find so much information even even way
Speaker 1: back in online and the Cosmo dot com archives about
Speaker 1: how to do it and what you should do it.
Speaker 1: But there was and and there were expectations obviously because
Speaker 1: this information existed, that this was something that as a
Speaker 1: highly hormonal teenager, that this was something that I would
Speaker 1: want to do and something that sexy women who were
Speaker 1: very attractive would be doing, But there was no information
Speaker 1: about like a, yeah, all of the trappings of it,
Speaker 1: the lead up to it, like oh, if you don't
Speaker 1: want to try it, you don't have to try it.
Speaker 1: Um And I feel like it's just the same thing
Speaker 1: all over again, just with anal sex this time. And
Speaker 1: when the researchers were talking to the boys about their
Speaker 1: motivation for wanting to try this, yes, the porn aspect
Speaker 1: came up, but that was very much linked to status,
Speaker 1: like they wanted to try it because it was almost
Speaker 1: like a checklist that they had of all of the
Speaker 1: various sex acts that they could do, that they could
Speaker 1: then tell their guys about, and that they could then
Speaker 1: be praised for, whereas, of course the opposite was true
Speaker 1: for girls. Yeah, and I mean this actually, this idea
Speaker 1: of using anal sex is a way to attain status
Speaker 1: among their guy friends reminded me. Actually in the might
Speaker 1: sound weird, but it reminded me of the episode we
Speaker 1: did about Guys and Cars, about how we talked about
Speaker 1: how men tend to define not all men hashtag A
Speaker 1: lot of men tend to define their masculinity in relation
Speaker 1: to other men, not define their masculinity in relation to women.
Speaker 1: So to me, it makes sense that if you are
Speaker 1: a teenage boy who is maybe getting his education and
Speaker 1: ideas about sex from porn, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: anal sex in porn um and you're trying to define
Speaker 1: and emphasize your masculinity, that anal sex would be, like
Speaker 1: you said, part of like this conquest checklist. Yeah. Whereas
Speaker 1: for girls, while a lot of them, I think all
Speaker 1: of them, Um, in this case, we're having anal sex
Speaker 1: within the context of dating relationships. They were still very
Speaker 1: nervous going into it because they knew that if other
Speaker 1: people found out that they had tried this with their
Speaker 1: due that they would be shamed for it. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: I mean it's just a sexual double standard. It's just
Speaker 1: you know, same old story. So there's an expectation on
Speaker 1: boys to do it, but the expectation on girls is
Speaker 1: to not do it or you're you're to be shamed,
Speaker 1: and so then it's like okay, well then well it's
Speaker 1: even more of a double bind than just an expectation
Speaker 1: to not do it. There's still an expectation to do
Speaker 1: it that if you don't want to do then you're
Speaker 1: apprud But then if you do do it and you're
Speaker 1: a bad girl, then you're a bad girl as long
Speaker 1: as well. Maybe if you do it and then a
Speaker 1: guy breaks up with you and you are single, then
Speaker 1: you're a bad girl. I think if you do it
Speaker 1: and you stay together with that person, then a girl friend, yes,
Speaker 1: But as soon as that ends, because hello, sixteen, then
Speaker 1: you are going to be the girl that all of
Speaker 1: your ex boyfriends dude friends knows did that. It's so hard.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to be a teenager. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: studied a lot. I mean it and it also thinking
Speaker 1: about like these guys talking to each other about it.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of my first high school boyfriend. Okay,
Speaker 1: who am I getting? Like my only high school boyfriend,
Speaker 1: um hashtag late bloomer telling me very soon into us
Speaker 1: dating in quotes, if you can consider like going to
Speaker 1: the Dollar movie like four times a week, dating about
Speaker 1: what his ex girlfriend would due to him, essentially like
Speaker 1: laying on his expectations of like she did this from me,
Speaker 1: and I just really enjoyed it. I was very inexperience
Speaker 1: at the time, and you know, there was there was
Speaker 1: no information or wherewithal to kind of bridge like where
Speaker 1: I was and like what he was saying, and like no,
Speaker 1: you know, thing in my head to be like, oh
Speaker 1: wait this, this is odd that this conversation is happening,
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's so common it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it happened to me too when I was younger and
Speaker 1: dating guys that would like do the same thing of like,
Speaker 1: oh well I dated this girl, and so when I
Speaker 1: really could have used this is like obviously going off
Speaker 1: on a tangent away from anal sex. But what I
Speaker 1: could have used when I was that age and you too,
Speaker 1: was somebody like us being like whatever it is, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. If somebody's doing that to you, like just
Speaker 1: they're not worth your time. If somebody is like laying
Speaker 1: out sexpectations for you, um, outside of the context of like,
Speaker 1: you know, an understanding conversation, like a real actual conversation
Speaker 1: about sex or sexual expectations or experience or whatever. Like,
Speaker 1: that's one thing, But to describe what a past partner
Speaker 1: did in order to put pressure on you, that is
Speaker 1: the sign of someone who is obviously not meant to
Speaker 1: be an immature, loving, understanding, supportive relationship yea. And someone
Speaker 1: who just doesn't understand the basics of consent. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: whole thing of no being a complete sentence, and that
Speaker 1: issue of consent and coercion also came up a lot
Speaker 1: in these teenagers. Narrative is about their experiences with anal
Speaker 1: sex because it played such a major part, to the
Speaker 1: point that the researchers wrote, quote, women being badgered for
Speaker 1: anal sex appears to be considered normal because we've already
Speaker 1: established that there's the sexual double double standard at work,
Speaker 1: and so these girls are nervous about it, but they
Speaker 1: feel like they should do it, but they're nervous but
Speaker 1: they should do it, and there's a whole pain aspect,
Speaker 1: there's the expectation that it's gonna hurt, so on so
Speaker 1: many layers, there's resistance to it. So in a lot
Speaker 1: of these cases, these guys were telling they're usually girlfriends
Speaker 1: like oh, come on, come on, please, please, please, please please,
Speaker 1: and sort of wearing them down, and then in some
Speaker 1: cases using the whole reference back to the Mindy Project
Speaker 1: episode it slipped excuse um for essentially having like non
Speaker 1: consensual anal sex. And as upset as Kristen and I
Speaker 1: have become during the course of this part of the conversation,
Speaker 1: I don't think that we mean to say that all
Speaker 1: anal sex is bad. Obviously, obviously this is definitely not
Speaker 1: commentary on people's sexual relationships and preferences in general. But
Speaker 1: this is an important part of sexual health to talk about,
Speaker 1: and researchers definitely say that this just goes to show
Speaker 1: how badly we need comprehensive sexual education, and that's exactly
Speaker 1: what these researchers writing in the British Medical Journal. We're
Speaker 1: stressing that this isn't the point that we lead to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that all teenagers should be discouraged from even
Speaker 1: trying this, but rather that it's just clear, clear evidence
Speaker 1: that we need more comprehensive sex education that acknowledges that
Speaker 1: things like anal sex and oral sex happen, and that
Speaker 1: also discusses things like pain, coercion, and consent, rather than
Speaker 1: it just being like, here's how to not get pregnant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good luck. Yeah, it would be incredible to arm young
Speaker 1: people with information about consent. I mean, even if you're
Speaker 1: not going to talk about anal sex specifically, to talk
Speaker 1: about consent is a powerful, powerful thing. Well. And I
Speaker 1: also have a hunch that sex education that focuses so
Speaker 1: exclusively on not getting pregnant might end up fostering more
Speaker 1: anal sex because hey, you can't get pregnant that way, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if we're talking about things slipping again, if you're
Speaker 1: just relying on oh I'm hoping that nothing slips out
Speaker 1: and slips in anywhere else, it's better to be smart
Speaker 1: and armed with information about your body how sex works. Well.
Speaker 1: And this is also another reason for us to talk
Speaker 1: about this openly, because I think the more taboo things are,
Speaker 1: the more left in the shadows that they are, the
Speaker 1: more stigmatized they are the more room that leaves for
Speaker 1: non consensual things to happen because you don't even want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that you're doing it, and there are um,
Speaker 1: there there's more doubt about well, what is right? What
Speaker 1: is wrong? As I'm going through this, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: already doing this thing that's taboo, so okay, let's just
Speaker 1: do it. Um. And this was something This is not
Speaker 1: all going to be downer au anal sex. We are
Speaker 1: getting we're working our way toward orgasms people, aren't we all,
Speaker 1: But we first have to lay this foundation, like, have
Speaker 1: some rare talk about this, because this isn't just something
Speaker 1: that the issues of uh coercent are just things that
Speaker 1: happen among teenagers. Um. There was another study that we found,
Speaker 1: a rare study on straight adult women's anal sex experiences,
Speaker 1: published in two thousand fourteen and the journal Feminism and Psychology.
Speaker 1: And I say the rare study because far and away
Speaker 1: most most most studies on anal sex focus just on
Speaker 1: gay guys, which also, hello, I mean it's not just
Speaker 1: gay men and straight women who are having anal sex.
Speaker 1: Researchers for this Feminism and Psychology study found that five
Speaker 1: major themes emerged around the experiences of the women that
Speaker 1: they interviewed. And again this is another qualitative study based
Speaker 1: on interviews conversations about women's experiences, and so the themes
Speaker 1: included initial resistance to the idea, followed by submission to
Speaker 1: anal sex, um initial interest in it, followed by withdrawal
Speaker 1: from subsequent anal sex experiences. So basically, they tried it,
Speaker 1: didn't really like it, it wasn't their thing, so okay,
Speaker 1: now we know. Um. Third, the third theme was violence
Speaker 1: and coercion surrounding anal sex. So again this echoes. This
Speaker 1: is basically like almost an adult version of the British
Speaker 1: Medical Journal study that we were talking about earlier, and
Speaker 1: then we have similarly echoing it as well. The social
Speaker 1: norming aspect of dudes, guy friends normalizing straight anal sex
Speaker 1: and seeing anal sex is something normative largely based they
Speaker 1: think on like watching porn. This is something that like, oh,
Speaker 1: you should do we should be doing this. Don't you
Speaker 1: want to do this? Um? And then five, yeah, here
Speaker 1: we go. This is this is a great part pleasurable
Speaker 1: experiences with anal of roticism. And yes, that is a
Speaker 1: direct quote from a study abstract anal eroticism. Don't I
Speaker 1: love academia. I love academia. So one of the most
Speaker 1: important things to remember about anal sex as it becomes
Speaker 1: more and more normalized, as it becomes more and more zeitgeist,
Speaker 1: is that everybody is different. Some people are gonna want it,
Speaker 1: some people aren't, some people are going to try it
Speaker 1: and hate it. Some people are gonna try it and
Speaker 1: they're gonna love it. Everyone's different, and that's just good
Speaker 1: to keep in mind. And that's pretty much the takeaway
Speaker 1: of any Like women's magazine roundup of like real women
Speaker 1: describe their experiences with anal sex, because yes, every glamor magazine, Clear, Reclear, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Has one of those listical types of stories, and always
Speaker 1: they run the gamut from a woman being like, it
Speaker 1: was the worst, most painful experience of my life, I
Speaker 1: will never ever try it again, to the woman who's like,
Speaker 1: I can't get enough of it. It saved my marriage, etcetera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing. Anal sex actually correlated with more orgasm. Wait,
Speaker 1: what how is that possible? Who said that? Caroline? Academics again,
Speaker 1: lots of that sex studies. Uh so, there was a
Speaker 1: twenty study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that found
Speaker 1: ninety four per cent of women that they surveyed who
Speaker 1: received anal sex in their last sexual encounter reported reaching orgasm.
Speaker 1: And this is a higher rate of orgasm we should
Speaker 1: know then was reported by women who had had vaginal
Speaker 1: intercourse or received oral sex. And that study finding launched
Speaker 1: a zillion Internet headlines because of the assumption that it's
Speaker 1: something that has to be very painful and uncomfortable, especially
Speaker 1: for women, even though I don't know that there are
Speaker 1: that many biological sex differences between male and female anuses,
Speaker 1: but there's just the assumption that lady is gonna hate it. Oh,
Speaker 1: but it turns out they love it. Well, some context
Speaker 1: to this um people think that the reason why there
Speaker 1: is that relationship between women having anal sex and orgasms
Speaker 1: is that if you do in it correct, actually doing
Speaker 1: it in the way that will allow it to happen,
Speaker 1: it requires time, patients for play, a lot of the
Speaker 1: ingredients for female orgasms. Yeah. Well, and then a lot
Speaker 1: of things we read two recommended, like having an orgasm
Speaker 1: before a approaching anal sex. Yeah. So there's even like
Speaker 1: the chicken egg question with that of like, are these
Speaker 1: of women having orgasms, having orgasms before they have anal
Speaker 1: sex or after, or on both sides. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: and everything we've read anal sex or vaginal sex or
Speaker 1: any type of sex is that the more comfortable you
Speaker 1: are with yourself and with your partner and with your
Speaker 1: sexual activity, uh, and the more confidence you have in
Speaker 1: one another, and the comfort level all of this stuff
Speaker 1: is a very positive factor for potentially than having an orgasm.
Speaker 1: In other words, if you're happy with each other, if
Speaker 1: you're feeling good about each other and yourselves, you're more
Speaker 1: likely to have an orgasm. Because so much of sex
Speaker 1: is not just physical but also psychological, and so that
Speaker 1: obviously applies to anal sex too. We talked earlier, we
Speaker 1: hinted at the whole comfort factor for anal sex, and
Speaker 1: this is no different. And one thing that gets talked
Speaker 1: about a lot is the assumption that anal sex will
Speaker 1: be or has to be, or is always painful is
Speaker 1: not only inaccurate, but it's also doing a lot of
Speaker 1: harm because if you automatically assume that any sexual act
Speaker 1: is going to be painful or harm you in some way,
Speaker 1: you're automatically not going to be as relaxed as you
Speaker 1: could or should be. And there was a column we
Speaker 1: were reading about this in Vogue, yes that Vogue magazine,
Speaker 1: about one woman's experiences with anal sex, and she made
Speaker 1: the very good point that just basic mechanics wise, anal
Speaker 1: sex facilitates more clitteral access, and as we have underscored
Speaker 1: on the podcast before, women are likelier to reach orgasm
Speaker 1: via clitteral stimulation than vaginal stimulation, so that could be
Speaker 1: another factor in this whole orgasm correlation as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean we've cited on the podcast before the
Speaker 1: fact that women in same sex relationships report more orgasms
Speaker 1: than do women in opposite sex relations ships, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we can't ignore the fact that it's not
Speaker 1: just the concern of a straight woman or a gay
Speaker 1: man or a bisexual man or woman, that there are
Speaker 1: plenty of same sex couples out there doing this too. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And um, speaking of which, one piece we're reading about
Speaker 1: this over at auto straddle dot com was talking about how,
Speaker 1: of course anal sex can be very pleasurable because of
Speaker 1: all of the myriad nerve endings back there as well.
Speaker 1: So I mean, it makes a lot of sense that
Speaker 1: women would enjoy it. What doesn't make sense, is that
Speaker 1: it's so hard for us to collectively wrap our minds
Speaker 1: around this being something enjoyable for women, regardless of who
Speaker 1: they might be partnered with at the time. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that straight men get put in that
Speaker 1: category a lot too of Like, well, whether it's by
Speaker 1: themselves or by society, capitalist society that like, straight men
Speaker 1: can't or shouldn't or won't enjoy it. Oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that is also something that there's still not a
Speaker 1: ton of data on it. But um, there is evidence
Speaker 1: that straight men are engaging in anal activities more than
Speaker 1: ever before. Um. Tracy Clark, Floury advocative now previously at Salon,
Speaker 1: talked to Debbie Herbenick over at the Kinsey Institute, and
Speaker 1: she referred her to a study which found eleven percent
Speaker 1: of guys in their early twenties reported having received anal
Speaker 1: sex at some point. But her Bennick said, well, we
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what that means because there were no
Speaker 1: detailed reports on what kind of anal sex that was,
Speaker 1: whether that was manual, or whether that was solo partnered,
Speaker 1: all the different ways that you can have anal penetration. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like just as anal sex itself
Speaker 1: is pop culturally. I don't want to say really, I
Speaker 1: mean that makes it sound like a trend, but it's
Speaker 1: so like within pop culture now, and it's so talked about.
Speaker 1: And similarly, you know, more and more attentions being paid
Speaker 1: to like women's clteral stimulation and pleasing women in that regard,
Speaker 1: the same attention now is starting to be paid to
Speaker 1: male prostate stimulus that people are like, hello, men like
Speaker 1: different things too. Oh yeah. I mean I feel like
Speaker 1: that that's been around for a while, the whole like
Speaker 1: kind of joking thing of the old school Cosmo tip
Speaker 1: that a guy enjoys manual stimulation back there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's almost like a go to question
Speaker 1: at this point. Among Like, I don't know, I like,
Speaker 1: it's come up in lots of conversations I've had with
Speaker 1: straight guy friends of like do you like it? Do
Speaker 1: you not? And half the time they're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: and other times they're like, oh huh, yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to ask my guy friends that I don't
Speaker 1: even like, I'm just picturing I I can't even picture
Speaker 1: a situation in which I would, for instance, ask dude
Speaker 1: roommate about that, O, Caroline. I mean, I'm just one
Speaker 1: of those cool girls who could like drink beer and
Speaker 1: watch football and talk prostates with them bros. Stimulating prostates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just hanging out over some beers talking about talking about
Speaker 1: sabor metrics and and prostates stimulations. Spot the whole spot
Speaker 1: he spot. Um, and I am really curious to hear
Speaker 1: from our guy listeners on this too. Obviously, I want
Speaker 1: to hear from everybody, but UM, I was really interested
Speaker 1: to see the relatively still few and far between pieces
Speaker 1: and research looking at straight men's experiences with this, because really,
Speaker 1: thanks to the tools that we now have, anal sex
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be off the menu for anyone if
Speaker 1: they don't want it off the menu. And as long
Speaker 1: as you're safe. I mean we've mentioned we've mentioned coercion
Speaker 1: and consent, and we've mentioned s t I S and
Speaker 1: things like that, but we haven't explained really, uh for
Speaker 1: for people who might not know or understand what the
Speaker 1: deal is with the potential spread of disease. Everybody is
Speaker 1: very familiar with the idea that you should always wear
Speaker 1: a condom, and anal sex is no different. What's the
Speaker 1: deal with anal fissures, Caroline, All right, Jerry, Well, the
Speaker 1: thing is the skin uh around the anus and in
Speaker 1: the rectum is a lot thinner, for instance, than the
Speaker 1: vaginal wall. So the vaginal wall can take a little
Speaker 1: more friction than can the anus and the rectum, so
Speaker 1: hence the need for lots of lube. But what does
Speaker 1: that fragile tissue mean for you and me and for
Speaker 1: all of our listeners. Well, not to indicate that all
Speaker 1: of us are having anal sex all the time, however,
Speaker 1: those little tears and fissures in the skin can introduce
Speaker 1: and make the spread of S t I is a
Speaker 1: lot easier. So regardless of whether you're using an object
Speaker 1: or a penis, it is best with a condom on
Speaker 1: if you are concerned about contracting any kind of S
Speaker 1: t I S, and even with tools as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to keep in mind that bacteria can
Speaker 1: travel on that toy if you are using it again,
Speaker 1: it can hang out on it, So you want to
Speaker 1: clean it. You want to make sure that it's made
Speaker 1: of non porous material things like silicon that can also
Speaker 1: be disinfected. You just gotta keep it clean. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that it's it's a dirty, gross area to stay
Speaker 1: away from, but it just comes with a little bit
Speaker 1: different instruction manual. Yeah. In other words, take your time,
Speaker 1: go slow, have lots of prep, have some lube on hand.
Speaker 1: You're gonna need lots of lube, and just keeping in
Speaker 1: mind that you don't have to do anything you don't
Speaker 1: want to do. If you want to give it a
Speaker 1: try and you like it, fine, If you don't, fine,
Speaker 1: I mean you know, and if your partner tries to
Speaker 1: shame you for not wanting to do it, then not fine. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: not fine. Well, now, listeners, we want to hear from
Speaker 1: you about your thoughts and experiences as much as you'd
Speaker 1: like to share. When it comes to anal sex, do
Speaker 1: you think that it's something that signals progression in our
Speaker 1: culture and society, that it means that we're loosening up
Speaker 1: and sex is becoming more fluid and open for all
Speaker 1: of us. Or does it just feel like more pressure
Speaker 1: and the types of sexual people that we have to
Speaker 1: be in the way that we have to act in
Speaker 1: the bedroom or you know, wherever you like to get down.
Speaker 1: Moms Stuff at how stuff works dot Com is our
Speaker 1: email address. You can also tweet us at Mom's Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple
Speaker 1: of messages to share with you right now. Well, I
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Eric in response to our
Speaker 1: Anxious Women episode. He says, I just wanted to weigh
Speaker 1: in on your nature versus nurture debate on your Anxious
Speaker 1: Women episode. As a gay man, I started to experience
Speaker 1: mild anxiety around the time I came out at the
Speaker 1: age of fifteen. Because I have a very typical gender
Speaker 1: expression in relation to my birth gender, I was often
Speaker 1: told and praised because I didn't seem that gay. At first,
Speaker 1: it didn't seem that out of place because high school
Speaker 1: kids were not a bastion of self awareness. But as
Speaker 1: I got older I'm now twenty five, I noticed that
Speaker 1: this reaction happened on an almost daily basis anywhere I
Speaker 1: would meet new people. I find that my anger about
Speaker 1: this subtle, internalized homophobia triggered severe social anxiety around new people.
Speaker 1: I find that most of my anxiety is centered around
Speaker 1: the way that others perceived my sexual orientation, the fact
Speaker 1: that people frequently make passively homophobic remarks to me, because,
Speaker 1: as it has been explained to me, I'm a passible
Speaker 1: straight man, and I'm less impacted by my sexuality makes
Speaker 1: me second guess every gesture, word choice, and facial expression,
Speaker 1: the result of which is overworrying and anxiety and in
Speaker 1: some cases downright panic attacks are more often is canceling plans.
Speaker 1: I think that pervasive sexual harassment, which has been widely
Speaker 1: documented that women experience on a daily basis, could be
Speaker 1: one of the ways that we nurture women into having
Speaker 1: a higher rate of diagnosed anxiety disorder. But that might
Speaker 1: also just be a bit of projecting. Love the show
Speaker 1: and keep up the good work. Well, thanks Eric, Well,
Speaker 1: I've got a let her hear from Nicole, who writes,
Speaker 1: I'm a thirty year old African American woman and I
Speaker 1: got diagnosed with anxiety disordered during my freshman year of
Speaker 1: college after having a panic attack during an exam. You're
Speaker 1: definitely right that culture has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: notions of anxiety. While you discussed foreign cultures during the episode,
Speaker 1: I thought to write to tell you about my experience
Speaker 1: with this as an African American. As I'm sure you've heard,
Speaker 1: mental health issues are still stigmatized in the African American community.
Speaker 1: When I started college. I was a pre med major,
Speaker 1: taking twenty credits. My first semester living away from home
Speaker 1: for the first time, two roommates in a tiny dorm,
Speaker 1: all the class work, and being one of only three
Speaker 1: African American girls out of about sixty can take it's
Speaker 1: toll on an eighteen year old. Well, my friends in
Speaker 1: college seemed to understand, and we're very supportive. My family
Speaker 1: was not. Older relatives told me things like I just
Speaker 1: needed to be tough and they raised me to be strong.
Speaker 1: Things like this made me discuss my anxiety less with them,
Speaker 1: but more with a therapist. I saw several therapists throughout
Speaker 1: my time in college and later in law school, and
Speaker 1: now as an adult, I found a therapist who has
Speaker 1: given me some coping mechanisms. As was mentioned, I think
Speaker 1: it's a very modern, middle class millennial thing to have
Speaker 1: a therapist. However, I still get some reactions of surprise,
Speaker 1: like there's nothing wrong with you. Everyone has issues, et cetera.
Speaker 1: When I speak with some of my older and more
Speaker 1: working class African American relatives. It's my hope that shows
Speaker 1: like yours and others will help continue to remove the
Speaker 1: stigma surrounding mental health. Especially in minority communities where the
Speaker 1: stakes tend to be much higher because of life circumstances
Speaker 1: and community conditions. Oh, she says, keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: I'm friends with both of you in my mind. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, Nicole, and thanks to everybody who's written into us.
Speaker 1: Moms Stuff at how so works dot com is our
Speaker 1: email address and drilling to all of our social media
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts,
Speaker 1: including this one with our sources. So you can learn
Speaker 1: more about anal sex and consent and pleasure. Head on
Speaker 1: over to stuff mom Never Told You dot com for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com