I’ve never really identified with the feminine-princess trope, and yet here I am: an anal queen. Some women have vaginal orgasms, some don’t. Some women can get off from nipple stimulation, while others cannot. I fall into the category of women who are restricted from having anal sex in a hotel, because I can’t control the volume of my pleasure noises.
I wasn’t always one for taking it up the butt. Like many young women, I bought into the nonsense that rectal integrity equalled integrity of character — so, for many years, I proudly resisted the curiosity to stick things in my ass. I would refer to myself as “kinky” and “sexually liberated” in the same breath as I denounced anal sex and those who engaged in it. Let me make it clear that no one has to take it up the butt to be either of those things; it’s just that my reasoning for not having anal sex was puritanical, and therefore hypocritical. I had a lot of growing up to do, butt-wise.
Even when losing my vaginal virginity, I was caught up in the notion that my value and worth as a woman was increased by having an intact hymen. And so it was with my booty: Having anal sex would make me dirty and slutty, and therefore it must remain a No Man’s Land. (Little did I know.)
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Then one night, I discovered tequila, and loudly urged my boyfriend to take the road less traveled — even with no lube in sight. Everyone who has had anal sex just cringed at that sentence, and for good reason: The key to successful anal sex, for those of us who like it, is plentiful lube.
Some people want it to hurt, though, and that’s cool, too. But I’m here to talk about my ass getting plowed, not anyone else’s.
In any case, that initial attempt was painful, yet even so, my curiosity was piqued. That brief exploration into my anus awoke something inside me — literally — and although I hadn’t fully moved on from my initial prejudices, I began to accept that I had plenty more spelunking to do in my sexual future.
In all honesty, it wasn’t the threat of pain that held me back for all those years. It was ingrained notions that my sexuality was a spectacle for others, worthy of judgment from perspectives outside of those with whom I choose to partner. My virgin ass didn’t know at the time that sodomy gets its (totally unjustified) bad rap because of the association with homosexuality. So it’s extra disappointing that, for so long, I bought into the bullshit that butt-play should be avoided. In a way, my refusal to have anal sex made me complicit in the oppression against an already marginalized community.
Fortunately, I’m pretty sure I’ve absolved myself of that nonsense by becoming a goddamn anal champ, taking it up the ass from whoever or whatever wanted to get in there. I asked the same man that had entertained me in college — and who I later married — if he would do me the honor of officially, soberly deflowering my ass before I gave it to anyone else. From that point on, no other sexual acts could compete. I even dated someone for months whose penis never formally met my vagina, because why would it need to?
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Not all women experience the level of pleasure I get from butt play, which is what makes the ending to this saga even sadder. My enthusiasm for anal, coupled with an overactive libido, did in fact lower my rectal integrity, and now it tears with too much vigor, so my anal sex days are over. I understand that the human digestive system has been naturally selected over millennia to go one direction — which is where I’m assuming the boy band gets its name — but I thought my hyper-erogenous ass could withstand more than it could. Every so often, I check in with a few extra pokes in the area, but for now, my booty remains exit only.
Even if my reign as anal queen has ended, I’m glad that I had the opportunity to work through the issues that kept me from the throne in the first place. Consenting adults should be able to put their genitals all over each other — in each other’s mouths and butts and wherever — without fear of reprisal from a puritanical, prejudiced authority. And who knows, maybe other ladies out there will overcome a similar hangup and discover they like buttsex as much as I did.
Working up the courage to share this story, I got myself into the mood by looking up “anal” on Spotify, which delivered to me the song “How Far I’ll Go” from the Disney movie Moana. Fitting.