The Full Spectrum

Your anus is where conscious meets unconscious. And it has the final say.

Hello, beauties.

So in my sexology training a few years back, when we started learning about butt stuff, part of my module was to watch 20 hours of anal massage videos. People doing it on themselves, people doing it on each other, witnessing multiple people's self-pleasure practices, which included self-anal massage, solo buggery, toys. Yeah, I watched a lot.

I remember sitting in my kitchen by the fireplace watching these videos, and one of my housemates was just hanging out, and she pulled up a chair so she could listen and learn. And I didn't realize until then how fascinating butt stuff can actually be when you get into the sex geekery of it. There are so many nerve endings down there, and the reality is most of us never pay any attention to it. We only connect with our butthole when we're trying to stop wind or waste from leaving, or when we're helping it to leave. That's the whole relationship that most people have with their anus. And yet one of my teachers said something that I've never forgotten. "If you're only experiencing sexual pleasure from your genitals, then you are missing out on 50% of your pelvis pleasure potential."

In my work, I have seen the full spectrum of butt stuff, and I mean full spectrum. There are people who have never touched their own anus, not in the shower, not in solo play, not ever. And for them anal pleasure is just an idea, something that they read about once and filed away for maybe later. So when they arrive and come into a session curious about a prostate massage, the first question I ask is, "Have you spent any time touching yourself there, either by yourself or with a partner?" And then followed up with, "What's got you interested in this today?" The answer to this tells me a lot.

It tells me what their physical relationship with their own anus actually is, whether sensation down there is familiar or completely foreign, and whether their body has any reference point for pleasure in that area at all. Because if you've never touched your own butthole, and then you come into a session with someone you've just met, even if it's a professional, there can be a lot of guarding, a sense of bracing. Any sensation there could hijack the mind into, "What is this? What am I feeling? Is this okay?" And that shifts you into monitoring instead of feeling. And so for many of these first-timers, I will send them away after the session with homework. Touch your butthole. Begin in the shower. Start there and get familiar

And then there are the people whose bodies just open. Something in them says yes. They're able to maintain presence and pleasure around their anus, and this can look very different from person to person. Some are quiet and internal, while others are high arousal, moving across the table, shifting positions, sounds coming out. It almost feels a little bit porny.

And I've had clients where I literally could not reach their prostate, and that was simply mechanics. My fingers weren't long enough, and maybe their prostate sat a little higher. All bodies are different, and all bodies are fascinating.

I've had one client whose pelvic floor was so armored from years of intense training that the tissue felt like stone. I honestly had no idea how he takes a shit every day. And so all I could offer him from that session was that to go home and spend some time to do some pelvic floor massage bring some relaxation there before we try again.

A memory I have being at my residential immersion in my sexology training. On the day that we were covering butt stuff, as we all headed down for morning tea, I yelled out across the room at 50 of my other students , "Who here has fisted someone? Put your hand up." And about six people put their hands up. And I said, "Right, I've got questions. Meet me over here." And then we got our cups of tea, and I asked them everything I wanted to know about fisting from people who actually have experience. Because that's my preference of learning, from others with lived experience. And the answers I got from that little group definitely helped me later on in the future, where one time I found myself a few millimeters away from fisting somebody for the first time at 10:00 in the morning. And I definitely was not mentally prepared for that.

And I wanna share you the anatomy intro that I share with all my clients who arrive curious about adding butt play to the session. I like to say, "Did you know that the anus has two sphincters?" And they'll look at me and go, "No." And I will say, "Yes. You do, I do, we all do." The anus has two sphincters, two rings of muscle. One sits on the outside, and that's the one under our conscious control. That's the one that we can pucker up whenever we need to, to stop wind or waste from escaping. And then the second ring sits half a centimeter on top of that one. That's the inner sphincter. And this inner ring is controlled by your enteric nervous system, it's the part of your body that operates below conscious awareness, the part that does not respond to your intentions, but actually what is your sense of safety.

Now, obviously, if something wanted to bust through both of these, they could, but that's not our intention here. Our intention is to stay present with what is happening with the body, which is why your breathing is going to be so important. The more you breathe, the more you send signals of safety to your body, which allows that inner ring to open if it feels safe enough."

And it's really interesting because this is why the anus can be one of the most spiritual parts of the body to work with. Because those two rings, the outer sphincter and the inner sphincter, is the place where literally the conscious and the unconscious meet. Whoa, if we're really gonna get woo-woo about it. And for my clients who explore anal massage for themselves in their mindful masturbation practices, what they notice is that their practices tend to be more meditative, that they're focused on their experiences in a way that almost sound enlightening. There's something there that opens up that isn't just physical.

And so when I hear someone in the wild, in the wild of the world, putting it out there that the reason they don't like anal is because it hurts too much, the first thing I want to say to them is that they're probably doing it wrong. And I'm not saying that everyone needs to be having anal sex, but this is one of those rare places where I say there is a right way and there is a wrong way to be doing it.

Our butthole, the anus is part of the body that needs time to warm up, just like any other part. It needs nervous system regulation, safety, familiarity. It needs to not feel rushed, no agenda, because if you do it's not gonna be a great experience. But if you do it in a way that is slow and supportive, well you just might be pleasantly surprised at how delightful it can feel.

So thank you beauties. I wanna say that curiosity deserves real answers, not just it'll be okay. So in this week's membership post, we're gonna talk about the hygiene, the sexual health and safety, and the anatomy of the butthole.

Let's dive deep. I'll see you there