As many of you know, I’m currently enrolled in my school The Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education and I recently completed the Anal Mapping & Massage unit.
And wow, the learning has been rich.
One of my assignments in this unit was to engage in the practice of doing external anal massage on myself during my Mindful Erotic Practice. If you’re curious about what a Mindful Erotic Practice is, please click here to read all about that.
Now a little background on my relationship with anal play:
I have VERY much enjoyed anal play in partnered sex before, though I have only ever explored it with someone else – never on my own.
I have also noticed that when I HAVE engaged in anal play, it’s usually because I’m in a certain mood – feeling particularly naughty or kinky.
Which neatly brings me to the first thing I learned from self anal massage:
#1. There’s a lot of resistance to anal work, even for someone practiced in it.
After the assignment was given to me, it probably took me a solid 2.5 weeks to actually implement it in my own mindful erotic practice.
I’ve spent some time considering where this resistance was rooted from, as that was a big piece of the assignment.
For me, I think its because I had made up this story in my head that I needed to be in certain mood to find anal work pleasurable…and, perhaps there was a piece there on my arousal from anal work being rooted in indirect pleasure, which is the type of pleasure one gets from seeing or witnessing the pleasure of another person – as opposed to the pleasure one receives from one’s own bodily sensations, which is direct pleasure.
Because anal play has this stigma/mystique about it, there’s something about engaging it with a partner that feels so permissive, so wanton, to me. Therefore, the “naughtiness” of it was encapsulated in the notion of doing it for someone else.
Yet, in doing it with myself FOR myself – that completely changed the experience and the energy behind it. And to be honest, as I contemplated the assignment I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it that much.
It was definitely one of those school assignments that felt obligatory. But after all, they were just asking for external anal self massage. Not a big deal, right?
So lets just get this over with, I thought to myself resignedly.
So I watched all the educational videos my school provides on the different methods for external and internal anal massage.
I even practiced the strokes on a couple different clients (which, interestingly enough, I was MORE comfortable with than the notion of doing it on myself) and got a sense of confidence with the differing techniques.
Cut to the evening where I finally made anal work the intention for my Mindful Erotic Practice. Not only did I gain immense pleasure from it, but I ended up doing internal anal massage on myself and loved that most of all.
So if you’re reading this and considering what anal work means to you, I offer you the same mindful awareness my school gave me: what comes up for you when you consider anal work? Pay attention with particular emphasis on your resistances to it.
You can either read ahead for a written inquiry into this question, or you can listen to the following recorded anal embodiment meditation to delve into your own relationship with your anus.
What happens in your body when you contemplate having your anus played with, whether by yourself or by someone else? What happens in your pelvic floor muscles? In the muscles of your face? Does a change take place with your breath flow when you consider this?
Are there feelings of excitement? Disgust? Trepidation? Anticipation?
What past associations do you have with anal work and how do those show up when you consider your relationship with your anus?
What sensation can you feel in your anus right now? CAN you feel anything or do you notice a general sense of numbness to the area?
Take a few breaths with these questions before reading on about my second newfound understanding of all things anal.
#2. If your anus feels numb or neutral, try first arousing your genitals.
This was the case both for myself as well as ALL the practice partners I worked with.
Going straight for the anus felt very meh. Don’t recommend it.
As a general rule in our bodywork sessions as SSEs, we spend a good deal of time “waking up the neighborhood”, or touching the non-erogenous general area to bring awareness into the body and to help our client maintain attention on their internal sensations and arousal process, before ever moving to erogenous zones.
So examples of the warming up of the neighborhood process in regards to external anal massage might include:
- Giving a general back body massage, leading to a general focus around the hindquarters.
- Rubbing the inner thighs, outer hips, massaging the gluteal muscles
- Bringing sensation into the ass cheeks with slapping, rubbing, grazing or deep pressured massagey touch around the sitz bones
But even this waking up the neighborhood didn’t really generate much aliveness for me when I did it on myself.
And while I got positive feedback from my clients regarding the deep, pressured massagey touch I did around their sitz bones and the touch techniques I’ve been taught for warming the ass cheeks, it didn’t seem to help the anus be a source of pleasure sensations.
I found that it made sense to wake up the neighborhood as described and then switch up the touch to awakening the genitals. Then I would kind of go back and forth between the two.
This allowed me to get closer to my anus and engage in the external anal massage while also filling my body with arousal from my genitals.
My theory is that, because we are more accustomed to experiencing a direct pathway to pleasure through our genitals and not so much through our anus, that we can sort of link the two, recruiting pleasurable nerve sensations that we associate with the genitals towards the anus.
And it worked! On myself, I got worked up to a point where I decided to practice the technique we are taught for entering the anus. It’s a very gentle, non-invasive way of entering that allows the body of the person receiving to wholly control the entering through breath work, movement and mindful anal contractions.
Lo and behold, my finger slipped right inside of myself and, after a few cycles of genital stimulation intermixed with anal touch (though using totally separate fingers from one part to the next), I felt the most immense pleasure. It was incredible. And surprising. And it seemed to build upon itself, gaining in intensity the more I practiced.
My only complaint is that I still haven’t found a very comfortable position for stimulating my anus while also stimulating my genitals. However, I’m deeply enjoying the process of finding that magical position. When I get it down, you’ll be the first to know, dear reader.
The same held true for my practice clients as well, by the way. Where at first they felt anal neutrality or blankness, as we passed the stimulation back and forth between anus and genital stimulation, more pleasure was experienced from the anus itself.
However, this is just my theory, not something I’ve learned specifically from my school.
So DO give it a try and let me know if your experience holds true to mine, willya? In the name of scientific research, of course.
#3. There’s a completely different type of orgasm experienced through the anus
For me, it felt deeply relaxing – which, let’s face it, ALL orgasms leave me feeling deeply relaxed….but this, this was a different degree of relaxation altogether. If I had to describe it, I would compare it to the way I’ve felt when I’ve taken a benzodiazapene like Valium or Klonopin or certain types of high quality CBD – this incredibly peaceful, settled, patient and loving feeling – not only in the mental body, but also my physical, energetic and emotional bodies too.
Also, the anal orgasm came from a totally different place in my body and seemed, energetically, like more of an implosion than an explosion.
Afterwards, my whole anus was soft and open and pulsing with this delightful energy that seemed to move freer between my anus and genitals.
As a yoga instructor, especially as a Tantrika yogini where there’s so much emphasis on the energy body, this pulsing circuit of energy between my softly opened anus and my genitals made me VERY excited indeed – in a nerdy way as well as sexually.
It felt like I had finally fully opened my base chakra, the Muladhara chakra, for the first time – and the energy flow connection between it and my sacral chakra, Svadhisthana charkra, was powerful and very clearly felt in a way I hadn’t experienced before.
I regularly use the Taoist erotic breathwork practice called the Microcosmic Orbit, which is a way of circulating one’s sexual chi throughout one’s body. When I did this familiar practice post-anal orgasm, I felt myself accessing more energy than before – like I was literally sitting on a live wire.
I know in electrician terms, they call the wire that carries the electrical current from the source to the light switch the “hot wire”.
Never have I appreciated that term as much as when I felt my own “hot wire” connecting anus to genitals, base to sacral.
I was grateful to have the Microcosmic Orbit practice to diffuse the energy throughout my organism, leaving me feeling deeply rooted in the peaceful, easy feeling for the rest of the day.
It is this author’s belief that many, many, many people have intense holdings around their anus. Holdings that are not only physical in nature, like a chronically tightened pelvic floor, but also emotional and energetic in nature – if you were shamed about anal play, or taught that inviting anal play makes you lesser in some way.
And yet, every breath is connected to the pelvic floor – so if you have a difficult time managing your stress or you tend to internalize it – guess what. You’re probably sending alllllll that stress energy straight into your anus or pelvic floor. This can result in chronic clenching and pain. This can also result in numbness or dissociative responses around the anus.
So by softening and opening up this area, the potential for healing, for relaxation, for broadened sexual pleasure and orgasmic experience all substantially increase.
You have your own hot wire, dear reader, are you accessing it? What gets in the way of you accessing it?
If this blog post has made you curious about your own relationship with anal play and has struck a cord within you yet you don’t know where to begin, please feel free to fill out my intake waiver or send me an email so we can design a session, or session series, in which we can explore this work together.
I’m excited to practice on more bodies and see if these learnings hold true or if my understanding will change as I gain experience.
Perhaps you’ll be one of those bodies?
Until next time, dear reader, say hi to your anus for me, willya?
Thanks for sharing your experience around this, Sherika! I’m in the same unit and exploring stuff that I had also left unexplored. Exciting in a nerdy and sexual way for sure!
You rule! Well done!!! I have explored my anus and it was so similar for me! I like laying on my back… but I am not sure I fully explored in depth… I just could not believe how strong and intense climax was! For me… I grew up in a homophobic family (🥲) so my hang up I think is that I have a deep fear that when men have penetrated my ass my vulva is afraid she is not needed. Like helloooo my flower wants center stage!! The anus is shy and wants sneaky love while you distract the flower! Also- a major fear of prolapsed anus!!! Whew first time ever saying that! Love you my goddess xoxox good work!