An Ode to Ass: Reflections on Sex Ed, Porn, and Perversity

Tristan Taormino

Fuck Abstinence

When I was in sixth grade, I went on my first date, with a guy named Mike. We walked to a pizza parlor. Over pepperoni slices and Cokes, we talked, although I have no memory of what we talked about. I know that I spent a lot of time worrying about what to wear; eventually I settled on my Sergio Valente jeans and a blue jacket. Afterward, he walked me back to my house. I remember that I liked him and had fun with him. On Monday at school, girls asked me for details, and the most pressing question seemed to be “Did you kiss?” I panicked: I forgot to kiss him. Later that week, the teacher separated the girls and boys and marched us into different classrooms. We watched a filmstrip about menstruation and reproduction. The teacher told us about fallopian tubes, ovaries, and tampons. I paid attention, but it had little relevance to my life since I was still stressing about not locking lips with Mike. Among my friends, I was one of the only ones who had even gone on a date. I was supposed to kiss him or let him kiss me, and in my genuine giddiness, I totally flubbed it. I’ve changed a lot in the twenty years since then, but so has an entire generation of young adults.

A study published in the journal Pediatrics in April 2005 found that 20 percent of ninth-graders surveyed had engaged in oral sex and 14 percent had had vaginal intercourse. The study confirmed what Oprah, Dr. Phil, and other major media personalities have called “an oral-sex epidemic” among kids as young as twelve. It’s certainly alarming for parents that children are beginning to sexually experiment at a younger age than their generation or mine. Researchers concluded: “That so many adolescents are having oral sex and view it as safe, perceiving little or no risk resulting from engaging in oral sex, stresses the importance of needing more research on oral sex transmissibility rates and increased health education about oral sex.”

What’s more troubling is that this study was released in a year when the federal government allocated more money than ever—about $130 million—to “abstinence-only-until-marriage” sex education in schools. There are no comparable funds for other kinds of sex ed curricula. A study by Yale and Columbia researchers found that teens who take an abstinence pledge are more likely to engage in sexual activities other than vaginal intercourse; members of this same group were also less likely to use a condom in their first sexual experience and less likely to get tested for STDs. In an earlier study, the same research team found that 88 percent of teens who took the pledge had vaginal intercourse before marriage.

Last year, in a report on abstinence-only education, California representative Henry Waxman found that more than two-thirds of government-funded abstinence-only programs contain misleading or inaccurate information about sex. (Example: “A pregnancy occurs one out of every seven times that couples use condoms.” In fact, condoms are up to 98 percent effective at preventing pregnancy when used correctly.) Clearly, abstinence-only education is problematic and ineffective.

But these studies also highlight that abstinence-only and other sex ed programs have a critical flaw in common: The focus is on “sex” defined either explicitly or implicitly as vaginal intercourse. The abstinence kids pledge not to have sex (vaginal intercourse) but do have oral sex, manual sex, and anal sex. The teens in the Pediatrics report who’ve had oral sex think it’s not sex. That study also found that “adolescents did believe that they were more likely to experience pleasure from vaginal sex than from oral sex,” a message promoted not only by sex ed, but by kids’ peers and the media. Other forms of pleasure, especially female sexual pleasure, including clitoral stimulation, are not part of the discussion. Vaginal intercourse is the big deal, the one with physical and emotional repercussions—everything else is safe and breezy.

Don’t get me wrong; abstinence should always be presented as an option. But the reality is that most kids are experimenting with some form of sex, and they need to know how their bodies work, how STDs are transmitted, and how to protect themselves. Most kids are still confused about basic anatomy and how someone gets pregnant. (More than 16 percent said there was a chance of getting pregnant through oral sex.) These teenagers become college students who attend my lectures and ask, “I can’t come from vaginal intercourse—what’s wrong with me?”

I propose a sex ed curriculum that honestly educates teenagers about the risks, responsibilities, and rewards of sex. Educators need to talk to actual teenagers and get their input about what will and won’t be effective for them and their peers. Create a safe environment with an outside instructor, without teachers or other monitors in the room. Don’t bring out the diagrams without also using three-dimensional, realistic models. Talk to teens in their own language rather than using clinical terms they cannot relate to. Let them ask anonymous questions so they don’t feel pressure to act cool or knowledgeable around their peers. Show them how to use condoms, gloves, dental dams, and lube correctly, and have those items available. Give a reading packet that is accessible, informative, and sex positive, which they can take home for future reference. Use resources like Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire.com and the independently run (read: underfunded) Scarleteen.com, two of the best sex ed websites for teens. Encourage parents to get involved. Don’t just have them sign the permission slip; give them tools (like a class of their own) for talking to kids about sex, and encourage them to follow up.

We continue to do a great disservice to the teenagers in this country when it comes to sex education. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate and teen STD rate in the Western world. Teenagers are having sex. Teenagers are licking pussy, sucking cock, munching ass, finger-fucking, dry humping, and buttfucking. George Bush wants them to practice abstinence. Well, abstinence-only education sucks. When we deny that young people are sexual beings, withhold information and resources from them, and narrowly define sex to exclude all possibilities but one, we contribute to a new generation of sexually illiterate adults.

Private Dick

Two students at the University of Pennsylvania were having sex against a dorm room window without a shade. Apparently, several people took photos of the couple, and the images were circulated via e-mail and on various websites. A student who snapped a shot and posted it on his personal site was charged with several violations by the Office of Student Conduct. One charge was sexual harassment, based on a complaint from the female student (who believed she could be identified) that posting the image created a hostile environment for her. Debates raged in the student newspaper and online forums: Why was the photographer being charged with sexual harassment but the couple was not being charged with public lewdness? What about the shutterbug’s right to free speech? If the two were putting on a show, how could they expect privacy? From the photos I’ve seen, it doesn’t look like a case of a Peeping Tom with a telephoto lens. Pictures were taken in broad daylight, and although the couple was in a high-rise building, one look up let you see a whole lot. One person posted this comment on the Daily Pennsylvanian website: “You don’t smash your buttocks up against a window unless you’re looking for attention.” I’ll agree: The twosome wanted to be watched or wanted the possibility of being watched to exist. However, being an exhibitionist and having your exhibitionism photographed and published are two very different things.

I can’t remember the first time I had public sex. I am not counting the times I had sex in a semipublic or public place where I could have been watched but wasn’t—like in a car, at the beach, or in a park. I am talking about having sex in public to be seen. Was it when I went to a sex club in Florida during a leather conference? It might have been the night that I hooked up with a well-known sexpert couple at a sex party in Boston. As I recall, she fucked me on a couch, then I fisted her partner. It was the first time I used the female condom for anal penetration—and I remember thinking it was ironic that I was trying it out in a guy. Maybe it was at the porn-star orgy I was invited to, where I was one of only three nonporn people. (They called us “civilians.”) I got to fuck a performer briefly until his girlfriend—who was doing someone else—kind of flipped out. I did hook up with a retired porn star who put almost her entire fist in my ass. Wow, the mid-’90s are already a blur.

I used to be an exhibitionist. I go-go-danced at dyke bars, where women stuck folded bills in my G-string. I had my pussy shaved onstage by a stranger as part of a performance. At a storytelling event, someone (another stranger) put a butt plug in my ass as I read my erotic story. I got pierced, poked, and paddled at kinky parties. I fucked my entire cast in the final scene of the first porn video I directed. I preferred to indulge my love of the spotlight while naked. I loved to fuck and be fucked while people looked on.

Maybe it’s just a phase, but lately I’m not so gung ho to have sex in public. I still put things in people’s orifices in front of a roomful of others—which I know looks a lot like sex—but I don’t count that because it really is an educational thing. I mean wrists-and-ankles-strapped-to-a-bondage-table-while-hot-wax-is-dripped-on-my-tits public sex. Or face down, ass in the air, on a bed in a room with no door. Or lubed glove dripping as I lean over some hot number, her legs spread wide as she seemingly floats midair in a sling.

Thankfully, I still have plenty of opportunities to have public sex. But seeing a ten-thousand-square-foot dungeon and two hundred pairs of eyes doesn’t do it for me like it used to. Public sex was exciting and validating, and it fed something in me that’s no longer hungry. In the past, one of the thrills of public sex, especially at parties, was that I felt free to do whatever the fuck I wanted to. Whether in a corner or center stage, I was just another girl with tattoos and high heels getting off; I felt free. One of the last times I had anonymous sex in public, I found the entire encounter written up in my playmate’s blog, which wouldn’t have been so disturbing if she hadn’t used my full name without my permission. That felt icky.

These days, when I pick up a cane or slip off my panties in a public place, I feel an enormous weight on my shoulders. Like there are these expectations of me, as a sexpert, to give people a great show and to rock the world of whomever I am playing with. That kind of pressure, whether real or imagined, just kills my libido. Part of fucking in public is a performance, and for whatever reasons, I’m not in the mood to perform. That part of it distracts me and gets me out of the zone I need to be in. Right now, I want to go places in my sexual life that I am not ready to share with an audience. Some of those places are dark; others are goofy, tender, and complicated. I’m hesitant to do the things I want to in public because I feel too vulnerable.

Last week, the University of Pennsylvania Office of Student Conduct dropped all charges against the photographer who caught a moment of young lust and exhibitionism. According to several reports, the couple, especially the woman, is embarrassed and humiliated—which is really the opposite of how it could have gone down if the looking was fleeting rather than captured digitally. Some of the best public sex I’ve witnessed is when the opposite emotions are evident, and the woman feels incredibly empowered. When I watch a woman shed her inhibitions and bare herself for all to see, sometimes I envy her—she can embrace and even sexualize her erotic vulnerability. Or perhaps she doesn’t feel vulnerable at all—she just likes to show off.

Havin’ Buck for Breakfast

“Wait, are we going to begin the shot on her penis, then move to his vagina, or vice versa?” The camera guy asked a valid question. “Yes, her penis, then his vagina,” responded the director.

You may be slightly confused, but no one on the set of Allanah Starr’s Big Boob Adventures was. Last year, I got to sit in on the film—ing of a scene for the first installment of this transsexual series—a scene that made porn history. It’s the first between a male-to-female (MTF) transsexual and a female-to-male transsexual (FTM). And these aren’t just any old transsexuals. The she of “her penis” is well-known adult starlet and New York nightlife figure Allanah Starr (www.shemaleexotica.com), and the he of “his vagina” is Buck Angel (www.transexual-man.com ), the self-proclaimed “dude with a pussy” and “world’s only” FTM porn star.

Buck has been breaking lots of new ground lately. Not only is he the first FTM porn star to run his own membership-based website (which debuted in January 2002), but he’s the first to be under contract with a mainstream porn company. In November 2004, he signed a twelve-picture deal to direct and perform for Robert Hill Releasing. The first title as part of that contract, the bisexual Buck’s Beaver, came out in February 2005, and the feedback has been great, Buck says. “I’ve heard from lots of people who’ve said, ‘I can’t believe it, I have fantasized about guys like you my whole life, I can’t believe you really exist.’ It’s hard to be the only guy like me in porn, but the fan response is really encouraging and helps me keep going.”

Boy, is he going. He followed up Buck’s Beaver with the all-male More Bang for Your Buck. But he told me he’s been saving himself for a scene with a transsexual woman. Since his deal with Robert Hill is nonexclusive, when the opportunity came to work with Starr, he grabbed it: “Both [director Gia Darling] and Allanah are so great to work with because they are so supportive, and they want me to do well, which means a lot.”

Before Angel and his costar got to it, Starr confessed to me that she’s had sex with men, women, and transwomen, but never a transman. “I’m excited. We’re breaking some taboos,” the busty Cuban, who admits she’s obsessed with plastic surgery, said. “People know about MTF transsexuals, but some people don’t even know that FTMs exist, so we’re educating them and getting them off.”

Directing the scene was performer and director Gia Darling (www.giadarling.com), a groundbreaker herself. An eight-year adult industry veteran, she’s the only transsexual woman to own her own production company, and she recently made Starr her first contract performer. I recognized Darling from her appearance on an episode of MTV’s plastic surgery show I Want a Famous Face— she too is unabashedly in love with cosmetic procedures—but she’s known to porn fans for what she calls “her signature soft, romantic, Playboy-style tranny videos” of the popular Transsexual Heart Breakers series. She admits she is venturing into raunchier territory as director and producer of Starr’s new series, although she welcomes the challenge: “Behind most portrayals in tranny porn are men, and there’s a lot of ‘you dirty-ass whore’ this, ‘you cum-eating slut’ that. When I direct a tranny girl porno, I am representing transsexual women, I am representing myself. I take that seriously.”

If you’re thinking that everyone’s comments here sound more political than those you hear on the set of a typical porn production, you’re right. Everyone involved is keenly aware that they are in new, important territory. During the filming of the scene, Starr revealed to Angel that she’s a “chick with a dick” (her words) by whipping out her cock from beneath a lacy short skirt. In turn, Angel dropped trou to show her his cunt. The cameraman, who has shot hundreds of skin flicks, was visibly stunned. “Wow,” he said as he moved in with his camera to get a closer shot. “Wow. That’s a first for me.” It was as though he couldn’t believe what was right in front of him: a butch, tough, muscled, tattooed guy with a handlebar moustache and a shaved pussy. His eyes adjusted, and he panned over to Starr’s cock, by then standing at attention. Without the least bit of sarcasm, he said quietly, “Believe it or not, the universe now makes sense.”

It was a simple but profound moment. (You don’t get a lot of those on porno sets, folks.) And it was a moment that would not be possible without the courage, exhibitionism, and drive of Buck Angel. He literally lays himself bare so others may better understand some part of transman-ness. There was an unusual collision of fantasy and reality in this production. Darling, Angel, and Starr were not just making jerk-off material or erotic art (or both) as most do when they make porn. This trio, along with a tiny crew, was creating some potentially life-changing images. Somewhere, someone will watch the film and see his transself or his object of affection represented for the first time.

But before I could scream “It’s a revolution!” at the top of my lungs, there was work to be done—locating misplaced lube, negotiating how many fingers Buck likes in him, and finding a fucking position that wouldn’t kill Starr’s knees. Politics or not, there was porn to be made. I couldn’t help but notice that Buck bore a strong resemblance to Starr’s real-life boyfriend—they’re both shortish guys with shaved heads and buff gym bods, although Buck’s got lots more tattoos. It was an interesting juxtaposition when the boyfriend would do “fluffer duties” for Starr, and then the cameras would roll again, and she’d be fucking someone who looked like him but with different genitals.

A funny thing happened on the set that day: Not a single person got anyone’s pronoun wrong. Not once. Pronouns tend to trip up even the most enlightened folks when it comes to genderqueers, so I was pretty impressed that self-identifications were respected in such a “this is no big deal” way. When Darling wanted something, the directions were clear: “Finger that man!”

Erection Selection

One weekend at a popular club in the meatpacking district, I looked at cock for six hours. I wish I could say I’d snuck into a circle jerk at the Lure, but that infamous leather bar closed its doors in 2004. I, along with adult starlet Carmen Luvana and DJ Whoo Kid from G-Unit and Hot 97, spent the day evaluating the potential of porn star wannabes. Doing our best Simon-Paula-Randy imitations, we assessed the personalities and perused the packages of more than thirty candidates for Reality-X: The Search for Adam & Eve (http://searchforadamandeve.com), a new pay-per-view series that premiered in May 2005.

From The Ozporns to Rear Factor, the adult industry often parodies reality TV, and what’s more spoof-worthy than American Idol? The most popular show in its genre (more young people voted for the American Idol winner than in the last presidential election) has already spawned three full-blown imitations (Platinum X Pictures’ Porn Star Idol, Hustler’s American Porn Idol Contest, and Jet Set’s gay American Porn Star). Adult giant Adam & Eve launched a multi-city talent search to discover the hottest new couple to fuck on film. Both real couples and single people who don’t mind being paired with an unknown partner are eligible to audition. Sixteen semifinalists were flown to Jamaica to compete for a chance to star in a movie and win a contract with Adam & Eve worth up to $250,000.

During the course of our cock ‘n’ cunt critique, it was no surprise to me that we saw two couples, one single woman, and about twenty-five single men. More men than women aspire to be video fuck studs for hire, all of them believe they’ve got what it takes, and most think all they have to do is bone hot girls for a living. There’s a reason why there are hundreds of women in porn, yet you see the same handful of guys in every movie: It’s one of the toughest jobs around. A male porn star has to get hard on command and stay hard for an unnaturally long time. He has to fuck in the cold outdoors, fuck when he’s not turned on, and fuck when another guy is holding a hot light an inch away from his ass. The straight male porn star is an underpaid, unsung hero who has uncanny abilities. And he’s hard to find.

We asked contestants questions like: What’s the wildest sexual thing you’ve ever done? (Favorite answer, delivered with most bravado: “I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I will say it involved strawberries and whipped cream!”) And: What qualifies you to be the next great porn star? (“I just got an audition to be an extra on Third Watch, so my career is really going places.”) Then we invited them to show us their best attributes, and this part of the process involved guys performing a spontaneous striptease, while DJ Whoo Kid checked e-mail on his Blackberry. Carmen, taking a cue from Miss Abdul’s upbeat and ever so gracious attitude, even talked dirty and showed her tits to some for encouragement. But this is where the reality of XXX reality TV came into play: Could these guys get it up on a set full of bright lights, multiple cameras, and a crew of forty (mostly male) onlookers? An intimidating situation to be sure, but a simulation of what it’s like on a porn set.

A twentysomething dude from Boston announced proudly, “I have huge balls.” I’ve never heard any guy use that as a selling point before. (I asked a gay male friend if that would appeal to him, and he shrugged, “They’re just like big boobs on a girl, fun to play with, I guess.”) He did, in fact, have very large and low-hanging cojones, and he also smacked his own ass as he worked his tool. I just kept thinking about this one popular shot where the camera is underneath the copulating couple, and how this guy’s balls would obscure her pussy in that shot; that could be a liability. One guy told us that if he broke into the business, he’d like to use his childhood nickname, which people still call him: the Garanimal. I explained to him that Garanimals is a children’s clothing line with little animals on the tops and bottoms, and while it may convey “Look, Mom! I can match my clothes myself!” it doesn’t actually say “blue-movie hunk.”

We asked another guy to act out a student–teacher role-play fantasy with Carmen. He immediately named himself Professor Lance, and told her that in order to bring her grades up, she’d have to get Mr. Lance up. “That’s how it is in the school of hard cocks,” he said, without even cracking a smile. In the next audition, a genuine nerd—who looked like the ultimate scrawny, mild-mannered, dorky accountant—said he could get a boner anytime, anywhere. I turned my head to say something to Carmen, and when I looked back, sure enough, it was standing at attention. It was by far the fastest erection achieved and one of the more solid ones we’d seen all day. My advice to him: “You gotta work your geeky guy thing. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to get contacts or go to the gym. Embrace who you are.”

We met bartenders, cabdrivers, former stockbrokers, and a hot rocker guy with a big Delaware belt buckle and the best-looking cock of the bunch. We saw a former competitive gymnast and a New York Golden Gloves boxing champ. But it ultimately became a blur of mostly flaccid cocks and earnest guys struggling to get them up. Worse than their performance anxiety (which I sympathize with) was that too many were just plain dull. I’d like to think I’m not the only girl in the world who wants some personality to go with a penis.

My favorite couple was a perky, petite, uninhibited blonde with beautiful natural breasts and a cute ass and her boyfriend, a thick, muscular, tall guy who looked twice her size. She called the shots, telling him what to do and how to do it. It’s that kind of take-charge attitude coupled with her comfort with her sexuality that could serve her well in the adult industry. They’re headed to Jamaica, and while I guarantee they will go all the way, I hope they win too.

The Art of Anal Fisting

“Anal fisting: party trick or real sex act?” A writer once posed this question to me during an interview. I giggled, but he did have a point. Most people think anal fisting is either a gay urban legend or a freakish sexual circus feat. Actually, it can be a real sex act and a party trick, if you play your cards right and know what you’re doing.

So where does one learn the art of anal fisting? In Florida, of course. Several years ago, the Hollywood Clarion Hotel, just outside Fort Lauderdale, was the site of one of the few national events of the S/M community: “Living in Leather.” This was the 14th annual conference of the National Leather Association International, an umbrella organization for ten city or state chapters devoted to S/M politics, education, and social events. (There’s an affiliate in Calgary, hence NLAI’s international scope.) The weekend at the Clarion offered S/M seminar staples: workshops, meetings, shopping, awards, and play parties. As a professional known as Buttgirl, I had the honor of teaching two workshops this year: Anal Toys 101 and Anal Fisting.

Now, when I say the words anal fisting, most people’s immediate reaction is a wide-eyed, half terrified, half titillated “Yikes!” Take a deep breath. (It’s all in the breathing.) Anal fisting, also known as handballing, is the gradual process of putting your hand (and for very experienced players, sometimes your forearm) inside someone’s ass. Fisting as a term is misleading since you don’t go inside all at once like a punch; usually your hand is not in a clenched fist once it is in there. Gay men popularized fisting in the late ’60s and ’70s during the sexual revolution and founded private fisting clubs in major urban areas.

I’ve read and heard tales of these sex clubs, filled with hungry men, waiting slings, and cans of Crisco. Although it is an intense exchange of power between two people, fisting isn’t exactly S/M. Because it is an outlaw sexual practice popularized by gay leather-men, it remains associated with and practiced by S/M folk, although not exclusively. Yet like S/M, anal fisting explores and tests the farthest reaches of the mind’s and body’s inner limits.

Anal fisting is a rarity among women, even though vaginal fisting has been somewhat accepted. The vagina has long demonstrated its versatility, but sexual adventurers have paid so much attention to this one fabulously flexible orifice that they have overlooked the promise of the other. As a result, unlike gay men, women lack a history to hang on to like a sturdy sling, the legacy of fisting pros, or the role models to pass the skills from generation to generation.

I was scheduled to teach the anal-fisting class with leatherman and leading handball expert Bert Herrman, author of the only book devoted exclusively to the subject, Trust: The Hand Book. He also publishes Trust: The Handballing Newsletter. Bert, a fisting legend, has been putting his hands in men’s asses since I was in diapers. A true meeting of the minds and asses, the workshop in Florida proved to be a unique bridging of different perspectives, genders, and generations. In our introduction, when we talked about warming up for fisting, our differences were readily apparent. An old-school fister, Bert’s into getting high on pot and poppers and stuffing gobs of Crisco, whereas I am into endorphin highs and a nice, thick water-based lubricant.

We viewed Handball Loving, which is unlike any video I’ve ever seen. Bert’s approach to fisting is very spiritual; he sees it as a path to enlightenment and higher consciousness, a way to connect with a higher power and soul-bond with another person. He draws on Eastern religions, particularly the principles of Tantric sex. In that way, he is at the forefront of future sex, incorporating spirituality into sexuality.

Then there is the simple amazement factor of seeing Bert with his arm almost to the elbow up his partner’s ass, then later with both hands inside him. It really is a different kind of sex; yes, there’s pleasure and intimacy and orgasm, but that’s not all. Both men were transported into a deep trance, their bodies melding, their souls merging.

That night, after the workshop, I was inspired. I’ve been anally fisted before, but it was a long time ago and I wanted to do it again. My girlfriend, Red, and I had already decided to host a small sex party, a half-dozen of us, in our room. I started with a medium-sized butt plug (appropriately called Voyager) in my ass, which I wore for a while, then switched to a larger, very thick red plug. Whenever that one slides in my ass, it feels too big at first, but inevitably I take a deep breath and in it goes.

When I felt that my ass was relaxed and ready for more, Red put on a latex glove, slipped out the butt plug, and started working her fingers inside me as I lay on my back. I took lots of deep breaths and concentrated on relaxing and opening up. She eventually got all five fingers up to the final knuckles—the widest part of the hand, the dreaded sticking point. Totally turned-on, totally amazed that there was so much of her in my ass, I tried to flip over on my stomach. “Whoa, whoa,” Red insisted. I was so absorbed I didn’t realize I would’ve broken her arm if I continued to roll. I kept asking for more lube, but finally Red said, “Honey, you have a ton of lube in your ass. There’s just no more room.”

We both knew this was as far as she was going. At this point, an orgasm doesn’t matter, because the experience is physically and mentally so intense and all encompassing. Red withdrew and we relaxed. We then enjoyed some cheese and crackers with our guests.

During the scene, I remembered Bert talking about what it feels like when you’re all the way up to someone’s transverse colon (beyond the rectum and descending colon). I realized I’m definitely a below-the-transverse-colon person. Even Buttgirl has her limits.

An Ode to Ass

One look at this year’s best-selling porn titles and the trend is clear: When folks have a choice of threesomes, interracial sex, amateurs, eighteen-year-olds, MILFs, and nearly every other sexual niche imaginable, they choose anal-themed movies. And it’s not just pornophiles either. From men’s magazines to self-help books, anal sex is always high on the list of people’s fantasies. It’s one of the most frequently searched-for terms on the Web. So what is it about behinds and banging them that gets us so hot and bothered? I’ve got a few theories.

The ass has been eroticized for centuries. We can all agree that a butt’s something to check out as it walks by in tight jeans, pat gently in admiration, squeeze on the sly, cup firmly when you’ve got a mouthful of pussy or cock, or dig your heels into while you’re getting fucked. Between the cheeks, there’s a whole lot more going on. The idea of the ass as an erogenous zone in its own right is not new, but the public discussion of it is.

For such a tight-lipped little area, the butthole says a whole lot about American culture. With nicknames ranging from flowery (rosebud) to filthy (poop chute), the brown eye is full of complexity and contradiction. It represents strength and control to some and ultimate vulnerability to others. It’s delicate yet resilient, and embodies some of our deepest needs—things like privacy, trust, and power. Some fear it, others fetishize it, and everyone has to think about it on a regular basis. Talk of it can elicit feelings from stress to silliness. What other hole do you know that is associated with Freudian pathology, puritanical repression, and homophobia? That’s one busy orifice.

While it symbolizes some of our fundamental fixations, it transcends another of our collective obsessions: gender. In this age of gender fluidity and transgendered bodies, the ass emerges as a kind of neutral territory of the flesh. While genderqueers attempt to reimagine, reclaim, and even rename sites of pleasure like breasts, cunts, and cocks that are heavily identified as male or female, the ass is everyman’s hole—a source of pleasure unencumbered by society’s expectations.

Why we fantasize about anal sex reveals just how powerful and varied its meanings are. To lots of people, anal sex is unattainable in a no-means-you-are-never-ever-going-there-honey kind of way. We want it because it’s out of our reach. It turns us on like banging the boss’s hot wife, doing Angelina Jolie, or having a threesome with them both—precisely because it ain’t gonna happen.

In addition to wanting what we can’t have, we’re also aroused by what we’re not supposed to do—the thing that would shock our friends and neighbors at church if they found out we did it. We like to misbehave, especially when it comes to sex. Anal sex fulfills our desire to be the sexual rebel, to stray from convention, to be, quite simply, naughty.

Assfucking does not just challenge societal norms; it can also be a way to test the limits of the body. You can ask an awful lot of a very small opening. (Think anal fisting up to the elbow.) Those limits are one of the most popular subjects of the letters I receive, with questions like: How wide is too wide? How long can a toy be? How much can I fit in my ass? Some people don’t necessarily want to actually do it, but they want to fantasize about doing it or watch someone else do it. Gaping—where, after lots of penetration, the anus is wide open—is increasingly popular in anal sex videos and is a good example of imagery that affirmingly depicts how far our bodies can go.

When all you hear is dick–pussy this and dick–pussy that, the ass remains neglected and overlooked, but this oversight contributes to its mysterious quality. That Star Trek fan in all of us is excited by the element of darkness, the unknown, the mystique of a place where no one has gone before. It’s our frontier-exploring, cowboy spirit that yearns to make the tough journey, then plant our flagpole to mark our territory.

It’s no secret I love anal sex, in real life and on video. (Yes, I admit I fast-forward straight to the buttfucking.) For me, it’s all about power and consciousness. I think that every sexual exchange is a power exchange and playing with that dynamic is what can make sex extraordinary. Anal sex is the perfect vehicle for dominance and submission play since so much of it is about control and surrender. Because of the way it has been represented (often as violent) and the fact that you could actually hurt someone if you don’t do it right, there is a sense of danger.

On top of that, it’s not exactly something most people can just do. Very few performers can phone in an anal scene in a video, and nonprofessionals need time, preparation, and a whole lot more for it to work. That’s why, in videos, the players’ self-awareness seems more palpable to me during anal sex. It’s as if you can see everyone’s brain working: The receiver is thinking, Breathe, pace yourself, get to that place where it’s gonna work, and the giver is thinking, How fast can I go? I want to get this right. They are really engaged with their own bodies and with one another.

The growing popularity of that puckered hole and where it leads is undeniable. Anal sex represents the ultimate collision between public and private: A person gets to go inside another’s deepest, darkest place, to feel it and to know it through an erotic act laced with cultural taboos (more so than other acts). In Hollywood movies, buttfucking is still most often shown as degrading; in some gay-male fisting videos, it’s portrayed as a transformative experience. In porn, it seems that there’s some of both, mirroring the capacity of anal sex to be represented, imagined, and experienced as intense violation, stunning revelation, or something else entirely.