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Original poster

Husband wants anal sex

632 replies

Saturday3 · 03/08/2024 22:28

My husband is saying he wants anal sex, but I don't want to. He has never tried it and thinks he shouldn't have to rule it out for the rest of his life and that I should at least "do the research" before I say no so definitely, that a quarter of people do it regularly and that it is a hill he's willing to die on.

The context is we've had marriage difficulties and joint therapy, with one of the main issues being our differing sex drives - he wants more frequent and more adventurous sex, and it's changed since the birth of our child 4 years ago now. I've tried numerous things to increase my drive to meet him in the middle more, like starting HRT (I'm 45), doing Couch to 5k and upping my exercise, and making an effort to schedule nights in the bedroom etc. But it's very "stop start" - every time we make some progress for a few days I feel like we take two steps backwards again. I had horrible pain during sex after I'd had my child and I think it really spooked me and things never went back to how they used to be (on top of parenting, and all the other factors meaning I'm always tired by 10pm which I never used to be).

If he doesn't have sex for a few days he gets very anxious. In general it really affects his happiness, whilst I need more of the intellectual connection. He is younger than me too.

Our lives have changed so much since Covid and becoming parents so there's a lot more contextual factors I could talk about.

But just on the anal sex thing, what are people's views and experiences on this?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
SimBa123UK · 04/08/2024 10:24

@EveSix I understand that there can be manipulation around this, which was why I stated 'although unlikley' after this suggestion.

The idea is that both explore the potential for actions which may not immediately be obvious and this requires that both parties review their perspectives.

Rosscameasdoody · 04/08/2024 10:24

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 08:23

It's not blackmail. That's when you threaten to reveal damaging information about someone if you don't give them what they want.

What he's doing is a plain old threat. Do this or divorce.

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OP actually clarified that he wasn’t threatening to leave if she didn’t agree to anal sex, it was regarding their sex life generally , because they have mismatched sex drives.

XChrome · 04/08/2024 10:31

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 10:14

I've never leaked mucous, blood, or fecal matter after anal. The anus is actually mostly clean, unless you've just gone. Poo is stored much higher up than the anus.

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That's not at all true. The anus is just the opening. The passageway is the rectum and is in fact where feces is stored.

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 10:31

Magicpaintbrush · 04/08/2024 10:08

I gave in and did this after being pressured and pressured by my ex BF when I was young. He enjoyed it but to me it literally felt like taking a shit backwards, it was really really horrible. I refuse to ever do that again, and anyway no subsequent partners ir my DH have ever asked or wanted to do it. You clearly don't want to do it so he has to accept that, it's tough.

That sounds really awful. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, and I'm sorry that you were pressured into it. I've only ever enjoyed it with one man in my 32 years of being sexually active, so he's probably a unicorn.

Beeboopaboo · 04/08/2024 10:31

If it’s a hill he’s willing to die on, I suggest he dies alone.

Gettingbysomehow · 04/08/2024 10:31

My husband was the same. Always sex pestering and moaning that whatever we did wasn't enough wasn't adventurous enough etc etc all porn led.
In the end I was so disgusted with him I refused to have sex with him anymore and after 6 months he left. My life is great now.

Gettingbysomehow · 04/08/2024 10:33

I have done analysis sex just to see what it was like. It was neither here nor there. I didn't get anything out of it.

StMarieforme · 04/08/2024 10:34

wizzywig · 03/08/2024 22:32

He's getting ideas from porn. Say yes you'll do the research and so you're going to peg him

This. For sure.

Hoglet70 · 04/08/2024 10:38

Tell him you've got piles and they will burst all over his knob.

Honestly, he sounds like a complete selfish twat. Do not ever feel obliged to do anything you don't want to do and he is a wankstain for going on and on and on about it.

ArcaneSquiggle · 04/08/2024 10:41

"Again, I'm not appreciating the rape talk. This man has threatened divorce if his sex life doesn't improve or if she doesn't give him anal - not sure which. That's morally horrendous, but it's not a crime. His solution is to split up, not to threaten to rape her. Calling him a rapey dick downplays what victims of rape go through.”

Threatening divorce if she doesn’t agree to anal is coercion. As is threatening divorce if the frequency or ‘adventurousness’ doesn’t increase.
If she is coerced, she has not given enthusiastic consent.
If someone has sex with somebody who has not freely and willingly consented to it, when they are aware that the person they're having sex with does not actually want this, how would that be defined?

Sexual incompatibility is a valid reason to end a relationship, and he is free to say he is ending the relationship because he feels his needs aren't being met. His 'solution', however, is to say that she has a choice: have sex when she doesn’t want to, and engage in acts she’s uncomfortable with, or she is choosing the other option he has offered: divorce.

It doesn’t seem to matter to him if she actually wants sex (or anal) or not, so long as he’s getting what he wants. If she doesn’t do what he wants, he will divorce her. It’s a threat; not a discussion, not a compromise, it’s not reasonable, and it is coercive.

I’m not appreciating your downplaying of the experiences of women (like myself) who have been coerced into engaging in sexual acts they didn’t want, and the subsequent psychological effects of this. Men who are happy and willing to use women’s bodies purely for their own pleasure, despite knowing that the woman does not want this to be happening, absolutely are ‘rapey dicks’.

criminalinjurieshelpline.co.uk/blog/what-is-sexual-coercion-in-domestic-relationships/^^ :

DotAndCarryOne2 · 04/08/2024 10:42

butterbeansauce · 04/08/2024 08:09

Because her husband is trying to coerce her into it with a threat of divorce if she doesn't comply.

If the conversation had gone, 'darling I really fancy trying anal' and she'd said, 'no sorry it isn't my bag' and he'd said, 'oh okay that's fine, I just thought I'd ask' and she'd said, 'that's fine', no there wouldn't have been a need for further discussion. But he didn't do that, did he?

But I think you know that and are just arguing for the sake of it. In anal threads there are always at least two posters that go all 'cool girl' and 'why not just try taking it up the arse, the water's lovely'. Weirdly it never happens with any other sex act. People are never being shamed into trying age play, furries or being peed on.

Look, I don't care if you love it. Or being weed on for that matter. Go ahead in the privacy of your own home. I don't care.But don't come on a website that's largely there to help women who are struggling with difficult situations and try and dismiss them and trivialise their dilemmas.

Women spend enough of their lives, particularly when young, being conditioned to play nice. Don't add to that here. That's why people get so pissed off with the 'cool girl' crowd. They can see you and they're sick to death with it.

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See, l’m not so sure the threat of divorce is referring to anal sex. OP posted upthread:

The hill to die on comment was about our marriage and the problems we've had. He's saying he's unhappy with our sex life and there would be a line at which he would have to walk away - not sure what that line is and so far we have been trying to make it work.

OP recognises that their sex drives are mismatched and my impression is that he’s unhappy with that and threatening divorce if it doesn’t improve. Not that this is the right way to go about fixing things, far from it. He sounds like a bell end.

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 10:42

XChrome · 04/08/2024 10:31

That's not at all true. The anus is just the opening. The passageway is the rectum and is in fact where feces is stored.

Show quote history

You're right about the anus. But the stool is stored much higher up, in the sigmoid colon. Eventually it becomes full and stool passes into the rectum, causing the urge to open your bowels.

You know how a poo feels as you're passing it but before it gets out...as you rightly say, that's the rectum not the anus, and if it was stored THERE, you'd feel it all the time and be most uncomfortable!

When we do anal, I've usually gone quite some hours before and don't need to at the time, and together with all the lube, he comes out clean.

Hummingbird75 · 04/08/2024 10:43

I would get such serious ick and would never want him near me again. This would kill any intimacy stone dead. I would be out of that marriage like a shot even based on his addiction to porn.

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 10:44

DotAndCarryOne2 · 04/08/2024 10:42

See, l’m not so sure the threat of divorce is referring to anal sex. OP posted upthread:

The hill to die on comment was about our marriage and the problems we've had. He's saying he's unhappy with our sex life and there would be a line at which he would have to walk away - not sure what that line is and so far we have been trying to make it work.

OP recognises that their sex drives are mismatched and my impression is that he’s unhappy with that and threatening divorce if it doesn’t improve. Not that this is the right way to go about fixing things, far from it. He sounds like a bell end.

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I don't know if he's a bellend for saying that sexual incompatibility could end their marriage. People do divorce for that reason.

Edit: Oh, now I see that you meant he's a bellend for going about trying to fix things this way. Yes.

EveSix · 04/08/2024 10:48

IcecreamWhatSandwich · 04/08/2024 09:57

I'm sorry, but you are the one being massively disingenuous here.

As was clear from my comment, I did not suggest that the existence of rectal incontinence was a homophobic joke. I referred specifically to the idea that gay men insert tampons anally.

You implicitly recognise in your comment that the claim I objected to is not true when you say "at least pads and liners".

There are several anatomical reasons why someone suffering from rectal incontinence, man or woman, straight or gay, would not use a tampon designed to be inserted vaginally and to soak up menstrual fluid.

Equally, it's clear that this legend plays into a number of ignorant and homophobic tropes about gay men.

There are several other homophobic and bigoted remarks on this thread; none of them are necessary in order to defend the OP's right to bodily autonomy. You are suggesting that if I object to this homophobia, I'm supporting OP's DH or encouraging people to have anal sex who don't want to. This isn't true.

You failed at reading comprehension so hard that it's clear you are in bad faith; you should apologize.

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I've not "failed at reading comprehension".
I read your response to the comment about the use of tampons to prevent leakage.

As someone who has experienced such leakage, and for it to have been a recognised thing in my teen friendship group where, as frequently bullied and coerced girls, we'd engage in anal sex none of us really wanted because our boyfriends felt we ought to, I focused on the leakage aspect of the post.

You didn't specify which aspect of the post you believed to be a cruel homophobic joke: the reference to rectal leakage or the use of tampons in particular. I wanted to assert the point that we do leak anally as a result of anal sex because I know this is an aspect of anal sex that many minimise. What we use to prevent the leakage from soiling, staining and wetting clothing is neither here nor there to me. I definitely did not post in bad faith; that's a really off assertion to make when you know nothing about me and when my post specifically referenced leakage.

MrRydersParlourGame · 04/08/2024 10:48

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 08:13

A rapist?? I think that's going way too far. He said divorce if they don't try it, not rape. Divorcing for this is morally gross and disgusting and all kinds of terrible, but it's not illegal or a crime to divorce over sexual incompatibility. I think a comment like that is disrespectful of what rape victims go through.

Plus. we're still not clear if the anal specifically is the hill he's going to die on or the unsatisfying (to him) sex life overall.

It was an awful thing to say, either way. And as if ultimatums are going to make OP want sex with him!!

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If the OP gives in and had sex she does not want as a result of this ultimatum, that is sex by coercion, not consent. Certainly not enthusiastic consent. Any man comfortable having sex with someone who does not consent of their own free will is a rapist morally in my book, if not legally (grey area in this country).

Hummingbird75 · 04/08/2024 10:49

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 10:42

You're right about the anus. But the stool is stored much higher up, in the sigmoid colon. Eventually it becomes full and stool passes into the rectum, causing the urge to open your bowels.

You know how a poo feels as you're passing it but before it gets out...as you rightly say, that's the rectum not the anus, and if it was stored THERE, you'd feel it all the time and be most uncomfortable!

When we do anal, I've usually gone quite some hours before and don't need to at the time, and together with all the lube, he comes out clean.

Show quote history

It will still be covered in bacteria. Your bowel lining can be torn at any moment, the long term risks to YOUR health are substantial. Your risk of STI and HIV etc are also heightened why aren't you using protection to minimise your risk?

If you want to lose the ability to hold stools in the future, or risk a rupture that is for you to contend with. You are not selling this experience to most of us, to me it is beyond grim and the idea of infection and rupture for most healthy people is a step to far EVEN if we thought we would enjoy it - and most of us certainly didn't.

You are putting yourself at risk every time you agree to this.

Mirabai · 04/08/2024 10:53

Beeboopaboo · 04/08/2024 10:31

If it’s a hill he’s willing to die on, I suggest he dies alone.

With a peg up his arse.

BigAnne · 04/08/2024 10:53

@butterbeansauce Couldn't agree more. It's depressing reading the "cool girl" comments. Gay men have anal sex because they only have one hole. These "cool girls" won't be so cool when they have premature faecal incontinence in the future.

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 10:55

ArcaneSquiggle · 04/08/2024 10:41

"Again, I'm not appreciating the rape talk. This man has threatened divorce if his sex life doesn't improve or if she doesn't give him anal - not sure which. That's morally horrendous, but it's not a crime. His solution is to split up, not to threaten to rape her. Calling him a rapey dick downplays what victims of rape go through.”

Threatening divorce if she doesn’t agree to anal is coercion. As is threatening divorce if the frequency or ‘adventurousness’ doesn’t increase.
If she is coerced, she has not given enthusiastic consent.
If someone has sex with somebody who has not freely and willingly consented to it, when they are aware that the person they're having sex with does not actually want this, how would that be defined?

Sexual incompatibility is a valid reason to end a relationship, and he is free to say he is ending the relationship because he feels his needs aren't being met. His 'solution', however, is to say that she has a choice: have sex when she doesn’t want to, and engage in acts she’s uncomfortable with, or she is choosing the other option he has offered: divorce.

It doesn’t seem to matter to him if she actually wants sex (or anal) or not, so long as he’s getting what he wants. If she doesn’t do what he wants, he will divorce her. It’s a threat; not a discussion, not a compromise, it’s not reasonable, and it is coercive.

I’m not appreciating your downplaying of the experiences of women (like myself) who have been coerced into engaging in sexual acts they didn’t want, and the subsequent psychological effects of this. Men who are happy and willing to use women’s bodies purely for their own pleasure, despite knowing that the woman does not want this to be happening, absolutely are ‘rapey dicks’.

criminalinjurieshelpline.co.uk/blog/what-is-sexual-coercion-in-domestic-relationships/^^ :

Wait, though. I was objecting to comparing this situation to rape. He is not and has not raped her.

Coercion is a different - related, but different - thing.

OP clarified that the hill comment was about their marriage and its problems in general, including sexual incompatibility.

Sparklywata · 04/08/2024 11:01

Hummingbird75 · 04/08/2024 10:49

It will still be covered in bacteria. Your bowel lining can be torn at any moment, the long term risks to YOUR health are substantial. Your risk of STI and HIV etc are also heightened why aren't you using protection to minimise your risk?

If you want to lose the ability to hold stools in the future, or risk a rupture that is for you to contend with. You are not selling this experience to most of us, to me it is beyond grim and the idea of infection and rupture for most healthy people is a step to far EVEN if we thought we would enjoy it - and most of us certainly didn't.

You are putting yourself at risk every time you agree to this.

Show quote history

💯 completely agree. I’m grateful none of the guys I’ve been with have been particularly into anal - or at least not to my knowledge. It would’ve been a no anyway.

But I’d have been upset even if someone was just insistent about it, just the constant badgering would make me feel queasy and uneasy tbh

Bigearringsbigsmile · 04/08/2024 11:01

Haven't read the full thread.
Buy a good sized strap on and say you want to penetrate him anally before you consider letting him do it to you.
And that is a hill you will die on.
See how likes it.

He sounds horrible and I think I would rather end the marriage thsn carry on putting up with this shit.

askmenow · 04/08/2024 11:02

Hummingbird75 · 04/08/2024 10:49

It will still be covered in bacteria. Your bowel lining can be torn at any moment, the long term risks to YOUR health are substantial. Your risk of STI and HIV etc are also heightened why aren't you using protection to minimise your risk?

If you want to lose the ability to hold stools in the future, or risk a rupture that is for you to contend with. You are not selling this experience to most of us, to me it is beyond grim and the idea of infection and rupture for most healthy people is a step to far EVEN if we thought we would enjoy it - and most of us certainly didn't.

You are putting yourself at risk every time you agree to this.

Show quote history

The anus is a tight sphincter FOR A REASON!

Yellowbananasarebetterthangreen · 04/08/2024 11:06

No and three thousand times no. As someone said upthread, its an exit not an entrance.

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 11:09

NoisyDenimShaker · 04/08/2024 10:55

Wait, though. I was objecting to comparing this situation to rape. He is not and has not raped her.

Coercion is a different - related, but different - thing.

OP clarified that the hill comment was about their marriage and its problems in general, including sexual incompatibility.

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Show quote history

I'm not able to edit twice.

I wanted to add that we need more info. from OP. You say he's being coercive, but it would be odd if he went right to divorce in grounds of sexual incompatibility without him trying to save things by expressing his needs. In this case, he seems to be him saying that their sex life is bad enough for him that he's considering a split.

So is he expressing those needs, or is he being coercive? Are there consequences for saying no to sex (of any kind) such as the silent treatment? Or any other negative consequences of any kind for saying no to sex or certain sexual acts? If so, that's defnitely coercion.

Coercion is grim, wrong, abusive, the opposite of love, and grounds for divorce.