To think this “hilarious” card is actually depressing?

[Decanter]

lovelayladesigns.co.uk/Cards/Anniversary_Cards/up-the-bum.html

I have 2 DDs and hate how this kind of crap is being normalised. Fucking hilarious Layla

Stop it Kath. My bloody infuriating colleague is demanding to know why I am laughing. I should be working.

This has got to make the daily fail shortly....or has it already?

Oopps Iused2BanOptimist Yeah, she must be wondering why you are so jolly on a Monday morning.

It sounds like your colleague may not be the type you could discuss anal dilation with then?

I used to go out with an English teacher, but she dumped me.She didn"t approve of my improper use of the colon.

Dammit Kath NO. I CANNOT discuss this with my colleague.

Anal is actually never No harm done.
As a mature student on a college course with a load of 18 to 20yos I had to sit in on a sexual health chat from a nurse normally based at a GUM clinic.
Apparently the normality of anal sex has led to an explosion in young people (esp women) mainly in their 20s suffering with feacal incontinence and other rectal muscle issues.
No matter how gentle or lubricated ...in the nurses own words... your anus is an exit and not an entrance. Basically every time you "gently" force something the other way the damage is being done!!

Twas quite shocked by this part of the talk tbh. I just assumed being anal is considered so main stream these days everyone was happily lubricating and enjoying it with no problem at all. It seems i was wrong!!

THE BUTT OF THE JOKE: ANAL SEX MYTHS

theeyeopener.com/2008/02/the-butt-of-the-joke-anal-sex-myths/

Anal sex is sweeping the nation.

Once the domain of sweaty, buff men plowing each other in the corners of bathhouses, ass-pounding is now moving to the mainstream.

In a survey of 100,000 women printed in Redbook magazine, 43 per cent had taken it in the caboose from their partner.

Of those, 40 per cent liked it. Despite this, not everyone is comfortable with the idea. In fact, some people think it’s always painful and that it will ruin the sphincter that holds your anus shut. That’s nonsense.

“It hurts if you’re doing it wrong, going too fast, not using lube,” says Carol Queen, a San Francisco-based writer, educator, speaker and activist with a doctorate in sexology.

Not only is anal sex pleasurable for both men and women, but it can actually make the anus stronger by exercising the muscles. Think about it — if stretching the anus makes it loose, why isn’t it loose after a lifetime of going to the bathroom?

She also refutes the myth that anal sex is gay. “Many gay men don’t have anal sex at all. The most common sex practice among gay men is probably fellatio. The anus doesn’t have a sexual orientation, which is why it’s possible for heterosexual men to be pleased anally by women partners.”

However, before you rush out to buy a strap-on or ram your cock up your sweetie’s rectum, there are a few things that you should know.

First off, anal sex is the most likely way to transmit HIV, and it can also get you another Sexually Transmitted Infection, such as genital warts, syphilis or herpes.

It’s imperative that you use a condom, keep your dick clean and try to know your partner’s sexual history.

Second, the ass is a sensitive place. In fact, Queen says that the mucus membrane that lines the rectum is more fragile than the vagina and it’s easy to rip it during a particularly rowdy fuck.

Your best bet is to use lube, not go too fast and stop if your partner says it hurts.

Last, but not least, spermicide can irritate the rectum, so be careful what condoms you buy.

Otherwise, the benefits of anal sex are many, and should be enough to entice anyone.

The anus contains many nerve endings and, like vaginal sex, it’s a form of exercise that keeps the pelvic area toned with a healthy blood flow.

And as for those prudes who refuse to jump on the anal express, Queen says the taboo of the act is part of what makes people want to check it out.

“Anal play can be hot and pleasurable,” she says. “If only all the people who are upset about certain kinds of sex knew they were really giving it PR.”

Dammit Kath NO. I CANNOT discuss this with my colleague

What a bore! Back to "Did you have a nice weekend?" then

And Carol Queen can fuck right off with my colleague.

doctorate in sexology

LOL!

I'm with Sunny and the evidence of that bottled calamari ring misused anus.
Not only will I not be changing my views on this, I have indoctrinated DD's with same views.

What's a "rowdy fuck" entail (no pun intended)?

I've never had anal sex and don't plan to. I imagine that would require a whole new level of grooming (bleaching arsehole, waxing arsehole). I can hardly be bothered to epilate my legs these days!

The point of women giving it to men is excellent. If a partner ever suggests it or asks for it, I'll tell him that I will try it after he takes it from me. I think that's only fair.

handed your arse on a plate

I can truthfully say that I have NEVER handed my arse on a plate to anyone

What is a SPINCHTER?! Isn't that a woman who has never been married?
coz you're making yourself look frightfully silly.

Yes well, moving on....

And once again, certain posters add nothing positive to this thread but just denigrate into nastiness and personal insults. This time toward Moussemoose as she has different opinions and experience to you.

Why? Why are some people so intolerant of others? Aside from being a wholly unpleasant character trait, it is also weird.

There is a way of disagreeing and discussing without posting such purposeful offense, you know.
Hiding this thread now as I'm frustrated and bored of people who can't seem to accept others have a different viewpoint and instead have to resort to aggressive posts at individual members.

A sphincter says what?

I'm surprised nobody has suggested the slogan, or even wrote:

"Don't be anal about anal".

Having said that, and as far as my sexual practices are concerned, I'll continue to be anal but not have anal.

“Herbenick invited me to sit in on the Human Sexuality class she was about to teach, one of the most popular courses on Indiana’s campus. She was, on that day, delivering a lecture on gender disparities in sexual satisfaction. More than one hundred fifty students were already seated in the classroom when we arrived, nearly all of them female, most dressed in sweats, their hair pulled into haphazard ponytails. They listened raptly as Herbenick explained the vastly different language young men and young women use when describing “good sex.” “Men are more likely to talk about pleasure, about orgasm,” Herbenick said. “Women talk more about absence of pain. Thirty percent of female college students say they experience pain during their sexual encounters as opposed to five percent of men.”

The rates of pain among women, she added, shoot up to 70 percent when anal sex is included. Until recently, anal sex was a relatively rare practice among young adults. But as it’s become disproportionately common in porn—and the big payoff in R-rated fare such as Kingsman and The To Do List—it’s also on the rise in real life. In 1992 only 16 percent of women aged eighteen to twenty-four said they had tried anal sex. Today 20 percent of women eighteen to nineteen have, and by ages twenty to twenty-four it’s up to 40 percent. A 2014 study of heterosexuals sixteen to eighteen years old—and can we pause for a moment to consider just how young that is?—found that it was mainly boys who pushed for “fifth base,” approaching it less as a form of intimacy with a partner (who they assumed would both need to be and could be coerced into it) than a competition with other boys. Girls were expected to endure the act, which they consistently reported as painful. Both sexes blamed that discomfort on the girls themselves, for being “naïve or flawed,” unable to “relax.” Deborah Tolman has bluntly called anal “the new oral.” “Since all girls are now presumed to have oral sex in their repertoire,” she said, “anal sex is becoming the new ‘Will she do it or not?’ behavior, the new ‘Prove you love me.’” And still, she added, “girls’ sexual pleasure is not part of the equation.” According to Herbenick, the rise of anal sex places new pressures on young women to perform or else be labeled a prude. “It’s a metaphor, a symbol in one concrete behavior for the lack of education about sex, the normalization of female pain, and the way what had once been stigmatized has, over the course of a decade, become expected. If you don’t want to do it you’re suddenly not good enough, you’re frigid, you’re missing out, you’re not exploring your sexuality, you’re not adventurous.”

Peggy Orenstein, Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape

We are all getting very ANAL-lytical

Oh I hate it when posts are deleted and you think they may have been about you. Narcissistic much? Moi?

The posts yet again confirm that the act of anal sex is not harmful in and off itself - as KathDayKnight50's post indicates.

However, it is toxic masculinity that causes the harm as isnothingsacred's post discusses.

But it very interesting to see how hostile the discussion makes people.

It's not all that surprising that people can be 'hostile' about the subject when you read isnothingsacred's post.

This is the concern a lot of people have, and have been saying so since the beginning of the thread.

A lot of the pro anal brigade have been at pains (sorry) to say that it's great IF it's done properly and AS LONG AS it's consensual and there's no coercion.

But too much of the time - these two crucial aspects are not present.

One poster even said she couldn't understand why people were bringing teens into the conversation - they had nothing to do with it, and it was 'dangerous' (WTF?) to conflate the idea of teens being coerced into sex acts they might not want to do, with adults having consensual sex.

I mean talk about pulling the blinkers over your eyes and staying in blissful ignorance.

As someone with a young daughter who will be going out into the world, this sort of thing genuinely worries me. I hope to raise her to be strong enough to voice her opinion, and to be able to stick up for herself, and certainly to talk to me about any concerns and worries, and to keep the communication lines open.

But we all know only too well that saying no, or expressing an opinion or preference as a woman isn't always just accepted.

I just think there's a lot of naivety, white-washing and total unwillingness to look at the wider/societal picture in this discussion.

Anal sex is fine. The conditions - or culture - in which it's had are definitely not fine for too many people.

But too much of the time - these two crucial aspects are not present

The aspects being - if it's done properly and no coercion. The same point applies to both PiV and oral sex.

PiV done with little care causes UTIs, thrush and damage to the cervix. Oral sex can cause throat trauma and be massively unpleasant if not consensual.

The arguments about pressure and harm apply to all sexual acts. To single out anal seems wrong.

Most sexual acts can be either pleasurable or harmful depending on context and care. I think focusing on the harm caused by anal sex can overlook the harm being caused by 'normal' sex. You simply move the goal post.

The discussion should not be around the individual act but the context. Don't whitewash any of the acts include them all in the discussion and focus on the consent not the act.