How the Normalization of Anal Sex Has Shifted the Conversation About Consent
What a journey our attitudes towards anal sex have taken over the last few years. From Drake and the butt-eating conundrum, to scientific celebrations of big booties, to pegging on Broad City, to twerking, to Kim Kardashian’s epic shiny rump on the cover of Paper Magazine, it’s no question that all things ass-related have taken on a mainstream edge. Pop-culture acolytes proclaimed 2014 the “Year of the Booty,” which heralded a deluge of think pieces about the portrayal of butt sex on mainstream television shows like The Mindy Project and articles assessing the erotic potential of the anus. It’s now ascended to a cushy place in pop culture where it’s become much less shocking to talk about and engage in the act of anal sex.
Data from PornHub reveals that from 2009 to 2015, search volume for anal sex videos skyrocketed by 120 percent. But it’s not just virtual fantasies that are increasing. People are also having anal sex more regularly. A 2017 survey of over 3,000 sexually active millennials shows that 35 percent of women and 15 percent of men are engaging in anal sex “at least some of the time.”
Don’t get me wrong—anal is still a major taboo in America. Witness: the enormous backlash of the educational Teen Vogue “Anal Sex 101” article—written by yours truly. Even if anal is less shrouded in shame than it once was, it’s still not something young people are learning about or talking about openly.
But there are pressing questions to be discussed: If anal sex is normalized and becomes a part of our everyday sexual understanding, does that mean anal sex is on the table for every sexual encounter? How has the normalization of anal sex shifted our attitudes and discussions around consent? How must the conversations evolve as a result of anal’s newfound popularity?
It shouldn’t be assumed that everyone is open to having anal sex just because our culture is less uptight about butt stuff. Despite the supposedly clear cut knowledge that “no means no,” I’ve heard many horror stories of women being pressured into anal under the guise of sex positivity or a “willingness to be sexually adventurous.”
Vivienne*, 23, tells MarieClaire.com that she has felt pressure to have anal sex, even when she clearly stated it wasn’t an option: “I was drunk and said I didn’t want that. He kept doing it anyway even when I said stop.”
I once had a guy try to push me into anal sex on the third date. He wondered why I wasn’t into anal if I claim to be sex positive.
Dr. Nikki Goldstein, sexologist and author of Single But Dating, tells MarieClaire.com that sexual empowerment is not about doing everything sexually. “Rather it’s about having the freedom to explore your own sexuality however you choose. It’s about having a choice to live your life sexually the way that you want to.”
A 2014 study published in BMJ Open examined young people’s attitudes about anal sex and found that the majority of young women who had engaged in anal sex said the encounters were riddled with pressure and were often painful. Among 130 teens surveyed between the ages of 16 and 18, consent was a hairy issue, with young men often thinking they didn’t need to ask for informed consent in order to have anal sex.
Mal Harrison, director for the Center for Erotic Intelligence, blames this lack of communication around consent on what she calls low social intelligence. In this case, “the desperation to have any sex regardless of the consequences, pain, or disrespect it causes another.” She describes high social intelligence as knowing the greatest sex happens between people who are genuinely into it with great enthusiasm. “This is more of a power play for guys than it is about sex. To them, it’s about convincing you, coaxing you into doing something you’re not cool with.”
Sarah Tomchesson, a sex educator and head of business relations at Pleasure Chestsays that even though there is a high concentration of nerve endings around and just inside the anus—so in theory the ass has the potential to be a stimulating erogenous zone—there’s also plenty of room for error with anal play. She notes that many people have had bad first experiences because they either didn’t use lubricant, moved too fast, thought that anal play had to involve deep penetration (when, in fact, external stimulation and light, shallow penetration is ideal for accessing the nerve endings in the anus) or felt pressured to try it.
