People are shy about their buttholes. Maybe you’re giggling while you’re reading this. (If so: please grow the fuck up!) Talking about pooping feels more stigmatized than talking about (heterosexual) sex. But if you want to talk about anal? It’s permeated the culture and become a sex advice column staple, but in practice? Forget it. Cue the gasps and pearl-clutching from any number of straight people, who love to pretend they would never partake.
There’s still a fair amount of stigma around our assholes—the region is shrouded in a bit of mystery. And while that may sound funny, it actually has real-life consequences. If we don’t include anal in sexual health and education, for example, then people may be led to unsafe sex practices. Many men actively fear putting something inside of their anuses—sometimes, out of a fear it will “make them gay,” which also makes medical care around the prostate more difficult. (Prostate cancer—commonly detected with a digital rectal examination, otherwise known as a doctor putting their finger up your ass—is the most common cancer found in men.)
Ironically, all of this mystery actually makes the asshole ideal territory for the beauty and wellness industries. For decades, brands have exploited (primarily women’s) insecurities around every imaginable region of the body, from the neck to the lower stomach, the backs of one’s thighs to the feet. There are even brands, like Summer’s Eve, designed to make women feel badly about the scent of their vaginas.
So it was no wonder, then, that we’d finally end up on the asshole. There is a range of new players in this arena claiming to improve your backdoor in some way. Chief among them is Pure For Men, a wellness company that sells fiber supplements and an array of products including wipes and anti-odor creams marketed for anal play. Or, there’s aptly named upstart Tushy, which democratized the bidet and (according to a brand representative) is enjoying a whopping 500 percent growth in sales year over year.
It seems only logical, then, that revamping anal douching for our wellness age would be the appropriate next step. (For the uninitiated, that’s using liquid to clean out your rectum—it’s common prep before anal sex.) Enter Future Method, created by Dr. Evan Goldstein, who has become something of an anal authority through his New York practice, Bespoke Surgical, a proctology practice that focuses on sexual wellness for gay men. Dr. Goldstein was compelled to launch his own douching system, he says, after encountering so many patients who experienced “trauma” from preparation.
“When you’re using tap water or an enema, what winds up happening is the mucosa of the inside starts to strip. The water basically washes off the protective layer of the skin, which now becomes raw and receptive to injury, like cuts, hemorrhoids, or STIs,” he says. If you’re taking your supplements and you have a balanced diet, Dr. Goldstein says, you can limit the amount of trauma brought on by over-douching.
But whether you’re over-douching or douching extremely often (lucky you!), Dr. Goldstein ultimately decided that his first plan of attack was to change out the harsh tap water being used in douches. He worked with a team of researchers and professionals to create an over-the-counter solution that was gentler on the rectum, therefore helping to preserve the mucus lining that keeps things healthy and intact. The Future Method Disposable Isotonic Wash is now the “first of its kind, doctor-developed formula” designed for douching, with ingredients like citric acid and licorice extract that aim to calm and soothe the area before sex.
The Wash can be ordered with an accompanying douche bulb, the piece that determines how much liquid gets used. It might seem almost comically small when compared to what else is out there, given that it’s about half the size of other brands. This would ring alarm bells for many who are into heavier anal play—someone who might may skip the bulbs altogether to use what’s called a “shower shot,” or a hose that hooks up to their bathroom plumbing, to deliver a powerful and deep-cleaning burst of water. No matter what level you’re playing at, though, many of us are all-too-familiar with the horror that comes after realizing the water still isn’t running clear—no matter how many times you douche. Unfortunately, Dr. Goldstein says, we don’t need very much water at all, and our “deep clean” mentality is exactly the problem.
Biologically speaking, run-of-the-mill anal sex should be easy to accomplish “mess-free” after a simple bowel movement. If you’re unsure, one time douching should really do the trick. Instead, he meets guys who do an “extra douche or two,” only to realize they’ve accidentally stimulated the bowels, thus starting completely from scratch.
The insecurities and bad habits that accompany anal play are, he points out, rooted in societal stigma. “We’ve been brought up in a culture where you need to be super, super clean—and this area is considered dirty,” he says. “In turn, so many people are over-doing it, which is causing so much harm.”
Eradicating some of this stigma was at the heart of the CBD and marijuana wellness brand Foria’s mission when they set out to create dedicated products for use with the backdoor. “Anal sex has been stigmatized for a while, so we thought: how do we un-shame?” asks Kiana Reeves, the brand’s Chief Educator. “How do we incorporate this important part of the body and sexual relating in ways that’s informative or pleasurable to enhance people’s experiences?”
One way Foria did so was by listening to their gay consumers. The brand received a whole host of testimonials from gay men that their Natural Arousal Lube with THC—a pre-play oil that’s meant to stimulate the genitals—was also being used as a “natural alternative to poppers.” Gay men were finding ways to insert the oil into their anuses, rather than only use it topically as the label advised. So, Foria found a way to deliver it as a solid capsule (by mixing it with shea butter) so that people looking for a more receptive anal experience could administer THC as a suppository instead. It works by slowly dissolving over time, delivering a concentrated dose of cannabinoids to the rectum, relieving the muscles and releasing pelvic floor tension, making for a much more...open experience. Let me say that this stuff is a legitimate game changer. The high, Reeves says, is mainly localized—aka, your asshole is stoned, not your brain. So far, the product has been well received by the brand’s audience; Reeves says it opened to good sales, and it enjoys five-star reviews on the brand’s website.
But there’s a fine line between eradicating stigma and creating more of it. Some brands looking to capitalize on all this anal talk have done so with an approach that’s all-too-familiar for any gay man scanning the “LGBT magazines” in the ‘00s. All over, six-packed, semi-naked men have been advertising products that promise to deliver “clean” smells or “brighten” anuses that may be any shade other than pink.
For example, Pinkbooty’s “Lightening Cream” and “Gold Booty Scrub” have started being advertised by an array of gay influencers on Instagram. The product’s promises, according to the brand website, include the “brightening” of the asshole—presumably resulting in a “pink booty.” A full list of ingredients for the products was not disclosed on the brand’s website. Anal bleaching, as it’s known, can be a complicated thing to administer properly at home, and can sometimes result in irritation, burning, and over-lightening. Dr. Goldstein, for his part, does not recommend at-home bleaching. “It can get very blotchy,” he says. “And, whenever someone does bleaching or is using creams, we recommend they refrain from intercourse for about seven to 10 days.” Such instructions, if necessary, were not available on Pinkbooty’s website.
Then, of course, there’s the other problem with anal bleaching: how much of the practice is caught up with skin lightening creams, which have come under fire recently for being intrinsically racist, relying on white, Eurocentric beauty ideals. Between smell, cleanliness, and even hairiness down there—we already have enough to contend with. Now you’re telling us that our assholes are the wrong color, too?
Then there’s Studio Ready, which initially came to fame with a “Hot Coffee Scrub” that promised to “make eating ass more enjoyable.” The brand’s tagline seems to say it all: “Sit on his face with confidence.” Most of their products are heavily scented in food flavors (chocolate, coffee, or mint) and focus on cleansing or exfoliating the area for a pristine playtime scenario. Each product is accompanied by very compelling photography, mostly of bare, round, white butts. Choosing exfoliants for delicate parts of the body can be tricky—small and spherical exfoliators are essential for safe application since they glide across the skin, whereas larger granules (like walnut seeds or coffee) can sometimes cause micro-tears or irritation. These are, of course, not ideal things to experience before anal play.
Still, a friend passed me a jar of the Coffee Scrub and swore that it was keeping him confident before bottoming. The super-fragrant product washed away any concerns he had that he might smell “dirty” down there, and his confidence translated to a great time in the sack. And I wasn’t about to burst his bubble when somebody else was breaking his back, you know?
The foray into anal care is definitely an interesting one to watch. On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see more education and information in the world, thus empowering consumers to feel better about their experiences, whether that’s with pooping or sexual pleasure. It’s also great to see more brands emerge that are either centering or listening to their LGBTQ+ consumers.
On the other, this is still a story about beauty and wellness experts marketing products to us that, technically, we don’t need. And the only way to convince us we need something is by presenting us with a problem we didn’t know we had.
So if you now find yourself wondering: Does my anus not taste good? Does it not smell good? Does it need to be pinker? Do I need to be waxing? Am I over-douching? May I offer you some unsolicited advice about your asshole: Don’t be anal, just enjoy anal—no purchase necessary.
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