Exploring the nerve-rich pleasure center that is your asshole can be an exhilarating experience. When you’re getting ready to debut your backdoor to your neighbors and friends, you might be feeling nervous about cleanliness – it’s a common concern. I can tell you from years of experience as both a sex worker and a sex educator, that many, many people are interested in anal sex, and for many, many people, the fear of poop causes so much anxiety that their tight little asses cannot open up enough to comfortably accommodate a partner.
This leads me directly to tip number one for doing an enema for anal sex: try it by yourself first. It may not be necessary for you to do an enema to enjoy anal without much mess, but if the peace of mind helps you to relax, feel free to give it a go, but do a trial run at home.
I do not recommend that you do your first enema ever before your first playdate.
This advice goes for all things anal, by the way. Even if your goals are centered around partnered play, the best way to get comfortable with it is to practice when you’re most at ease, which for most people, is when they are by themselves. I do not recommend that you do your first enema ever before your first playdate. Set yourself up for success. There’s a little bit of a learning curve to how your particular hole will release all of the fluid through the windy way of your rectum, and you want to be done releasing all of the fluid before you get going.
Speaking of fluids, let’s talk about what you should use to rinse out. While the most common go-to’s are water and Fleet enemas, in an ideal world you’d use an isotonic solution, which is neither. In the context of your asshole, an isotonic solution has the same ratio of particles to water as the cells lining the inside of your butt, which allows water to move freely without saturating or shrinking them. Fleet enemas are too concentrated; they suck water out of your cells, leaving them dehydrated and easy to damage. Fleet enemas can also cause diarrhea and cramping, and with frequent use, the phosphates can be tough on the kidneys – I say, avoid them. If nothing else is available, you’d be better off dumping the solution and filling the bottle with tap water.
When you’re feeling fancy, the top-shelf option is Future Method.
Of course, tepid tap water, though popular, is not perfectly innocent either, it has the opposite issue of being essentially under-concentrated, engorging your cells with water as they seek equilibrium, and also making them more susceptible to damage. A better alternative would be a normal saline solution which you can purchase as a 0.9% sodium chloride solution, or make at home with 4 cups of warm water and 1.5 teaspoons of salt. When you’re feeling fancy, the top-shelf option is Future Method. Future Method is an isotonic douche solution that soothes as it cleanses, produced by Dr. Evan Goldstein, a renowned anal surgeon whose practice caters to gay men (though he sees everyone, and has a good reputation among the other hookers I know).
So you’ve got your isotonic solution, now what? You’ll need an enema bulb to deliver it, some lube, and a towel. I like silicone enema bulbs that can be boiled for sanitizing, and a thick, water-based, glycerine-free lube like Sutil Rich. Fill the bulb with your solution and lubricate the tip. Layout your towel, and get down on all fours. Lube up your hole, and massage it with the pad of your finger if you’re feeling tense. Exhale. Insert the tip and squeeze the liquid into your butt, then hop on the pot and release it.
don’t over-douche it.
You can repeat a couple of times until the water runs clear if you need to, but don’t over-douche it. Over-filling your rectum with too much solution, or douching too many times, can stimulate a bowel movement and negate all of your work! In my experience, half an hour to 45 minutes is enough time to do this kind of quick, shallow rinses and feel well-prepped for sex. Maybe ten to fifteen minutes of that is the enema – the rest is bending, stretching, and squating to make sure no air nor water remains up inside me.
If you’re an experienced anal player looking to explore new depths and stretches (I’m talking about fisting and play with soft, wiggly sex toys over a foot long that extend into the colon) you may want to do a much deeper clean, using an enema bag that you can hang in the shower to let gravity give you a full belly feeling with a larger volume of water. Set aside at least an hour if this is the job you set your sights on doing. While doing an enema to play in the rectum, where poop doesn’t live most of the time, often isn’t necessary to enjoy anal sex without a mess, poop does hang out in the colon, so it’s a good idea to remove it rather than smooshing it into your intestinal walls.
a quick rinse and some baby wipes are usually more than enough.
Something I want to make a point to distinguish is that both of these types of enemas I’ve described are intended to get you ready for play, which is different from the standard many porn performers hold themselves to when preparing to shoot anal porn. If you’re interested in or have been exposed to lots of hardcore anal porn, you should consider what you’ve watched to be akin to the Olympics. Professional anal athletes may modify their diet before a shoot, adjust their eating schedule, perform extensive enemas and then schedule periods of rest to allow their body to re-regulate, and use additional products to soothe tissue and promote cell wellness. This is the standard of acting out a fantasy under the scrutiny of a camera, but for the everyday person who wants to play a game of cornhole, a quick rinse and some baby wipes are usually more than enough.
Is it possible that even after doing one of these enemas for play you may still encounter trace amounts of poop? Sure, but the best way to improve your odds of no mess while sustaining a happy microbiome in your butt and also not disrupting your body’s natural rhythm around when to go, is by improving the quality of your bowel movements with water, fiber, and activity, rather than by over-rinsing. Caring for your gut gives you back the gift of more confidence and spontaneity when it comes to anal sex with less mess. All of that being said, I think it’s important to be fair to our bodies – poop doesn’t live in the rectum, but it does pass through it regularly, so we can’t be too shocked or offended when sometimes in life, shit happens. Still, the better the quality of your poops, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to enjoy anal play in the rectum without needing an enema at all! A soapy finger in the shower should do the trick. Your perfect practice may change with time and age and stress and activity, you may explore enemas for the sheer thrill of the fill and evacuation, or you might save them for field day. Care for your body in the way that it calls you to and you can’t go wrong.