Not there! Or is that where? Why is male anal play still so taboo?

Anal sex is nothing new. The first information about its practice dates back to ancient Babylon, about 2300 BC. The Babylonians were extremely passionate and managed to change sexual partners on a daily basis, regardless of their gender. Sexual orientation did not play a role for them, they were all essentially bisexual. This made anal sex normal in their society.

Sexual desire and its fulfillment regardless of gender can be found subsequently in antiquity. Ancient Greece and Rome were cultures in which the concept of heterosexuality and homosexuality did not exist. Sex and sexual roles were not based on sex (gender) but on social status. Whether a person was a penetrator or penetrated depended on his place in society and his age.

"In ancient Greece, Rome and early modern Europe, sex between two men was understood differently [than today]. Sexuality at that time was seen as a question of hierarchy, not intimacy," explains sociologist and sexologist Sarah Lancon. "Sex was something that the person with the better status did to the person with the worse status." However, it wasn't just anal sex between men that was the order of the day, but also with different-sex couples. "When a man had sex with a woman - whether a wife or a prostitute - anal intercourse was still relevant. It was, after all, a contraceptive method," Lancon says.

Jesus, you're not allowed in the ass!

A change in attitude toward sex came with Christianity. It was drastic and, thanks to the spread of the Bible, fast. St Paul of Tarsus, otherwise known as the Apostle Paul, the guy whose influence saw Christianity spread massively among the pagans, had a hand in it. He was one of the most important writers of the New Testament and had a lot of views on sex. And he didn't hesitate to share them. He promoted celibacy and sex was only for procreation, everything else was yuck. So no anal.

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As the Christian church became more powerful and Paul's teachings spread, nonprocreative sex became more and more taboo. Which lasted practically until the 20th century. The church, of course, couldn't see right into people's bedrooms, but it could scare, threaten and intimidate. And it virtually erased the subject of anal sex from history (or evidence of it). Did people have sex up the ass? Apparently. Is it written about in the annals of history? Absolutely not. Well, until the 20th century.

Kinsey and the sexual revolution

The taboo of sex in European/Western society began to recede a century ago. And with it, the taboo of anal sex. We're talking about sexual revolutions. One lesser known one was in the 1920s, the more well-known one in the 1960s. But the turning point for the debate about sex (and anal frolicking) was Alfred Kinsey' s survey - a scientific and statistical description of the sexual experiences of the population of the time. Kinsey published the results of the survey and made a mega-buzz about it. He found, among other things, that 11% of married men had ever had anal sex (either once or repeatedly), 36% of men had experienced orgasm during sex with a man, and 50% of men had had sex outside of marriage. For women, the figures were 13% for same-sex sex and 26% for sex outside marriage.

By publishing the research, Kinsey has both outraged and educated. He began to talk about sex in a straightforward, moral-free way. He was describing what people do. And in doing so, he extremely detaboo'd sex, including anal sex, for his time.

The taboo of filth

But in spite of all the scientific knowledge, the third sexual revolution we are probably going through right now, and the ability of modern society to talk about sex and intimacy, anal play and sex are still taboo. One of the reasons for this is the taboo of the ass itself. Or rather, the taboo of defecation. We shield ourselves from anything related to excrement. Pooping is natural, common, necessary, healthy and normal, yet we want nothing to do with it. To associate the sexual with the "ho*n" is so conceptually totally unacceptable to a lot of people. Anal sex is therefore disgusting, dirty, disgusting.

Except it's not. I mean, if you wash yourself. Sure, the ass is for excretion, but it's washable. Just like all other organs and body parts that can give sexual pleasure. Penis, vulva, vagina and maybe even ears. Every penis owner knows that if you don't wash it for a while, it's disgusting. The same is true of the entire human body - without personal hygiene, a man becomes repulsive and you don't want to associate sexuality with him at all.

So a clean ass is no more disgusting than other parts of the body. Moreover, if you have a proper diet, there is almost no work with hygiene. With enough fiber and fluids, you will naturally be very clean inside as well, so to speak. In the rectum, that is. Then when you go to the toilet, you defecate easily and your body gets rid of practically everything. Then if you want to be sure and maximally clean, you can flush. There are a number of aids and a number of instructions for this. Just google it. Just be careful - you can overdo it with hygiene.

The rape of masculinity

Moving past the hygiene issue, you're left with perhaps the biggest taboo of all, the belief that sticking something up your bum is degrading. My colleague describes this phenomenon as "the rape of masculinity". Men are dominant, men must be superior. To shove something up someone's ass is to humiliate them, to make them a "girl", to hurt their masculinity, to damage their identity, to devalue their worth. According to many.

This belief goes hand in hand with the perception of anal sex as something only gay men do. And a society steeped in homophobia then condemns the practice. Or is it the other way around? Gay men are bad because they practice that "filthy, impure, unreproductive and degrading" anal sex? I think rather B is correct. Getting penetrated "like a girl" is not appropriate for a guy. Ugh, sticking your penis up someone's ass, filthy filth - that is, until it's some voluptuous chick's ass, then many heterosexual men change their minds and want to get their hands on her.

Is it fear and insecurity about their own identity? Absolutely. Is there a fragile masculinity? Absolutely! Yet in my circle of friends and acquaintances, it's the gay men - specifically those who prefer the receiving role in anal sex - who are the most confident about their male identity. They have no problem being satisfied anally, and they have no problem talking about it happily. Maybe that's where gay men have an advantage - anal sex is expected and no one is surprised (what surprises people more is that some gay men don't like anal sex). Heterosexual men, on the other hand, are afraid that if they try anal play, it makes them gay. Yet sexual orientation is about who a person is attracted to, not how they enjoy sex.

Shall we say goodbye to the taboo?

It's a vicious cycle. The taboo of anal play leads to men (especially straight men) being afraid of it and not wanting to try it. Or they're ashamed of it and don't talk about it, which in turn leads to it being taboo. So the anal discussion is led by gay men, which leads some to think that sticking something up your ass is exclusively a homo thing, and because they think homo is a no go, they don't want to try it. But its a shame. We gays can keep this sensual pleasure to ourselves.

On the other hand, those who have realized that it's their body, their pleasure, and their decision, know how pleasurable anal teasing can be.