What Are Butt Plugs
We were driving to a new city, about four hours from where we lived at the time, scouting out homes for a possible relocation. We weren't actually moving yet, just looking, but a four hour drive leaves plenty of room for conversation, and like most long drives around that time, ours turned to our intimate life. We'd been experimenting with toys for about two years by then, slowly. She'd use something, it would feel good in the moment, and then she'd struggle to actually tell me how she felt about it afterward. That day the conversation had real tension in it. I finally just asked her directly. Is there something you don't like that you haven't told me about.
She said yes. The butt plugs.
What a Butt Plug Actually Is
A butt plug is a toy designed to be inserted and stay in place, unlike most other toys that move. It's shaped with a tapered tip for insertion, a wider body, and then narrows again before ending in a flared base. That flared base is not a design choice, it's a safety requirement, and I'll come back to exactly why in a minute. Training kits, the kind I'd bought, come as a graduated set, several plugs in increasing sizes, meant to be worked through gradually rather than starting at whatever size looks impressive on the package.
Why Training Kits Actually Work
There's a reason the graduated approach isn't just marketing. I've referenced the Sex With Emily episode with an anal surgeon before in this series, and one of the points that stuck with me most is why training kits matter physiologically, not just as a gentler way to ease someone's nerves. The anus isn't built to hold something the way it's being asked to when you're new to this. Working through a kit's graduated sizes actually trains the muscle to relax and accommodate fullness over time, the same way any muscle adapts to a task it's given repeatedly and gradually. Skip the progression and jump straight to a size that feels ambitious, and you're not testing your desire, you're testing a muscle that hasn't learned to do this yet. That's a recipe for exactly the kind of bad experience that can close the door for good.
The Conversation That Almost Ended It
I'd bought an anal training kit some time before that drive, graduated sizes like I said, and she genuinely didn't like it. Once she actually said so, I told her the truth: if she didn't like them, we never had to use them again. I would never force something on her. Consent isn't a box to check before trying something new, it's the actual foundation underneath all of it, and that's true in our marriage the same way it should be true in anyone's. We put the kit away. Not as a punishment, not as a failure. Just away.
Checking Back In
It stayed away for a long time. Life kept moving, the way it does, and I kept doing what I'd been doing since early in this series, learning more about her body, reading, paying attention. Eventually I checked in again, gently, just to ask whether she was open to exploring further. Analingus had always been our actual entry point into anal play, and by this point she'd become a genuinely enthusiastic receiver of that. So we started again, slowly, from the place that had always worked rather than the place that hadn't.
The Night Everything Changed
One night I pulled out the smallest plug from that same kit we'd put away. Instead of inserting it, I used the tip to gently touch the opening of her anus, right where all those nerve endings converge, and I teased her there for a long time. It got her so worked up that she was the one who asked me to insert it, to breach the sphincter muscle. What followed was a euphoric wave, hers and mine both.
What we actually learned that night mattered more than the toy itself. It was never about her not liking penetration. It was that we hadn't been providing anywhere near enough warm-up before asking her body to accept anything. That single realization became the key to everything that followed, the same patience we've written about since, touching, probing, real time spent, real lube, and only once her body is completely warmed up do we actually breach the sphincter and go for the deep, full feeling a plug provides.
One more thing worth saying plainly: some nights, even now, she doesn't want a plug inserted at all. Sometimes it's just my finger. Sometimes it's just playing with the opening itself, nothing more. That's not a lesser night or a failed attempt at something bigger. It's her agency over her own body, exercised in the moment, and the fact that we can communicate that in real time, without either of us treating it as a disappointment, is a bigger part of why this works than any toy in the drawer.
Safety First, Every Time
The anus has an enormous concentration of nerve endings, which is exactly why this can feel so powerful. It's also exactly why caution matters more here than almost anywhere else in this series. A bad experience can shut this down for good, sometimes permanently, which is precisely what almost happened to us before that night in the car.
A few things are not optional. First, and this is the single most important safety rule for anal toys: never use anything without a flared base or a wide handle. The rectum has no natural stopping point the way other parts of the body do, and muscle contractions can actually pull a tapered object further in rather than push it out. Without something wide enough at the base to prevent that, a toy can become lodged inside and require an emergency room visit to remove. This is not a rare internet myth, it's the actual reason legitimate anal toys are always designed with that flare. Never use anything improvised or anything without one.
Second, cleanliness matters more here than with almost any other toy in this series. The rectum carries bacteria that don't belong anywhere else on the body, so anything used anally needs to be washed thoroughly before and after, and never moved from anal use to vaginal use without a full cleaning in between, ideally a fresh toy entirely if you can manage it.
Third, lube isn't optional, and you need more of it than feels reasonable at first. Unlike other tissue, the anus doesn't produce its own lubrication, so the tissue is genuinely more prone to small tears without it, and those tears raise real risk beyond just discomfort. We use a generous amount every time, and we reapply if anything starts to feel less than smooth.
Last, go slowly, every time, even once you've done this before. Training kits exist for exactly this reason, work up through sizes gradually rather than starting wherever looks impressive. Rushing this is exactly how you end up with the kind of bad experience we almost had ourselves before we learned better.
More Than Just Functional
It's worth saying that butt plugs aren't purely a means to an end. There's a real novelty side to this category that has nothing to do with function and everything to do with fun. They come in shapes that have nothing to do with anatomy at all, hearts, simple circles, sparkly jeweled bases that catch the light, even ones with a tail attached for anyone drawn to that particular aesthetic. Materials range across glass, silicone, and metal, all non-porous and safe options, each with a genuinely different look and feel and weight. Some of that is just playful. Some of it is a real turn-on in its own right, the shape or the sparkle or the material doing something for the mood before anything even gets used. Function matters most, but it isn't the whole story here.
Where This Leaves Us
Anal is a regular part of our sex life now, and butt plugs have a genuine role in that pleasure, not a footnote to it. We've graduated to different materials, shapes, and sizes depending on what the mood calls for on a given night. My wife, who once flatly didn't like using plugs at all, is now an enthusiastic participant who genuinely enjoys the feeling of fullness and stretch they provide. Getting here took time, patience, and a lot of honest communication, more of all three than either of us expected going in. This series closes next with anal beads, a different sensation built around movement rather than the steady fullness a plug provides.
Telling your partner what you don't like is at least as hard as telling them what you do, and it's just as necessary. We put together a free guide called The Five Intimacy Truths Nobody Tells Long Married Couples. It draws on 27 years of real marriage and includes five action steps for exactly that kind of conversation. It's a good place to start.
