Shit happens. We all know that the anus's primary purpose is that of an exit.

Understandably, clean­li­ness is among the biggest con­cerns about anal sex. It's only sec­ond to per­haps pick­ing the best begin­ner butt toys for com­fort. When doing anal play, encoun­ter­ing poop specks might hap­pen, but there are steps you can take to min­i­mize the chances, as well as make cleanup a breeze.

---

In this post:

1. Adjusting your diet for clean anal sex
2. Tips and resources for rins­ing your butthole
3. Items to keep on hand for easy cleanup
4. Have a back­up plan before start­ing playtime

---

1. Adjusting your diet for better digestion before anal play

For starters, that could include increas­ing intake of fiber and live cul­tures and decreas­ing fat. That means eat plen­ty of plant-​based foods, yogurt, and if you wish, inulin or psyl­li­um sup­ple­ments. Of course, you know your own body and diges­tion bet­ter than I do, so lis­ten to your doc­tor and your judgment.

It is worth not­ing, though, that some fruits and veg­gies are hard­er to digest — and there­fore might be messier when exit­ing — than oth­ers. Examples include raw kale, broc­coli, brus­sels sprouts, and oth­er cru­cif­er­ous veg­eta­bles. You'll prob­a­bly want to fer­ment them or cook them with­out using much fat. Dairy, arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers, wheat, and quinoa can also be hard on the gut.

Among easier-​to-​digest veg­gies are cucum­bers, cel­ery, sum­mer squash, pump­kin, and not-​green bell peppers.

---

2. What about cleaning your butt with laxatives and enemas?

I've nev­er used either one to pre­pare for butt stuff — I can usu­al­ly feel when there's debris present and avoid anal play dur­ing those times.

Otherwise, prop­er diet and wash­ing the out­side is ade­quate for me (and most peo­ple) to have clean anal sex. Just go to the bath­room and wash the area 30–60 min­utes before doing butt play. Elaborate rit­u­als are not necessary.

Unless you're already con­sti­pat­ed (in which case, please refer back to the pre­vi­ous sec­tion), I'd give a fer­vent "NO!" to lax­a­tives for anal sex. If it's run­nier, it might not exit as neat­ly. And that might make things more… well, messy.

If you want to flush out your bow­els for peace of mind, though, I under­stand. Watch this video of sex edu­ca­tor Zoë Ligon's first expe­ri­ence with anal douch­ing. It'll tell you every­thing you need to know. The Big Gay Review's douche guide is also a high­ly infor­ma­tive resource to check out.

---

Don't feel like watching right now? Here's a quick summary of anal douching:

Bulb-​style ene­mas are often the eas­i­est to use. b‑Vibe (a fan­tas­tic com­pa­ny for butt toys in gen­er­al!) has a reusable, body-​safe anal douche with a remov­able noz­zle. You can buy it alone or in their anal explo­ration and edu­ca­tion kit, which comes with an adorable 51-​page-​long guide book­let. And the douche noz­zle, the part you actu­al­ly insert, is made of hard ABS plas­tic that you can ster­il­ize or boil— which is great, for obvi­ous hygiene reasons!

A good time to clean out your butt before anal sex is 1–2 hours ahead of play­time. Though, if you're not expe­ri­enced with ene­mas, you might want to give your­self even more time to pre­pare. Right before a date is an awful time to anal douche for the first time.

Use warm-​ish water— check the tem­per­a­ture against your arm to see if it's com­fort­able before fill­ing the bulb. And, of course, please be near a toilet.

Lubricate the noz­zle before insert­ing it. Squeeze the ene­ma bulb, and don't let go of it until you've pulled the tip out. Hold the water in for 15 sec­onds and release. You can repeat if you'd like to until the water runs clear. Wash the noz­zle and bulb imme­di­ate­ly with soap and water.

You don't have to do an ene­ma to have clean anal sex, though. Overall, it depends on how aware you are of your digestion.

---

3. Keep these materials on hand for optimal cleanliness!

With the gross­est part out of the way, we can talk about oth­er ways to stay clean dur­ing anal play. Not all of these items are essen­tial, but if you're squea­mish, they can take away poten­tial distractions.

Towel or sex blanket

It's bet­ter to have too much anal lube than too lit­tle, so I sug­gest lay­ing out a tow­el or wash­able sex blan­ket, like the Liberator Fascinator Throe, to absorb the excess.

Paper towels and wet wipes

Self-​explanatory.

Personal lubricant dispenser

If your lube doesn't already come with a pump, con­sid­er putting it in a (thor­ough­ly cleaned) soap dis­penser. To make it even eas­i­er and hands-​free, try an auto­mat­ed soap pump or Experience WARM Touch. That way, you can get addi­tion­al lube and reap­ply with­out your fin­gers con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the out­side of the bottle.

Dental dams, condoms, gloves

Barriers come in many forms, all help­ful for stay­ing clean dur­ing playtime:

• Dental dams for oral play
• Gloves for fingering
• External con­doms for penis­es and toys
• Internal con­doms (a.k.a. "female con­doms") for vagi­nas and anuses

Tips when using barriers for butt stuff

1. First, note the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of dif­fer­ent lubes and mate­ri­als. Oil-​based lubri­cant dis­solves latex, so you might want to use nitrile gloves. (Also note that silicone-​based lube degrades sil­i­cone toys.)

2. If you stuff a glove's fin­ger­tips with cot­ton balls, you can safe­ly fin­ger some­one with­out hav­ing to trim your nails!

3. Barriers feel best with lube, and den­tal dams are no excep­tion! A water-​based lube with extra gel-​like "padding," like Sliquid Sassy, helps the mate­r­i­al can glide against the receiver's skin.

4. If you don't have a den­tal dam but want to "make" one in a pinch, you can cut across the tip of a con­dom and down the side. Unroll it, and voilà, you have a den­tal dam! Or use kitchen cling wrap. Use it to toss the sal­ad, if you wish.

5. Finally, if you want to switch pen­e­tra­tion from ass to vag with­out clean­ing up first, there is a way to do it with­out major risk of infec­tion. And that is to use an inter­nal con­dom (or two). The pro­phy­lac­tic might look weird to some and decrease sen­si­tiv­i­ty. But to oth­ers, inter­nal con­doms are worth it because they're a con­ve­nient way to have clean anal sex or quick­ly switch holes.

---

4. Have a backup plan before starting playtime

If you decid­ed to stop doing butt stuff mid-​session, for any rea­son, how would the rest of the play­time look? Have this con­ver­sa­tion with your part­ner beforehand.

Using a tow­el and bar­ri­ers aplen­ty (as men­tioned in the pre­vi­ous sec­tion) can make it super easy to clean up and switch to a dif­fer­ent activ­i­ty. In such cas­es, you quick­ly take the con­dom and gloves off, roll up the tow­el, and go to oral or vagi­nal sex, with­out get­ting up to wash off.

Or maybe you would rather raw dog it and pos­si­bly take a show­er break if some­thing messy hap­pens. It's total­ly up to your com­fort lev­el and your partner's! In any case, it's good to be open about it and make sure you're on the same page.

Wrapping it up

I think, while people's fears about messy butt play are real, it's often easy to work around them. Having clean anal sex could be as sim­ple as eat­ing right, know­ing your sched­ule, and tak­ing a show­er. For many peo­ple, it is! Everything else in this arti­cle, though, is for peace of mind, so that you can focus on the impor­tant thing: hav­ing fun.