Questions surrounding the effects of playing with, or wearing, butt plugs tends to be a bit of a hot topic. This question was sent to me on FetLIfe out of frustration regarding all the misinformation out there. The weary web  surfer couldn’t find a straight answer to their questions about playing with butt plugs and any post they made was quickly overrun by neigh sayers and fear mongers. I feel this is information that the broader community would be interested in so I have posted the question and my answer here.

Sachsen, Germany

Dear Max,

“I’m writing to you as you are the owner of the group Anal 101. To me it seems like you cover a lot of topics in that group. Maybe you can Please help me with my question …

In Germany we got an online platform called joyclub.de. We talk a lot there, but there is always so much fear involved. If it comes to wearing butt plugs for an extended time, immediately there are those people who shout out loud that you will get incontinent from just playing with plugs.

My question: Do you know of a group here in fetlife or maybe even a topic in the group Anal 101 which covers that fear? A group which discusses the effects of playing with plugs (more often than an average person would do)?

I am hoping to find a group which is not just filled with those who scream first but got no real story to tell. Most of the people just say that it is potentially harmful but don’t give any source for their opinion.

Thank you =) for your time.” – [annon]

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MaxPrivate
New South Wales, Australia

Hi [annon],

I am sad to say there is no group on FetLife, or anywhere else, I have found that is not filled with people going on and on about matters they have no knowledge of. More often than not you find people full of their own self-righteousness, pushing their own form of morality, politics or religion (or lack there of) and others who are just completely self absorbed with their own self importance with no regard for how it may effects others.

The other problem is that internet communities are nothing much more then a talk fests (blogs) anyway and there are so many that feel the need to make their presence felt by filling the internet with random, unchecked commentary. Furthermore, the webmasters or hosts of most networking sites do not concern themselves with capturing or maintaining valuable information, let alone filtering out the rubbish. It is not within their purview.

These are the reasons that prompted me to spend the time setting up Anal 101. I quickly realised I had a problems with relying on the Hosts of FetLife to protect the information I was collecting. That resulted in me setting up MaxPrivate.net.

Let me see if I can address your underlying question directly. I have found a couple of small studies on the long term consequences of Anal Sex which have all concluded the same;

e.g. “There were no IAS or EAS defects, as well as no fecal incontinence, in our subjects.” – Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pennsylvania, USA

The Pittsburgh study is very small, so it is fair to say that it has limited clinical/scientific value, when considered in isolation. However, even a study that only included 14 anoreceptive people with zero measurable negative affects tells us there are no direct negative effects to the anus caused by participating daily in anal sex.

The following is a statistical analysis of the Pittsburgh study. When a small study has a negative result like this, it is not possible to conclude that there are no direct negative consequence from long term anoreceptive behavior. If it turned out that there is a 50:% chance that anal sex caused problems, the odds of this study drawing a complete blank is less than 1 in 10,000. If there is a 20% chance that regular anal sex had a negative impact on the asshole, the chances that the Pittsburgh study would fail to detect this is less than a 1 in 20.

Assuming that anal sex can cause damage to the asshole, we can conclude that the odds of any negative impact must be less than 1 in 5 over a life time.

However, these studies do not exist in isolation. Add to this study what we know about the behavior of many thousands of people (which we can call case studies) that show no long term ill effects of constantly wearing butt plugs for extended periods of time. Then add to this our knowledge of human biology and anatomy which gave us kegel exercises. Many of these exercises involve inserting weighted rods and balls into either the vagina or anus to reverse or prevent muscular atrophy and loss of muscle control. i.e. they help the ares not hurt it.

To add to all this, no butt plug manufacturer has ever been sued over the use or design of their products. They have never been force to add anything other than general health warnings to their marketing material or packaging. Nor has there ever been any medical report or health warning in any reputable forum on the negative consequences caused by  wearing butt plugs or other insertables for extended periods.

Combining all of the knowledge we have;

• The small studies on anal sex showed absolutely no negative impacts from the practice
• there have been no substantiated, reputable reports that link the use of butt plugs with anal issues
• you have thousands of people who have reported no problems with their personal experience
• in the past three years I have only see one person claim to have personally had a negative consequence and they could not rule out that it was cause by other factors/behavior
• The negative commentary is hearsay (third person commentary on what they heard or believed that someone else said or did).

I would not go so far as to say you cannot damage your asshole playing with butt plugs, it would just be an extraordinary case. It would involve ignoring a lot of pain that which would be serving as a warning of things going wrong.

So the answer to your question about finding a group is no, but I hope this helps.  However, if you want to canvas people by posting something in Anal 101 I will support that and if you would like to join MaxPrivate.net and invite others to do the same I could probably establish a special interest group or discussion [here] as well.

Play safe.

Max