Orgasms feel good. Asses are amazing.
According to an October 2010 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, receptive anal sex has never been more popular with heteros and homos of all genders. As a gay man with a healthy sex drive, I can attest that anal intercourse is awesome when done properly, and any man who hasn’t experienced a prostate orgasm is the poorer for it. I can also verify that reaching orgasm more than once in a sexual interlude is very entertaining and that multiple orgasms are possible for any men willing to learn their bodies.
Erotic romance often revels in pushing boundaries and the practicalities of intercourse. These days, condoms are de rigeur, natch. Lubing, fingers, sometimes even toys get pressed into service to open the way… Even if it doesn’t involve pregnancies or hymens, men fucking men means something singular in gay romance. Consequently, many M/M authors have probed the differences between anal and vaginal sex, and most of the genre acknowledges the need for prep steps before breaching any butt.
But…
At the same time, an oddity has sprung up with the heroes of gay romance in their epic couplings: “getting him off to get it in.” By that I mean, buggery in which the bottom is brought to orgasm first to make penetration easier after, eliminating prep-time and tension in one E-Z numbing cumshot. Through the magic of climax–poof!–a fencepost pounding at a keyhole becomes a hot dog thrown down a hallway.
Sadly, this just isn’t how ass or cock or endorphins work…
Orgasm for men is mechanically, chemically, and biologically different from female orgasm. And though each of us has our very own anus, only the XY types are hauling around that little dynamo of delight, the prostate. The anus is dense with pleasurable nerve endings but the “fireworks” in anal penetration for men is centered on this small gland. Prostate stimulation can cause ejaculation even without erection, and sometimes without orgasm. As almost every gay/male sex guide points out, penetration evokes a complicated set of sensations and stresses. Orgasm actually makes initial entry much more difficult and (often) much less pleasurable. Why close and bolt a door you’re trying to open?
That’s not to say the spooge-before-hump can’t happen (I know otherwise from personal experience), but that it just isn’t common or even likely. “Taking the edge off” reduces orgasmic urgency, which in turn jettisons many of the perks of ass-banditry. Either as lover or author, eliminating the pressure of the semen contained by the prostate snuffs out much of the “I’m gonna blow” ecstasy in favor of muscular tension and mellow afterglow. Afterglow and tension do not make for a whole lot of “ram it in me” butt-hunger, and can actually leave the bottom at risk for discomfort and damage. It’s simple logic; orgasm doesn’t dilate but tighten those muscles. For some men, ejaculating more than once can be excruciating. Many guys can’t stand even being touched for a period of time after climax. Popping one’s cork may release relaxing endorphins into the brain, but it does not stretch or loosen any orifices.
M/M fallacies aside, ejaculation doesn’t bend rectal spacetime.
Somehow, the gay romance “numb-shot” has managed to become a truism through repetition, not reality. Even male authors use these kickoff cumshots, because they’re an accepted (if unacknowledged) fiction within the genre. Recently the subject came up on goodreads and we got pretty nitty-gritty. Once the veil had been lifted, I received scads of private emails from folks wanting to delve deeper. In fact, a dear friend who’s also an author wrote to check with me because she had used a “relaxing pre-plow blowjob” in a story I’d read and I hadn’t even noticed. That’s when I realized that “taking the edge off for buttsex” has grown so common (and persistent) in M/M that I’m almost blind to it. But much as we might wish it, a quick jizz doesn’t “relax” the fuckee so the fucker can slam home the bacon.
Here’s the deal: perianal contractions are fundamental to the way we fellas blow our loads. Penetration after ejaculation is likely to offer more tension, more pain, less pleasure, and less interest for the unlucky recipient of said prodding. So it’s a terrible idea to use a “kickoff” climax for the bottom as a kind of palliative so that he can get reamed with less “pesky” prep. In the long run, tops run the risk of teaching that bottom’s body that orgasm and penetration are two separate events that are not and should not be connected. If it hurts or causes injury, nobody is coming back for seconds. To pick a nearby (but very different) anatomical region, if orgasm relaxed every muscle (especially the pelvic floor), expectant mothers would skip the epidural and just rub one out in obstetrics wards the world over. Yeah, no.
Or to put it another way: an orgasm is not xylocaine for Mr. Sphincter.
Most insidious is the idea that climax eases discomfort for an inexperienced bottom. Nay! Nyet! Nein! For newbies to the anal experience, penetration after orgasm stresses the rectal muscles because they inevitably clamp during ejaculation and the sensations are so unfamiliar. Worse, the ubiquity of Gay-for-You plots (or Out-for-You as Marie Sexton wisely calls the trope) means our butch beaus are de facto inexperienced; discomfort or even injury are more likely. Why stack the anal deck against them?
Of course some M/M fans might ask, “Why bother with realism at all?” Well, for one thing, a fantasy that doesn’t draw upon reality struggles mightily to create empathy or engagement (two of romance’s watchwords). Plus, readers who know better might balk at an author who didn’t bother to do the basic butt-love homework. More concretely, readers often mention that their real-life sexual exploration is often nudged by erotic romance. Grounding our fiction in reality makes that possible. What’s better than fantasy? How about fantasy we can believe?!
In abstract terms, M/M is a weird beast that straddles fascinating lines of gender, power, politics, sex, and psychology. As a genre it plucks at preconceptions and challenges the status quo. That’s amazing! But since much of it is written by women and even more read by women, a little extra research is indicated. Even for male authors, certain assumptions and preconceptions must be faced and challenged. Realism isn’t the goal, but it IS a helpful guide. Fantasies that spring from gritty truth tend to leave us all sweatier.
But wait! There’s more! Great erotic scenes are actions not activities. Though busting nuts might make for terrific spectacle, foreplay offers infinite variety and texture that makes intimacy more than Tab A and Slot B. Like generic insta-love, insta-orgasms usually represent a way for authors to avoid what makes sex complicated and beautiful and interesting. Geysers of semen may sound sort of erotic, but by definition climax releases tension, and tension is what keeps us involved in a story. Every man is different, every ass is different, every orgasm is different, and every moment of intimacy is different from every other. Thank all the gods! This gives the lie to ham-fisted critics who claim that romance “only tells one story” or that these books are “all the same.” When we cheat ourselves of that specificity, we close the door to possibility and power and put the ho-hum in the Big O.
Obviously there are exceptions. We are all wired differently. I once had a rugby player boyfriend who would ejaculate the moment he was penetrated; he would ride me down through my own orgasm, but the pleasure for him was at the outset–the punch–and the rest was a kind of anal massage that kept him in his climax. But that was HIM! I’ve also had boyfriends that couldn’t come at all from being fucked, and at least three who ONLY came from being penetrated. I also once dated a man who could only nut from complex rope play. What-ever! But none of them, in 25 years of an active homo sex life, in all my varied decades of slutty and wedded bliss, believed cum-cum-cumming relaxed your anus. Basic male urology gives the lie to the idea.
Think Sphinc! If you spot a handjob or fellatio swiftly “dilating” a gay romance hero before he’s humped into blissful mush, take the intercourse with a handful of salt. And if ever you feel like broaching the subject and breaching the orifice with Mr. Right (or even Mr. Right Now) in life or in print, please know that a quick orgasm will very likely lock that door tight.
Your characters and all the other beautiful assholes in your life will thank you.
Awesome article! Thank you so much for all that wonderful info — and “hot dog thrown down a hallway”? ROFL! Thanks for my first laugh of the day. I’ll definitely be coming back to re-read this one. 😀
I always wondered about this Damon but not being a guy of course I had no idea of the effect of “getting off before getting off”
I’m all for reality in M/M romance (or any romance for that matter, but M/M is what I read so I’ll stick to that). This idea probably started with all the others that I read about in M/M (follow the leader) and I have done many essays about some of them, one as recent as a month ago. I’m a believer in ‘if you don’t know something ask an expert,’ and I bombard my “sex experts” i.e gay men that I know online or in person, all the time with questions only they can answer, so why can’t female M/M authors do so to get the “straight” goods? 😀
I’m a great believer in rooting contemporary fiction in reality (obviously suspending disbelief is an essential component of a paranormal story) and when I can’t believe the reality in my fiction that’s when an author loses me.
Thanks for this great article Damon. It was worth it to be up at 3.00 A.M. this morning. 😆
Well that was a great read this morning, thanks Damon!
I must say that pic of the guy spreading his ass cheeks is so very sexy. :pant:
Hmm. Yeah. After reading much of the m/m thread where most guys said if they’ve already had their pleasure they’re not really interested in further action (roll over and go to sleep), I was kind of surprised by the number of those scenes. I suppose if you give the bottom some time to come down and then up again it would be more effective but that leaves one hanging in there waiting, which can be fun.
Thanks for the insider view of the buttsecks. :sex2:
“an orgasm is not xylocaine for Mr. Sphincter.”
This. And I seriously want the quote on a T-shirt.
Great article, except now I’m horny. :explode:
Damon would demand that you pay him for the right to use his slogan. LOL
We need a cartoon Mr. Sphincter first. Like Timer, from the old “After School Specials.” Only a sphincter. http://www.toontracker.com/timer/timer.htm
Ah, the Mystery of the Sphincs revealed! Thank you, Damon. Great article.
Now…here’s something I’ve wondered about. If the Glad Gland is so sensitive, how do men keep from, you know, embarrassing themselves during prostate exams (of the medical variety)? 😕
LOL Well now, I was just having dinner with a friend who admitted that at his first prostate check he HAD blown a wad on the table and almost died of embarassment until the doctor had explained it was a mechanical response more than anything because he’d gone a while without… It really does come down to how much of a load the guy is carrying and how the gland is situated. Seminal pressure and all. 😉
BTW KZ, I was TRYING to find a drawing of the Sphinx with an anus as a face, but it looked too Lovecraftian. 😀 You read my mind.
O-M-G. Well, thank goodness for doctors’ understanding of “responses.” (Jeez, my SO will probably set up a tsunami during his next exam. 🙄 )
I’m sure the Egyptian government is relieved you couldn’t find a pic of the Sphinx with an anus for a face. I say, get yourself a copy of Photoshop. 😀
KZ
Deprived much? Shame on you!!! Here’s something for your SO since he can’t get the real thing at home. :sex2:
BTW, that photo of mountains behind sea behind ass is SO fine! Sad to say, I’m never gonna see that scene on any dock in Wisconsin. Here, the ass (or belly) would be the mountain. 🙁
Brilliant, Damon–hilarious and informative– thank you. I’m not sure if I’ve ever made this mistake, and now I’ll be sure not to:)
That was both fun, comical and informative! Learned something and you made my crappy day a bit better! 🙂
Can your next article be on the painful/damaging (to my computer keyboard) effects of coffee snorted OUT the nose during the reading of hysterically funny material that does not come with a warning like “Warning: please stop drinking and put down any beverages that would cause undo discomfort if expelled through nasal passages during uncontrolled laughter”…because if you have coffee in your mouth, so you cannot open said mouth to laugh, and that coffee’s gonna go SOMEWHERE…
Talk about causing needless pain to unprepared orifices….
:XD: While I am sorry to have pained your nostrils, your computer, your sinuses, and your caffeine needs, I cannot think of a happier response, Librarian. LOL Thank you.
Oh thank goodness,I thought I was the only one who almost fried her keyboard from the sudden burst of laughter. Mine didn’t quite go through the nose, but it was pretty darn close.
What an excellent and informative article! The article’s humor was brilliant as well. Thank you, Damon.
Great article Damon, very fascinating. I agree that romance can be a fantasy but it works so much better when that is grounded in some reality as well.
“Fantasies that spring from gritty truth tend to leave us all sweatier.”
Amen to that. :forit:
Thank you for an educational and damn funny post, Damon. Live and learn. :cooler:
Thanks for writing this. Insightful as well as funny 🙂
Fabulous post, Damon.
Excellent post, Damon! I especially love this quote:
Of course some M/M fans might ask, “Why bother with realism at all?” Well, for one thing, a fantasy that doesn’t draw upon reality struggles mightily to create empathy or engagement (two of romance’s watchwords).
I wish all authors remembered this while they were writing. 🙂
Fantastic article Damon – thanks!
Damon you ROCK! I’m in awe. Seriously brilliant and funny. If we’re all getting t-shirts I want mine to read Think Sphinc. OMG! :bananadancer:
Very special. Thanks Damon.
Thanks for a great post. Informative and funny.
Excellent post, Damon! Fortunately, I wasn’t drinking coffee (or anything else) when I read it, for which my keyboard is extremely grateful. 😀
I must disagree, though, when you said “Realism isn’t the goal…” I would say that reality is not the goal, but realism is exactly what the goal should be. I think most readers want a story to feel real – they want to be so immersed in the world of the story that the real world disappears for a while.
Hmmm. I wouldn’t call that realism; I’d call that believability.
I see realism as an artistic style obsessed with reproducing the minutia of day-to-day existence as faithfully as possible. By definition, popular genre fiction and realism are almost polar opposites because genre tropes are artificial and largely fixed. (solved crimes in mysteries, HEAs in Romance and such).
Realism fought/fights exactly those generic expectations in favor of less structured approach. A story which “feels real” isn’t actually realistic, because it’s the FEELINGS elicited by Art(ifice) which allow immersion. That said, in general I find 20th century realism pretty boring, but believability and immersion are evergreen! 🙂
“I see realism as an artistic style obsessed with reproducing the minutia of day-to-day existence as faithfully as possible.”
Good Lord, that would be boring. 😮 That was certainly not what I meant. I do believe that to achieve the willing “suspension of belief” in the reader, the author has to get the facts correct. For instance, if a character is a mechanic and is trying to fix a car that won’t start, he can’t do that by pouring sugar in the gas tank. And if I am reading about two gay men having sex and the only thing I can think of is “ouch, that’s gotta hurt” (and it’s not a BDSM scene), then that author has lost me as a reader.
When I read your post this morning, I learned something new and that’s a good thing. And I laughed while I was learning it, which is even better. :bravo: Thank you.
This is just great. Love the topic. And the humor within. Thanks. 🙂
Superb article Damon, thank you so much. I’m now feeling paranoid… have I written this before? *wracks brain* I’ve certainly read it lots of times, which does mean it ends up eventually being absorbed as “fact” even when it quite clearly isn’t. Hmmm…
Awesome article, Damon! Can’t wait to read your book now 🙂 It’s out next month, right? {bounce bounce}
I like Jaye’s idea of a mascot too 🙂
Great post, Damon – I’ve always found the blowing ’em first idea counter-intuitive, but as you say, when you see it so many times in fiction, you start to believe it! 😉
Hilarious and informative. Thanks Damon 🙂
Great article DS, thank you. The research is just as entertaining as the writing and reading when it comes to this genre.
Wow, Damon thank you! Seriously, I’ve wondered if something was wrong with me for the very reason that I could never bottom after I’d gotten off. I only realized just now that I started asking myself that question after I started reading m/m, which goes to show that I’ve been sucking these non-factual sex scenes up like osmosis, without even realizing it.
I feel much better now, thank you!
“ejaculation doesn’t bend rectal spacetime”
LOL, Damon, you hit me on levels both logical and visceral, as both writer and reader. I’ve often cringed when I see these scenes in a “seriously?” sort of way, and now I have the science to back up the reaction. The scenes where active male simply rams it home into receiving male because the bottom “likes a little pain” bother me even more, though. Ick. 😕
Damon,
Okay, so, I know for realz that men can have multiples – although with hubs it went down a little bit differently and there might have been a substance involved *cough* – so, why is it that we don’t ever see it in m/m romance?
Is it ’cause all the womenz would be jealous?
Thanx,
Jarrah
I think because it isn’t common and I think the SKILL involved in male multiple climax makes it hard to write believably. So it’s probably also a specialist activity on the order of a fetish or acrobatic dexterity.
ALSO perhaps because female authors are hypersensitive to the “feminized heroes” criticism. Multiple-O might nudge even Butch McHunkacock in the XX direction… For that matter, how many bam-bam-bam 4th-of-July short-fuse heroines in Het romance are really believable? KnowhatI’msayin’? 😉
Like you said, it all depends on the skillz, and not everybody has them. Also, it takes time to develop those types of uh…awareness of the other person.
We only have a few hundred pages tho…. 😛
*raises hand*
I’m guilty of writing a few of those scenes. Thanks for putting me straight (so to speak). I’ll try not to sin anymore (fat chance)
Adored reading this, Damon. You sparkle just as brightly on the page as in real life!
😀
Hardly a sin, Zahra! As I say, I think we just have grown a little “blind” to them because they’re so common. And many thanks for the kind words; here’s hoping I get to see you sooner than NEXT Rainbow Lit! :hearts02: Are you sure New Orleans is out of the question?
Very educational indeed and I think I’m the wrong gender,You guys have much more fun. 😀
“Ejaculation doesn’t bend rectal spacetime.” This one line owes me a new bottle of chardonnay. My keyboard got the last one.
I had to rewrite an entire scene after finding a line at “Just Us Boys” that compared the post-orgasmic bottom to a sheep confronted with a canyon and its willingness/need to jump. Thanks for expounding so wittily.
Great article Damon! Looking forward to your book!!! 😀
What a fantastic article! Entertaining AND educational – the best of both worlds. And now along with Jo I’m wracking my brain because unfortunately I’m sure I’ve written this at one time or another. You can be sure THAT won’t be happening again LOL. Thanks for this!