Open your ass - open your mind

October 17, 2004 9:44 PM

Former ballerina Toni Bentley danced with the New York City Ballet for ten years, but since retiring, has become a novelist. She has penned four prior books, but her latest is causing a stir: The Surrender is entirely devoted to her adoration of sodomy. Atheist Bentley insists that she's found a spiritual ecstasy in buggery: "...My ass is my very own back door to heaven" (some links NSFW & registration req.).
posted by naxosaxur (40 comments total)

Thanks for the post. Probably wouldn't have heard of this otherwise and it looks interesting.
posted by dobbs at 10:38 PM on October 17, 2004

describing her 298 anal experiences

Is she doing a study or something? I'd figure once you got past, oh, 40, you'd lose count.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:53 PM on October 17, 2004

The difference between anal sex and oral sex? Oral sex can make your whole day, but anal sex can make your hole weak.*



*Not sure if this is true, just couldn't resist the opportunity to make the pun.
posted by jonson at 11:54 PM on October 17, 2004

The difference between anal sex and oral sex?

An ex of mine used to say her preference for this kind of sex over that kind of sex was based on one thing: proximity.

(God, I miss you, K.)
posted by dobbs at 12:55 AM on October 18, 2004

I was going to say she sounds like a woman I would know, love or marry ... except that none of them apply (going by her own words).

So instead I'll just remained puzzled about her santorum.treasure.chest
posted by magullo at 3:15 AM on October 18, 2004

*Not sure if this is true

It isn't. Granted I've never slept with anyone with anything but an average-to-small dick, but I have read an interview that the bme folks did with the goatse guy (I know, a match made in heaven, guh). According to him, things would take roughly six hours or so to settle back into place. Run of the mill sodomy just results in a pleasant postcoital glow. But then, I've never felt closer to god afterwards, so what do I know?

And yes, that was a truly awful pun. Kudos.
posted by kavasa at 3:42 AM on October 18, 2004

I have so many questions, and yet no way to ask them anonymously in this thread.
posted by Meridian at 4:10 AM on October 18, 2004

OK - A beautiful, slim, toned, flexible, ex-ballet dancer describes in graphic detail her penchant for lots of adventurous anal sex... nahh that'll never sell!

As an aside, anal sex actually makes your hole stronger; as the sphincter muscles are like any other, in as much as, frequent exercise will strengthen and tone them so... up, two, three, four...
posted by DrDoberman at 4:34 AM on October 18, 2004

The anal sphincter is a ring of muscle that can be contracted or relaxed under voluntary control. Forced penetration may result in tearing of the sensitive skin around the anus or the sphincter itself. This may result in severe anal pain or even faecal incontinence.
posted by magullo at 5:04 AM on October 18, 2004

How to safely perform anal intercourse
It is possible for both men and women, although care is needed for it to be safe and comfortable.
posted by DrDoberman at 5:14 AM on October 18, 2004

Oh, I know full well it can be safe and comfortable 8?) My point is that anal sex does not necessarily make the hole stronger. It can very much ruin it, in fact.
posted by magullo at 5:33 AM on October 18, 2004

I bow to your superior knowledge magullo ;)
posted by DrDoberman at 5:44 AM on October 18, 2004

DrDoberman: With a topic like this, bending to bow could get you into trouble.
posted by shagoth at 6:15 AM on October 18, 2004

posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:21 AM on October 18, 2004

I wanted to post a link to a story featured on metafilter sometime in the spring this year, about a guy who made a plaster cast of his ding-dong and had it used on himself by a friend. But I can’t find it. Anyone out there who could hope me?
posted by AwkwardPause at 7:11 AM on October 18, 2004

Certainly, anal sex is lovely. But it seems like this book is as much about her relationship issues as her love for a particular act.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:30 AM on October 18, 2004

AP, I probably shouldn't go find the link itself for you, since I'm at work, but that was Grant Stoddard's last "I Did It for Science" piece for Nerve.
posted by blueshammer at 7:37 AM on October 18, 2004

Oh yes,

sexual experimentation? check
subversive sexuality? check
freudian self-analysis? check

why does the publishing industry seem obsessed with reinveting Anais Nin?

(And would the freudians just die already?)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:39 AM on October 18, 2004

Thanks, blueshammer, that was exactly the piece I had in mind.

Just too bad it has now gone yonder to the hallowed halls of premium subscribers and other cash-paying customers... oh well, it's better for my thesis anyway.
posted by AwkwardPause at 7:59 AM on October 18, 2004

My Christmas shopping list just got a whole lot easier to fill.
posted by chicobangs at 8:11 AM on October 18, 2004

AP/blueshammer- article here, already MeFi'd here.
posted by mkultra at 8:16 AM on October 18, 2004

preference ... based on one thing: proximity

That's what I don't get. There's a vagina mere centimeters away. Wonderful warm wet vagina. Why would one opt for dry shitty anus when there's something so close that's so much better?
posted by TimeFactor at 8:32 AM on October 18, 2004

I read about this last week on Salon. I always figured that guys that liked anal sex fell into 3 categories:

1. Gay
2. Convicts
3. Teensy Weensy Tiny Dicks

I have since learned different. Oh. My. God.
posted by Juicylicious at 9:15 AM on October 18, 2004

TimeFactor, in answer to your question, if I may quote Oscar Wilde:

Don't knock it till you tried it.
posted by chicobangs at 9:41 AM on October 18, 2004

chicobangs, I have tried it (as donor, not recipient), and it stiunk. And my motivation to try it was pathetic and immature: a girlfriend told me that she'd done it with a previous boyfriend (someone I knew) and it hurt me in my macho that she hadn't done it with me. And the whole time I'm thinking: Hey! Look! There's a vagina right there!

Plus, I'm not certain I'm interested in what Oscar Wilde thinks of the relative desirability of anuses vs. vaginas.

When I'm tired of vagina that'll mean I'm tired of life.
posted by TimeFactor at 10:16 AM on October 18, 2004

As a woman (which I am), I will just say, in an Ogden Nash-ian vein:

Anal is fine
But vaginal's divine

I think most women are much more likely to have an orgasm from vaginal intercourse than from anal--women don't have a prostate, after all, so the only things we have to enjoy in anal sex are a) the feelings (physiological) of pressure/release/pressure/release, and b) the feelings (psychological) of being "naughty" or "decadent" or "transgressive" or what have you.

A) can be very pleasant, but (at least for me) not as delightful as the old p/i/v. B) never did it for me because, whatever, sex is sex and who cares what other people think about what you do?
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:25 AM on October 18, 2004

I understand, TF. Although if you were saying that out loud and pointing (Hey! Look! A hoo-ha! Why am I stuck with my dingle in the balloon when there's a gorgeous, willing and unattended hoo-ha right there?), I could see that being a bit of a mood-killer.

When people say YMMV, I'm pretty sure this is exactly what they mean.

When I'm tired of vagina that'll mean I'm tired of life.
Amen.

(I was, of course, euphemising. Also, the Oscar Quote was from an SCTV sketch about the Trial of Oscar Wilde. Joe Flaherty kicked comedy ass in those days.)
posted by chicobangs at 10:26 AM on October 18, 2004

My copy just arrived from Amazon. It is nice to know that many of us are taking it up the ass from the White House but that one or two consent for spiritual reasons--or does she do ads for Bush too?
posted by Postroad at 11:14 AM on October 18, 2004

Heard on interview with this woman on NPR and I kind of want to read this book. Not so much as a paen to anal, because I don't really need that. I've done it, it's good unclean fun, and in my life to be kept on the occasional dessert side of the menu. But more because it was a way for this woman to reinvent where she put sexual relations in her life.

The whole 'surrender' thing is about her gaining strength through being vulnerable to somebody she trusts in a very specific situation. It sounds more like a story of her changing her whole life via a brand new experience that she finds exhilarting.

I think if you just want to read about some great ass, there's a lot more specific books out there.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:32 AM on October 18, 2004

a thread about a book that deals openly explicitly with anal sex, and only one reference to mr goatse? i'm...well, i think i'm impressed...
posted by pxe2000 at 1:27 PM on October 18, 2004

Buttsex's like superfudgechocolatetiramisuwithwhippedcreamontop. You wouldln't want it for dinner everyday, ya know?
posted by DenOfSizer at 4:17 PM on October 18, 2004

Ms. Bentley has saved the detritus of her anal lovemaking (with a fellow known simply as A-Man) in "a beautiful, tall, round, hand-painted, Chinese lacquered box." Hundreds of used condoms and K-Y: "My treasure," coos the narrator.

Well that sounds... fragrant.
posted by purplemonkie at 4:27 PM on October 18, 2004

Dooh, dooh, dooh, lookin' out my back door.

/Creedence
posted by kirkaracha at 4:49 PM on October 18, 2004

Oh. Ohhh. Yes, I have to go there, despite the fact that I'm thrilled she's talking openly about this stuff, and I'll absolutely pick up the book:

Santorum-In-A-Jar(TM) now comes with No Pulp, Some Pulp or Lots Of Pulp!
posted by chicobangs at 5:09 PM on October 18, 2004

Ms. Bentley has saved the detritus...

Yeah...see...that's just weird, that is.
posted by dejah420 at 5:28 PM on October 18, 2004

kirkaracha wins.
posted by sciurus at 5:34 PM on October 18, 2004

intelligent discourse loses.
posted by Miles Long at 5:44 PM on October 18, 2004

I thought it was wierd that she called this person "A-Man," when he'd supposedly meant so much to her. Why not a better name, you know?
posted by halonine at 9:49 PM on October 18, 2004

I'm a little bogged down in the fact that she is somewhat masochistic and traces this back to the harsh "discipline" of her father. It all seemed more natural when Lisa Palac said "The truth is, few feelings can compete with the utterly serene contentment that comes from a good buttfuck." Or when Anka Radokovic, in the essays collected in the Wild Girls' Club, experimented and quoted an infamous contestant on the 1970s Dating Game: when asked about the weirdest place she'd ever had sex, instead of mentioning the kitchen table or the basement, she said "Up da butt."
posted by Shane at 6:28 AM on October 19, 2004

By the way, postroad, Palac came up with the same comparison:

This practice usually gets billed as the most uncomfortable act at the end of a long, angry road, like, "I can't take another four years of getting fucked in the ass by the Bush administration!"
posted by Shane at 6:31 AM on October 19, 2004