The human asshole is loaded with nerve endings that can contribute powerfully to a sexual experience, if you can learn to experience it as something other than the urge to defecate. For some people, anal stimulation can even lead directly to orgasm. For others, the asshole doesn’t feel like a sex organ at all. (Alfred Kinsey, the pioneering sex researcher, estimated that about half the population attached erotic significance to the anal region.)

But what deters the people who feel the urge from getting into assplay a little further? Probably two major fears above all:

1) It’ll hurt.

2) I’ll get infected. And in fact the risk of injury or infection is real—if you do it wrong. But with patience and communication, anal sex, including but not limited to anal intercourse, doesn’t have to hurt or be a health risk either.

That brings us to the subject of condoms and lubes.