Sex facts

All sex facts / The numbers

Nearly a quarter of men have tried receiving anal play

The same survey asked both sexes. The men’s answer is the one that surprises.

Nearly a quarter of men have tried receiving anal play

In a nationally representative survey of 2,021 American adults, 23.8 per cent of men and 37.3 per cent of women reported having received anal play at some point. The men’s figure is the one that moves people, because the assumption is that it belongs to somebody else’s sexuality.

The anatomy is why it is common rather than rare: the prostate sits a few centimetres inside the front wall of the rectum, and it is reachable. Nothing about that depends on who a man is attracted to — which is why a survey asking about the act rather than about an identity comes back with a number this size.

Sources

Herbenick et al., PLoS ONE (2017); rectal foreign bodies, NEISS 2012–2021 review, Cureus (2023)

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General information, not medical advice. Anything persistent or painful belongs with a doctor, who has heard it before.