Putting things in your butt is fun! Putting things in other people’s butts is also fun. ;) There are all kinds of things you can put up that peach, and while anal pleasure is fantastic in its own right, anal play via fun sexy booty beads provides a unique joy that any other type of anal sex toy doesn’t offer.
Why do people like anal beads?
In a word, because they feel good! According to clinical sexologist Sarah Melancon, Ph.D. “People can enjoy the sensation of the anus stretching open, the feeling of having something inserted into the anal canal, or the feeling of movement in this region.” Plus, using beads can lead to those good, good blended orgasms — if you’re combining anal beads with clitoral, vaginal, or penile stimulation, you can get a twofer when it comes to the big O.
Another fun thing is watching a set of anal beads disappear into a bottom at your coaxing; this is a properly wonderful couple bonding experience. ;) It also gives clearly marked, clearly clenched goals to show just how much progress has been made in all that anal training you or your boo have been up to.
The butt has so many additional nerve endings that any-gendered people can partake in, that it can offer pleasurable sensations regardless of whether your parts are good for inserting or receiving penetration.
What’s the difference between anal beads and butt plugs?
Glad you asked! While anal beads and butt plugs do similar things (stimulate the anal canal), they do this in different ways. A butt plug is meant to be left all up in there, snuggling up to your sphincter muscle. Beads, on the other hand, are meant to be put in and pulled out more than once and are designed to be pleasurable on both insertion and removal.
While you may be thinking of anal beads as being like a necklace connected on a string, this isn’t really the way it goes. While there might be some beads that are slapped together this way, this isn’t the norm. The safest and best anal beads are connected by something more secure than string and are also more body-safe and easier to clean than string. The beads should also have some kind of an end that will act as a flared base, so they don’t just disappear right into the booty.
Unlike beads, an anal plug (aka butt plugs) tend to have one single larger bulb followed by a flared base, and all butt plug sizes don’t vary much beyond their widest point. By contrast, anal beads can be comprised of smaller beads than you might even predict, to much, much larger beads. They can also all be similar in size but have a much more narrow connection between the beads, making the anus have to open and close around them (this part causes the pleasure, mmmm).
Some anal bead sets have beads that are quite small, meaning the smallest beads are very easy to get into that booty, while perhaps the end of said luxurious mardi gras bead set is quite robust, making it more intense to push and tug in your or your partner’s bottom; this can create a small anal orgasm-quake.
How to use anal beads
There’s no right way to use beads — it’s really all about your personal preference. Let’s start off by saying that you don’t have to insert all the beads to have it feel awesome. You can start with one or two and see how it feels (the smaller beads are usually at the “beginning” of the string), and then work your way up. Or, in the words of sex educator Gigi Engle, “You don’t need to shove anything super far up a rectum to feel a pleasurable sensation.”
Another great tip, a la Katherin Winnick, sex coach at letstalksex.net, is to rub the beads all up on your perineum (or that of your partner). That area between your genitals and anus can be deliciously sensitive in its own right, and gently massaging it with the beads can also help you get used to the feel of the beads.
According to Winnick, since the feeling of the beads coming out is part of what feels so incredible, another pro tip is to try to time the bead removal with either your own or your partner’s climax. How does this work? Basically as soon as you’re feeling the big O coming on, start pulling out the beads in a steady line (not too fast, but not too slow, either). This will increase the sensation of muscle contraction with an orgasm.
If you like to have larger objects enter your bum, get some beads that will exercise your booty a little more. If you’d like to have a more numerous, smaller yet potent pleasurable sensation, get some anal beads where each individual bead is smaller, but they’re fitted much more closely together.
You want to make sure your anal bead set has flared bases or a loop for removal. This is critical, as these kinds of ends lessen your odds of getting something stuck up your bum. You really don’t want to end up in the ER for that — it’s both inconvenient and embarrassing.
One thing’s for sure, as well: As with anything anal, if you’re trying to keep the experience within the pleasure zone instead of the pain zone when you’re first getting started, you want to pull the beads out slowly and comfortably. Taking beads out of the bum too fast can feel both painful and abrupt and cause damage. It’s fun to tease your partner, and anal toys can help out with that, but you’ve also got to remember that the edge between “Oh, yes!” and “Oh, no!” is very slim in the booty world. Take care of your partner’s butt so that next sexcapade, they still want to do All The Things.
For extra special points, try timing the removal of your artful sexy beady bundle, such as Fun Factory Bendy Beads, to happen right during you or your partner’s orgasm to really send them over the edge with the ultimate anal stimulation.
What’s new in the anal beads world
Sextech companies are hard at work making your cock rings, prostate toys, wand vibrators, and anal sex toys even more fun with embedded electronics. Maybe your boo is halfway across the world, and you have a burning need to vibrate something in their butt. There’s a toy for that! Sex toys have been around for a long time, but only recently has the sexual pleasure trifecta of Bluetooth, battery-powered, and near-field chargeable adult sex toys come on the market.
Wondering how to massage prostate yourself? Nowadays, all for your own personal sexual pleasure, you can get some vibrating anal beads to add to the mix. These can generate some lovely prostate stimulation (acting as a kind of prostate massager) and can also be used from afar. There are lots of toys that come with an app, so your faraway boo can simply press a button to virtually participate in your butt play adventures. Ah, the wonders of the internet!
Maybe you and your partner can even run around town with some Satisfyer Love Beads or Triplet Anal Beads in one of your bums and get a fun surprise by vibrating the beads while they’re trying to hold a conversation, or in, say, a boring board meeting. The possibilities are endless.
How to clean anal beads
Depending on the material, cleaning anal beads is much like cleaning any other anal toy. The fact that the beads have gone in/around your bum means they need to be thoroughly cleaned. If a toy is used on multiple people, the responsible thing to do i s also a thorough disinfecting. Now, for some toys, this isn’t really possible because of how porous the material is, so you also want to be sure you’re getting the right kind of toy.
If your toys are made of glass, metal, or are medical-grade silicone beads, they can probably be boiled for a few minutes to ensure that all the booty bacteria is good and gone — but it’s worth double-checking. Some glass toys aren’t able to withstand the heat changes of boiling, so confirm that your toy is able to, ahem, handle the heat in the kitchen (and by “kitchen,” we mean pot of boiling water).
Other toys made from porous materials like body-safe PVC aren’t suitable to be shared from one booty into another because they can harbor bacteria. If you want to play that way, you should really trust the partner you’re sharing toys with because toys have the potential to spread infections and STIs.
If you’re in a pinch at a fun, multiple-stranger-partner play party and you just literally must share toys, you can put a condom on the toy to limit it as a vector for infection and STI transmission and protect your sexual health. This, however, does limit the lubes you’re able to use on the said toy, and getting a condom to stay on anal beads is likely to be quite a challenge. It might work for something larger like an Anal Dildomatic 5000 (this isn’t a real toy, but maybe it should be) that is more phallic-shaped and has fewer twists, turns, bulbs, and balls on it.
Another option for cleaning in a pinch is a sex toy cleaner. You can also use soap and hot water to get the various bodily fluids off your sex toys (very good idea), but it won’t get as clean as boiling.
Limitations of anal beads
Much like any other toy, the materials do matter. If you’ve got a lovely set of silicone anal beads, don’t use a silicone lube or hybrid silicone lube with that toy because it can degrade the quality of the material. If you have a silicone anal bead, use a water-based lube instead.
Speaking of lube, it’s a great idea to invest in an automatic lube dispenser or just put some in a bowl or disposable cup before starting your backdoor sesh. Why? Because if you grab your lube container or packaging after using your hands in anal play, you’ll need to clean and sanitize the container itself. If you’ve got an auto-dispenser, you can dispense with that step. ;)
Finally, anal play can be a vulnerable experience. So make sure to pick a partner that rocks your socks and makes you feel safe. All sex should be had in a safe, welcoming, loving space, but especially booty sex because of the cultural baggage that can come along with it. Some people feel shame around ass play, and you want to be sensitive to that. Only play with human beings you trust to take care of both your body and your heart. Basically, everyone deserves good sex, but not everyone deserves to put things in your butt.
