In this part of the guide I will focus on how butt plugs are designed and how it impacts the fun we get from them. I hope I’ll help you to figure out at least a bit what you are looking for before you ran out for a shopping trip.

Let’s start: a run of the mill butt plug has a base, a neck and a body.

Base

this is the most important part when it comes to safety. It has to be wide enough and firm enough and the curve leading up to it steep enough to prevent the plug from fully entering the anus and getting stuck there. If it doesn’t do it’s job we risk a highly embarrassing and a bit painful trip to the ER, where they have muscle relaxants and forceps.

At the same time the base shouldn’t dig in our butt cheeks as it simply doesn’t feel good. Ellipses, tabs or rectangles (with rounded edges, please!) may prove much more comfortable than traditional round bases, especially when we are looking for long time wear. Please be careful of silicone plugs with loop bases - unless you put a vibe or finger through them, they can get squished and sucked in.

Neck

it connects the base with the body of the plug. If it’s too short, your muscles can’t close enough to grip the plug which causes discomfort. This, of course is not always a drawback - sometimes a bit of harmless discomfort is the goal. However, look above to the red plug - this neck/base ratio is looking for trouble.

On the other hand necks that are too long just stick out of our butts. It looks silly and may cause the base to dig in to our cheeks more. Wearing a tight butt plug harness or using them sitting up will fix those issues, but it won’t feel as good as a plug that is “juuust right”.

The thickness of the neck, compared to the body of the plug is also super important. Wider necks give more stimulation, sometimes to the point of distraction, but narrower ones provide more secure placement. Beginners often buy slim butt plugs, fearing they won’t take a bigger diameter and then get very surprised when their new toys shoot out of their butts like comets.

This is even more important when buying animal tail butt plugs. They are even harder to keep in place because of the weight of the tail, but even small ones can stay in place easily if properly designed. If we buy one with almost no dip we might end up playing “pin the tail on the donkey”. That doesn’t sound so hot… oh wait, is there a creative punishment for dropping it?  Well, I changed my mind.

A very big difference in diameter may make removing the butt plug tricky, particularly if narrowing is sudden. I personally prefer not to leave spades shaped plugs for longer periods of time, no matter how comfortable and non-bothersome they are for casual wear. There always comes the time when they need to be taken out and better to do that before the sphincter forgets how to let the large body through.

Body

In most butt plugs this part has drop or spindle shape. If your butt is stubborn like mine, you might want to take note of the next bit:

Let’s start with the top of the plug - for me this part dictates how easy it will be to get the plug in. The steeper the curve, the quicker the diameter grows, the harder is to convince my butt to stay relaxed.

If the plug has a gentle slope I can take quite a reasonable size. A bit of fingering and here we go! But give me a ball shaped plug and 1 1/4″ diameter feels like 2″, which is pretty much “nope” for me.

I can tolerate longer plugs just fine, but I know there are some people who hate them, so take that into account too. Do you like deeper anal penetration? Or are you more of “just the tip” kind of a person?

For me the moment when the thickest part of the plug slips through my muscles is the best part of using it. I usually time my orgasms so that I can come after that, especially if I’m using a bigger plug.

Another thing that needs to be watched for is the “exit” curve I’ve mentioned earlier. The more abrupt it is, the harder it can be to remove the plug - if you get stuck, I there’ll be a trouble shooting at the end of this guide.

As I wrote before in the article on sex toy materials not all of them are equally good. I may be repeating myself, but how can I not when so many people are unaware that no one controls sex toys when it comes to safety. Sex toys made from cheap materials not only stink hard enough to give some people migraines, degrade and quickly lose their looks but can also cause injuries similar to chemical burns. If you are in a mood for extreme sensations, instead of that jelly plug I’d recommend using a piece of freshly peeled ginger. Stings about the same but at least it’ll leave you undamaged.

There are a lot of non-toxic, but still porous toys made out of TPR. At first glance they look like a cheap and safe way to start experimenting with anal. But there are a couple of issues. First one is that there is no way to tell if the toy is made out of TPR (which doesn’t need plasticizers such as phthalates) or PVC unless you have a pretty advanced lab at our disposal - in that case CALL ME! Second: those materials degrade in really unflattering ways too, so you end up paying more for replacements. Third: very hard to clean the germs off so they can’t be shared between holes or people unless covered with a condom (please don’t use pre-lubed condoms for toys as they are covered in silicone lube that bonds to soft toy materials!) - additional expenses.

If we discard dubious materials we are left with:

Silicone

Only flexible material used in sex toy industry that is both completely body-safe and easy to disinfect. It is also not unlike Tolkien’s elves, immortal unless somebody kills it (so keep your pets away). Depending on shore hardness silicone butt plugs can be more or less squishy but they are usually far from “jellies”. Silicone quickly warms us to body temperature. Because of the two former features silicone butt plugs can be less “noticeable” after insertion.

Another aspect in which silicone toys differ from one another is finish from shiny smooth (some Tantus stock) to velvety (e.g. most Fun Factory). That of course has impact on how the toy retains lube and how much drag it creates when used. Luckily silicone toys are compliant with not only water based but also oil based lubes. That last bit is very important to me. As a person with an Extremely Stubborn Butt™ I frequently need that extra slippery feeling the addition of coconut oil can provide.

There used to be an ironclad rule of not mixing silicone lubes and silicone toys together but right now things aren’t as clear cut. There are plenty of exceptions, lube-toy duos that work together without any damage. If you are bent on using silicone lube with your silicone toy (because you need the durability, because you want to do it under water…) you can do a patch test with a small bit of lube on the base of the toy (much like testing new cosmetics on your skin). If there is a bad reaction the surface will get gummy quickly but you’ll be able to scrape it off with a fingernail. In this case don’t use that combo!

Because of slight material give silicone butt plugs are great for double penetration. More so if they are paired with a glass or metal vaginal dildo. My body has a one hard toy at the time policy - even a plug with 1″ diameter and 1 1/2″ dildo can feel bruising if at least one of them isn’t malleable.

Please don’t be fooled by tones of TPR sold as silicone! It shouldn’t be used with oil or silicone based lubes, it’s porous and it can degrade. Just because it’s opaque doesn’t mean anything. When in doubt, flame test.

Glass

Hard and quite heavy, which makes it more stimulating. Glass retains temperature longer than silicone, allowing us to experiment - do we want it soothingly cool, shockingly frosty, or relaxingly warm (let’s leave burning hot out)?

Due to its smoothness glass requires less lube than silicone and can be easier to take for a beginner. What’s even better you can use silicone based lubes with glass to reduce unpleasant friction even more. That’s why it was with a combination of fingering and glass toys that I first experienced quality anal penetration.

Another thing that should be mentioned is fetishistic potential of glass. With toys wide enough one can practically look inside your body. Just like that, you are wide open and you can’t hide anything.

Artisanal glass butt plugs make great gifts (provided we know the size and shape our giftee wants). They are unique, can be custom made to our specifications. Also knowing that the majority of the profit will go to the artist who designed and made the product and not to an army of middle-men is a nice bonus.

 

 

Stainless steel

Just as hard and smooth as glass but heavier and more resistant to temperature changes. That makes stainless steel very stimulating while also keeping it as a good candidate for long time wear.

While superb this material isn’t cheap and we should remain wary of cheap knock-offs that are advertised as stainless steel when they are neither stainless nor steel and in some cases not even metal. Pits, discoloration, jagged edges? None of those things has any place on a sex toy. It’s best toy buy from places that guarantee quality, genuine products if we don’t want to be left with an empty wallet and a plug that we can use safely only as a paperweight.

The best example of high quality stainless plug makers is n-joy. While their shapes might be less than ideal for my stubborn butt (but lots of people love them) their quality control is flawless. I’ve even seen them fix products scratched by users free of charge.

Ceramic

Unfortunately still not very popular, apart from Ceramix line from Pipedream, and small artisan companies. A bit lighter than glass, some ceramic plugs can be filled with water which supposedly makes temperature play easier but also lets us play with weight a bit. Ceramic is sealed with glaze that makes it body-safe and non-porous.

Wood

Light, quick to warm but stiff and smooth wood can give unique sensations as a butt plug material. However, it needs to properly sealed to be used in that way. Know how a glass of water can damage antique furniture? Same goes for moisture and improperly sealed wooden sex toys.

Unfortunately I don’t have enough knowledge to recommend anything besides Nobessence right now. I hope to expand this section soon.

Hard plastic

I didn’t leave out this material only because of Dorcel’s rattle plugs (let’s forget their actual name, shall we?) and this little set (expensive and some reviewers say badly made but so similar to original Young’s!). Hard plastic is light, quick to warm and conducts vibration beautifully but I feel it ‘s best suited to bullet vibes and not as a butt plug material. Maybe if I had a prostate I’d sing a different tune.

Avoid using “PU coated” toys anally as they can stain.

 

This would be all when it comes to popular and safe butt plug materials. Next week we tackle shape.

 

I’ve explored my g-spot because others told me I’d have fun. And I had. A lot of it. But my ass? That I’ve discovered on my own.

It started with fantasies about medical procedures - growing up without quality sex ed this was the most fitting narrative for my instinctively felt desires. Medical Encyclopedia was my porn before I even knew porn existed.

It soon escalated to some experimentation, experiencing my first orgasm out of the blue and finally cottoning on what those “weird thoughts” were about. Later came the time of bad fan fiction and even worse commercially published erotica. The time of making my own anal beads and the time of hiding school supplies in the drawer under the bed.

Luckily it didn’t take long before I came upon enough information to put a stop to molesting my brushes and pens. Before I managed to do any damage swallowing something the other way around, I turned my interest to mainstream, vanilla sex toys. Unfortunately as it was almost 13 years ago, in my effort to be “normal” I picked what “should” give me pleasure - toxic jelly rabbits.

Changing the contents of my “sex drawer” didn’t however change anything that happened in my head. While I rabbited semi happily (“That burning sensation in my pussy during penetration isn’t normal? Huh?! It’s been there for years”) my fantasies still orbited around butt stuff. Slowly I started to accept that and let my turn ons guide my next purchases.

I quickly discovered an obstacle - nobody told me about the Great Divide between what happened in my head and in the stories I was reading and what my body was able to take. My butt proved to be extremely stubborn. It’s a testament to my anal fixation that I didn’t let lost money and accumulating unusable toys discourage me. Instead I continued my exploration, finally gaining skills and knowledge necessary for butt fun.

One of my better discoveries on that journey were butt plugs. Of course those I bought at first were either too large or badly designed or both. When I finally learned what works for my butt and how to work with it, butt plugs became one of my favorite kinds of sex toys. I may not use them as frequently as my g-potters and certainly not as often as my clit toys, but whenever I want more than a simple means to get off and get on with life, I reach for a butt plug.

This article has been hibernating, growing and metastasizing in the drafts for months. What you are reading now it’s just a preface and a table of contents. Now that I have everything down, let’s start putting it up. Instalments will go live every couple of days.

1. Silicone, glass, steel - what are good butt plugs made of?
2. The shape of the plug - safety, comfort and stimulation
3. Making plugs more interesting - cool features and where to get them
4. Incorporating butt plugs into your erotic play
5. Butt plug troubleshooting.