Frequently, I’m invited to appear on TV and radio programs to discuss topics of sex and sexuality. Before each show, as the microphone is hooked up and the engineers make their routine adjustments, the host or producer and I go over the usual details—the format, the timing, which camera to look into, my upcoming events—and the things I can and can NOT say. Some shows are “penis-vagina” shows—I can’t say “cock” or “pussy.” “Fuck” is almost always verboten, so I have all sorts of nifty double entendres up my sleeve to compensate. Even certain brand names may be off limits, due to sponsorship agreements.

Then there’s the butt issue.

I’m often told in no uncertain terms that there’s to be no backdoor talk at all. Strap-ons? Beyond the pale! While hosts and producers may actually want to address anal play, the gag order usually comes down from the big suits on the upper floor fearful of offending the mighty corporate sponsors.

“Ifs” and “ands” are okay, but NO butts! Especially not guy butts. It seems that openly talking about men’s prostate pleasure is worse than discussing crimes against humanity. We can talk about the relative merits of sex machines, bondage technique, or how to score a threesome, but not anal. That’s three less holes for a good threesome to bang up.

Disappointing isn’t it?

So what’s with the ass taboo?

When it comes down to it, we are still a tight-assed, anally retentive culture with repulsion-attraction compulsion issues around all sorts of bodily functions. Sexual and digestive functions pretty much top that hit parade.

There’s a lot of cultural baggage and misinformation about sex, and when it comes to anal sex, that baggage exceeds the allotted airline limits. Like assholes, everyone has sexual hang-ups and misguided ideas. Unlike assholes however, we can get rid of misinformation, and that’s a good thing.

Speaking of dumb data, asinine behaviors and beliefs abound. Here is some anal action B.S. that will make a pleasure deprived ass out of you if you believe in them. And someone out there, tragically, did believe in them.

Midori says, “You might be a dumb-ass if…
• Use a lightbulb as a butt plug.
• Decide lube is for sissies.
• Use Bengay, Tiger Balm, transmission fluid, Vick’s Vapo-Rub or liquid latex as lube.
• Don’t read labels, only to find your mutual “parts” rubbed raw, and subsequently discover “pumice” listed as an ingredient in the foot care cream you subbed for the lube you ran out of but forgot to replace.
• Think a broom handle is a butt toy.
• Think a guy is gay because he likes butt sex.
• Think a guy is straight because he doesn’t like butt sex.
• Kept ass fucking after the bottom said, “Stop!”
• Are certain that anal sex is sick and mentally unhealthy. (You don’t still believe everything your parents told you, do you?)
• Believe that sticking to butt-fucking keeps a girl (or a boy) a virgin. Let’s get this straight. You’re not a virgin by a long shot. You’re a closeted, repressed, waste of a good slut.
• Use a banana, salami, cucumber, flashlight or a vibe without a flanged base to stick up the butt and not think it’ll get lost.
• Are convinced that regular anal sex will stretched out the sphincter and you’ll have to wear a diaper.
• Give yourself a chunky fruit yogurt enema.
• Don’t wear a rubber because you’re sure you can’t get STDs from butt sex.
• Wear a condom and use oil or oil-based lube for ass pounding. And then wonder why the rubber broke.
• Are convinced that a girl can get pregnant from anal sex. If however, someone does get knocked up from ass sex alone, call the Vatican. I’m sure there’s a lost Dead Sea Scroll somewhere that mentions the second coming of the Messiah and his rather unique mode of conception.
• Lovingly fondle the anal pucker or bare hand-fist after cutting chili peppers and not thoroughly washing your hands.
• Reenact Brokeback Mountain just using spit for lube. (Yes, it was a sexy scene. But you didn’t climb up the Empire State Building after you’d watched King Kong, did you?)
• Decide to make a mold of your rectum using quick drying concrete.
• Insert four billiard balls. Retrieve three. Panic. Jump up and down. Run to toilet and bear down. Shoot last ball out like a cannon and break the toilet. Call the plumber in the middle of the night.

Necessity may be the mother of invention. Profit may be the father of innovation. But sexual desperation is the good-for-nothing bully brother of stupidity that persuades otherwise sensible people into doing the most inane things.