Things We Voluntarily Stuck Up Our Asses

And a Few That Are Being Shoved For Us

As I was putting together the list I promised for Inauguration Day, I remembered a moment with my dad from many years ago.

For those who don’t know my dad, he’s a mostly mild-mannered philosophy professor who looks mostly like a mild-mannered philosophy professor. He doesn’t have a beard, but he makes up for it with wire framed glasses and a classic comb-over. He’s a former athlete (a first baseman who ran four miles a day throughout my childhood) but hasn’t stood up completely straight in over a decade (apparently he has no discs left in his upper back/neck). He has a subtle Bronx accent that is only truly noticeable when he says the word idea, which he pronounces idear (seems fitting for a philosopher).

I can’t quite date the memory, but I’m pretty sure it involved him bringing us a car to borrow which he did frequently. (Did I mention that he’s a very nice dad?) He met me and my not-yet-husband at an Upper East Side restaurant we went to a lot. After we ordered, my dad started explaining the lecture he was listening to on the way in. This was the early aughts, so it’s not like he happened upon this lecture on Spotify; he sent away for the cassette tape.

While I can remember what I was eating (I always got the angel hair pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts), I have no idea who the famous philosopher was or what he was lecturing about. I’m not proud of this, but after a lifetime of discussions about Socrates at the dinner table and Plato on long car rides, I pretty much tune out when anyone starts talking philosophy. But Dad got my attention:

I’m listening to this guy drone on, and I’m picturing this room full of freshman who are eager to learn, and they just don’t realize that they’re being f**ked up the ass by an idiot who has absolutely no idea(r) what he’s talking about.

My mild-mannered philosopher dad has always cursed like a sailor, but I wasn’t expecting that, and it gave us laugh-out-loud moment that I remember 20+ years later.

While I realize the phrase could sound homophobic or sex negative, I promise it was neither. On a future Wednesday we might explore why so many of our expressions for bad things (like getting screwed or getting royally f**ked) are also sexual. Today, however, we just need to laugh like I did in that Italian restaurant.

Somehow a failed businessman and team of people who are so rich they could cure world hunger but instead spend their money on ten-minute space flights in penis-shaped rockets convinced voters that they are the voice of the people. Worse, a felon who was prosecuted for actually breaking the law has convinced honest, hard-working people that his persecution is their persecution. Somehow the party that wants to get rid of social security, Medicaid, and Obamacare has convinced people that they are fighting for the little guy.

Many people who voted for him just don’t realize that they’re being f**ked up the ass by an idiot who has absolutely no idea(r) what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, the rest of us are too.

With that too-crude intro, I now present the promised list of what we voluntarily stuck up our asses this year. The annual list is compiled by Defector from reports to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's database of emergency room visits. To be clear, this isn’t so much a list of what the royal we stuck up our butts this year as it is a list of what some people stuck up their butts and could not get out on their own. Responsible use of fingers, butt plugs, and anal beads in the privacy of one’s home does not make the list. This is, by nature, a list of bad ideas.

Such bad ideas include a scrub brush, a xylophone mallet, a can of deodorant, a wire hanger, and a foam ball. Objects that make the list multiple times include batteries (AAA, A, and even D) and small bottles (like shampoo or lotion). Other household items being used for off-label purposes included a ratchet extender, light bulbs (usually broken, AHHH!), a toothbrush holder, a cigarette lighter, and a metal toilet paper holder. This year’s list also included a fake lemon, a fake banana, cooking spray, and a Jell-O mold (sadly, we were not told the shape).

Toys made the list too. No, not sex toys. Regular toys such as a cylindrical wooden block, a piece of a board game (probably bigger than the top hat in Monopoly, but we don’t have details), marbles, darts (ouch), a shark toy, and the tail of toy dinosaur. And some people used their rectums as hiding places for illicit substance including a bag containing 20 hydroxyzine pills and a bottle of GHB.

Occasionally the reports include the patient’s explanation of why said object was literally stuck up their ass, though most seem implausible at best. The shark toy patient claimed they slipped in the shower, as did one of the men who had a shampoo bottle lodged in his rectum. One of the people with batteries in their butt claimed that they’d been using a vibrator and realized later that the batteries had fallen out. A woman with a bottle in her ass blamed it on “getting kinky” with her husband (the most honest answer yet, as far as I can tell). And the bag of pills guy said he did it for street cred (which also sounds like the truth).

While this list certainly points to a lack of common sense, it also suggests that we need to normalize butt play and educate people about how to do it safely. You didn’t slip in the shower, you thought sticking something up your butt would feel good. That’s okay. Lots of people think it feels good.

There’s one simple rule to follow, however, if you don’t want to end up in the 2025 report: anything that goes into the butt needs to have an attachment that stays outside. Penises are fine because they’re attached to a person, as are fingers. Anal beads usually have a loop at the end that is not meant to be inserted with the rest of the string. Butt plugs are specially made with flared bases so they can’t be accidentally pulled in. They come in many different shapes and sizes and materials. Instead of rifling through your kitchen junk drawer, go shopping online or at a local sex shop. And while you’re there pick up a lot of lube.

Actually, there is one more rule. Do not inflate your own rectum. I add this because there was one report of a woman who put a motorized tire pump into her rectum and blew air up there for about five minutes. While there are some medical procedures that use anal insufflation, and medispas now offer to blow ozone up your butt (a Gwyneth/goop recommendation that we’ll explore on yet another Wednesday), it’s not safe to attach yourself to a bicycle pump. I read one case report of a young man who did this regularly and ultimately suffered a fatal colorectal injury.

The bottom line (see what I did there) is this: being f**ked up the ass is not a bad thing provided that it’s done safely and consensually, and not by the new administration.