Anilingus

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Anilingus, also spelled analingus, is a sexual act in which one person uses the tongue or lips to stimulate another person's anus. It sits at an odd crossroads. Doctors discuss it in the language of hygiene and infection. Slang has given it nicknames that are playful and deliberately indirect. And one of the most celebrated composers in European history treated it as material for jokes. Why does the act have such different vocabularies? Who takes part in it, and what draws them to it? What can pass between partners, and how do people lower the danger? The answers begin with the words themselves.

  13315

• 2. Names and Slang

  ›

  A glossary of gay slang from the 1970s is credited with the phrase "toss someone's salad". A later commentator said the phrase captured the act's pleasure while keeping its delicacy, a cheerful way of naming something many people would not say plainly. The same account calls it the precursor to the main sexual event. Other nicknames followed, including rimming and the compound rim-job. The vocabulary also traveled well beyond its first home. In the United States prison system, performing the act on another inmate has been a way of paying dues or gaining favor. The formal name has a very different pedigree. It joins the Latin word for the anus to a suffix from the verb lingere, meaning to lick, and it copies the pattern of the older word cunnilingus. English picked it up through a translation published in 1899 by F. J. Rebman, who worked from the tenth edition of a book by the sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. That book, Psychopathia Sexualis, had first appeared in 1886.

  19141013

• 3. Pleasure and Participants

  ›

  Nerve endings gather densely around the anus, which is why the area can act as an erogenous zone. The person receiving attention can feel real pleasure from purely external touch. For the person giving it, the reward is usually tied less to physical sensation and more to the idea of the act itself. Motivations vary. Some couples treat it as an end in itself, others as a warm-up before anal penetration, and others as one piece of broader foreplay. People of every sexual orientation take part. Studies have confirmed it among sexual practices between women, though only a minority of them engage in it. Technique is simple to describe. It can involve the lips or licking, with the tongue circling the edge of the anus or moving along the inside of the buttocks. Some people also insert the tongue into the rectum. Any of these choices raises a practical question about what the mouth is exposed to.

  246157

• 4. Pathways of Infection

  ›

  The central problem is feces. Putting the mouth on the anus means oral contact with fecal matter, and the source lists a long roster of diseases that can travel that way. Among the bacterial ones is shigellosis, also called bacillary dysentery. The viral ones include hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, poliomyelitis, human papillomavirus and herpes simplex. Intestinal parasites are on the list too, as are chlamydia, gonorrhea, gastroenteritis, conjunctivitis and lymphogranuloma venereum. Order of activities matters as well. If the mouth goes to the genitals right after the anus, the bacterium Escherichia coli can reach the urethra and cause a urinary tract infection. HIV, by contrast, is not believed to spread easily through this act. Numbers of partners shift the odds, since casual partners multiply the exposure. People carrying a transmissible infection often look perfectly healthy. Some details are conditional. Parasites may turn up in feces when undercooked meat has been eaten, and traces of hepatitis A appear only when the person has eaten contaminated food. Those conditions are part of why prevention advice focuses on habits.

  38161718

• 5. Lowering the Risk

  ›

  Washing the anal region thoroughly beforehand removes most external fecal particles and so reduces the chance of catching a fecal-sourced infection. An enema can cut down direct fecal contact further, and a dental dam can serve as a physical barrier. STI testing is another recommended precaution. One further rule concerns sequence: avoid unprotected sex in which fellatio follows anal intercourse. The condition of the mouth and genitals counts too. Open sores or wounds on the receiving partner's genitals raise the risk of sexually transmitted infection, and so do sores in the giver's mouth or bleeding gums. Some everyday routines also create hazards. Brushing, flossing, dental work, and even eating crunchy foods such as potato chips shortly before or after the act can make tiny scratches on the inside of the lips, cheeks and palate. Even microscopic wounds improve the odds that an orally transmitted infection takes hold.

  17183820

• 6. Mozart's Canons

  ›

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote several canons on this subject in the 18th century. In 1782 he produced a six-voice canon, "Leck mich im Arsch", whose singers repeat the same request again and again. That same year he wrote lyrics beginning "Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber", which translates as "Lick my arse right well and clean". Around 1786 came a four-voice canon, "O du eselhafter Peierl". In it he jokingly begs a friend to lick his ass, mixing the plea with comic insults and death threats. A discovery announced in 2020 showed the humor started earlier. The Mozarteum uncovered a commission from 1777, when Mozart was 21, for a target to be used in a shooting game among his family and friends. Because he would be away, he described the picture himself: "a small man with fair hair, bending over and showing his bare arse. From his mouth come the words: Enjoy the spread." The second figure was to wear boots and spurs, a red suit and a fashionable wig, and to look as if he were licking the first man. His words were to be "Just go ahead." The subject has stayed in public view into the present day. In 2025, Men's Health published an explanation of the act along with a list of techniques.

  1920