Here's the Dangerous and Grotesque Anal Sex Trend You’ve Always Wanted

The ennui that comes with watching the same kind of scenes over and over might eventually force the viewer to pay to see something they’ve never seen before, even if it is potentially gruesome or disgusting. Then, as Vice points out, there is the reality that watching amateur porn might be fine, but if you want high quality production or actresses that can perform rosebuds well, producing sights and sounds — rainbows you can taste — on command you’re going to have to shell out for your solo bone sesh. And the industry has no choice but to deliver.

Second, the actresses who star in the films — and this currently appears to be more aimed at heterosexual audiences — need to find a way to distinguish themselves. Sheena Shaw is one of the queens of rosebudding. This is her calling card. Like it or not — and it sounds from her quote that Shaw has at least some conflicted feelings — this is what keeps the money coming.

Mike South, a blogger who is referred to by Vice as the king of porn gossip, believes that turning towards extremism is not the way the industry needs to go, that by doing so it loses touch with the core values of pornography:

“At first it was relatively benign—gang bangs, anal, that kind of thing,” he recalls. “Then it was dressing girls up like preteens and picking them up on swing sets in schoolyards, forced oral until they threw up, forced anal… The more uncomfortable the girl looked, the more the industry would give it awards.

“Companies in porn are like blackbirds on a phone wire,” he continues. “When one takes off they all follow. I think, in this case, they all followed into the side of a glass building.”

But the trend is only getting more popular.

Porn’s appeal has long been the holding up of a light, or a magnifying glass, to the inner workings of human pleasure. Rosebudding continues to play on that theme, literally turning a medical oddity — something second year medical students might discuss with a hand gently stroking their chins — into something amorphously sexual.

Ali Davis, in her excellent book True Porn Clerk Stories , discusses something she calls porn drift. In her book Davis recounts how customers at the store she worked at would go from one section of the store to another, dipping into pornography that they might have not chosen before when they’d seen too much of their preferred combination of acts and actors. When I worked at a video store, I was always delighted when someone who had only rented straight gang bangs would bring up a bi video or delve into the world of porn that featured actors who were transgender. It was great to see people exploring their sexuality but this new trend raises the question of how far the rabbit hole goes and whether pornography can continue satisfying the needs of viewers while keeping the actors and actresses who are doing the work safe.

Repeated prolapses — I’m sorry, rosebuds — are risky. The actual prolapse doesn’t just happen and actresses have to train to get the bud to occur when they want. To be able to rosebud effectively, actresses need to have prolonged sessions with multiple massive objects so that their rectal walls become loose and easy to push right out. Training might also include sleeping with toys in the anus the night before a shoot. The feeling, Shaw says, is similar to that of pushing out a baby. And there are side effects.

Repeated prolapses can cause severe bowel problems and anal leakage. While some can take time off, the only way to really heal everything is with rectal surgery which carries risks (such as infections) of its own. And the risks are not often discussed with the actresses who star in these types of movies. In fact, the safety of the performer is not really of concern to the directors and the producers, who play the health risks off with a nonchalant “they can take breaks.” But taking breaks means losing money, or becoming less in demand.

There’s no safety net in porn. Shaw, a veteran of the business and someone who commands a higher price for her anal scenes — something that’s not true of all the women who perform this act — says that she’s heard of women tearing their anuses or developing fissures. And there’s no worker’s comp on the set. The industry demands more and more of its performers without medical help. When asked about what she could do in the event of an injury, Shaw said this to Vice: “No one ever talks about that. They make you sign waivers before you do these scenes. You’re absolutely not going to get workers’ comp.”

Rosebudding in itself isn’t the core problem. Sure, it’s disturbing, but it also speaks to how bored we become with sexual images and how quickly we become desensitized to them, always looking for another peak when we plateau at a favorite scene. The fact that this trend exists could suggest that rosebudding is a symptom of a much broader concern: The fact that as more and more pornographic images become readily available, it takes much more to scratch one’s sexual itch. And sometimes, that leads to the necessity for extremism. Even when it comes at the expense of the performers. Based on the risks and dangers involved, then, perhaps it would be best for all cinematic genres if Rosebud remained a sled.

Image via Shutterstock.