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Hygiene seldom counts more than when you’re about to get a little anal. If you’re settling in for some butt fun, you’ll usually want to make sure everything’s clean and tidy and ready for company. That’s easy enough if you have plenty of time to prepare — you can get a douching kit (or a shower attachment if you’re fancy) and go to town.
But if you’re in a bit of a rush or away from home, you might need to improvise. Fortunately, with just a few supplies, it’s easy enough to clean yourself out with a water bottle. Here’s how.
A note of caution before you proceed: Don’t make this a frequent practice. All forms of douching carry downsides, like a risk of injury and infection, and can also disrupt your electrolyte balance. In extreme causes, it can cause water intoxication — a real condition that can be life-threatening. Medical experts don’t have a clear-cut answer on how often one can douche safely; some say no more than three times a week and only once in a given day. And if possible, use a tool designed for the process rather than grabbing a water bottle. This article isn’t medical advice; if you have questions about your body, talk to a doctor.
Just one more warning before you start: This technique works best if you use a soft tip or a water bottle with a small nozzle, rather than the hard ridged edges of a flimsier water bottle. You can injure yourself if you put anything sharp against the very soft tissues of your anus. The key here is to be as gentle as you can, and never press too hard.
Why Should I Douche?
While we don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum, many people want to avoid creating an anal mess in the middle of sex. (Unless you’re into that.) For many, it’s a surefire way to kill the mood. If it does happen, know that it’s natural, nothing to be ashamed of, and we’ve all been there — but douching and other good habits can help you avoid it.
It’s just good manners to clean your ass before anal sex, so let’s talk about how.
What Tools Do I Need?
In an ideal world, the best way to clean yourself out is with a shower attachment, a squeezy bulb, or a specialized kit, such as those made by the brand Fleet, which are widely available at drugstores.
A shower attachment is the most expensive — but most luxurious — option, and can run anywhere from around thirty dollars to more than a hundred. With a really nice attachment, you can vary the water pressure and temperature, and get some comfortable leverage without having to refill. They usually require installation, however, and aren’t always as convenient as other options.
A pre-assembled douching kit is much cheaper — usually under $10 — and often comes with a saline mixture and soft-tipped applicator. As long as you follow the instructions, that’s the safest way to clean yourself out, since saline is preferable to water.
If you have time to run to a drug store, buying an anal enema, like those sold by Fleet and other brands, can be a cheap and effective way to get a decent tool for douching. These are typically quite inexpensive, and include a soft-sided plastic bottle with a rigid tip designed to be inserted into the anus. Be forewarned that these are often filled with liquid laxatives designed to help ease constipation, so you should replace their contents with regular water if you’re just doing a standard cleaning.
You might also just want to get a flexible reusable bulb. That’ll be your cheapest option for a durable douching tool, but be sure you clean it thoroughly before and after each use. Consider mixing your own saline solution rather than using water straight from the tap.
All that said, if you're really in a rush, you can get a pretty good job done with a water bottle. It’s best if it has a thin nozzle, usually used for sucking the water down with your mouth, but even a basic screw-top can work.
You can also obtain kits that are designed for douching with water bottles. The soft tip, designed to go up your butt, will have a clever screw-on base that fits most standard bottles. The Tom of Finland store sells an attachement made specially for frequent travelers.
How Long Does it Take to Clean up Before Anal Sex?
That depends on whether you’re doing an enema or douching.
But wait, what’s the difference between an enema vs a douche? It comes down to how thorough you want to be. A douche generally cleans out the area immediately inside the anus, while an enema goes further and flushes much more of the system. A douche can take ten minutes to a half hour; an enema can take several hours to complete. Enemas more typically use saline than water, since there’s more risk of upsetting your electrolyte balance if you do an enema with just water.
Enemas are also more risky, since they intrude deeper into the body. There’s a possibility of tearing sensitive tissues, which could require surgery to fix depending on the severity. Enemas can also cause side effects like nausea and vomiting, and can expose you to infections like Hepatitis if you’re not practicing good hygiene with your tools. For healthy people, there’s no medical benefit to enemas — services like “colon detox” are simply made-up pseudoscience.
But enemas can also leave you feeling much more confident about your cleanliness, and are more appropriate for more advanced kinds of anal play like fisting. Because they’re so much more thorough, you’ll shed a lot more internal matter and leave your system free of debris. If that’s important to you, an enema can feel better than a douche — but remember that it’s also more dangerous.
If you’re using a water bottle or other douching instrument, it’s much easier to do a basic cleaning of the immediate area inside your rectum than to try to flush out your whole colon, and if you’re only planning on bottoming, douching will be more than enough to prepare.
How Do I Prepare to Douche With a Water Bottle?
Start by relieving yourself to the extent that you can. You’ll want to clear out your system as much as you comfortably can ahead of time.
While that’s going on, make sure the water you’re going to use to clean out is room temperature, or just slightly warmer. The inside of your butt is very sensitive, and water that’s freshly refrigerated will be extremely unpleasant. Cool water can cause extra cramping among your sphincter and abdominal muscles. Water that comes straight from the hot tap will burn — even if it’s comfortable to touch with your hands, it’ll be too hot when it gets inside you.
You may want to prepare by fingering yourself with lubed-up fingers, to ensure you’re stretched out a bit and ready to receive. Lubing the tip of the bottle can help with insertion, too.
When you’re ready, position yourself by a toilet or tub. It’s much easier to douche in a bathtub where you don’t have to be quite so careful about making a mess.
Relax. Take some deep breaths. Press the bottle up against your hole and gently squeeze the bottle while relaxing your rectum. You should feel the water slowly filling you up. You’ll want to get a small amount of water into your body at a time — don’t do too much all at once, or it’ll get deeper inside and require a more lengthy cleaning, and could cause an injury.
Does Douching Make a Mess?
Yes. That’s why you’re hopefully doing it in a bathtub, or very very carefully over a toilet.
The goal here is to dislodge anything that’s hanging around, so if you can hold your butt closed and keep the water inside, now is a good time for some jiggling or jumping jacks. Swish yourself around before release.
Let the water out and let it disappear down the drain. You’ll need to repeat this process several times before the water runs clear, meaning any loose internal matter has been fully eliminated. If you were able to constrain the water to your immediate entryway, it might take five to ten rinses to get everything out. But if you let the water get too deep into your colon, it could take an hour or more of rinsing before everything’s tidy.
Remember that there may be surprise pockets of water that don’t come out until later. If possible, you should douche earlier in the day, before your date, so you can be sure you’re fully emptied out when it’s time to play.
Does Douching Hurt?
It shouldn’t. If you put sharp plastic against your hole and it feels painful, stop what you’re doing — you might have cut into the tissues around your anus, in which case anal sex is definitely off the table until it heals. If you’re inserting a tool with an applicator tip into your rectum and it begins to hurt, stop immediately too.
You might feel cramps while douching. That’s usually normal and often means there’s more water to flush out. You can press on your abdomen or taint to try to hurry things along, or do some lower-back stretches in the shower to loosen things up. A bit of jiggling can also help with the flushing process (some do jumping jacks, but be careful not to slip or fall).
If you see blood, or if pain persists, you should stop what you’re doing right away, gently clean as best you can, and let your butt rest for several days. If pain or blood continue for more than a day, consult a doctor or free clinic — you’re definitely not the first person who’s come in with that problem, and they’ll know what to do.
Can Changes to my Diet Make Anal Sex Easier?
Yes! A healthy diet will keep things moving along. Eating the right amount of fiber can reduce the debris that gets caught in your colon. That means consuming plenty of leafy greens, whole wheat, and bran. (Or you can go the easy route with Metamucil.) Avoid cheeses, spicy food, and oily meats like beef.
You should also drink plenty of water. The more you put in your mouth, the less you’ll need up your butt.
Of course, everyone’s GI tract is unique, so what works for one person might not for another. Pay attention to how different foods make you feel, and the effect on your anal hygiene, to figure out what amount of fiber is best for you.
Why Shouldn’t I Douche?
Be forewarned: This isn’t something you want to make into a habit. There are some dangers to douching.
Frequent deep-cleans can cause internal tears and place stress on the body it wasn’t designed for. What’s more, water isn’t great for that end of the body — a saline solution of one teaspoon of salt to two cups of water is best for something like this.
But as an every-now-and-then treat, an occasional douche probably won’t be your undoing. While some medical conditions call for daily enemas, if you’re healthy once a week is generally the most frequent your cleanings should be. And you definitely shouldn’t introduce other substances like vitamins, coffee, or other beverages! They can cause damage or infections, especially if you have a compromised immune system.
And beyond that — you might not even need to clean yourself out! If you maintain a high-fiber diet and healthy gut organisms, you might already be as clean as you need to be.
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