Anal Sex: Love or Harm?
By Julio
Severo
A
very common argument against anal sex among homosexuals is that there are a
number of health risks involved. These risks are presented by Christian pastors
and pro-family leaders as a powerful reason to discourage people from
homosexual anal sex.
The
risks are real and true, but not limited to homosexuals. Any individual
engaging in anal sex runs the same risks. A woman, married or not, who receives
anally a man’s penis is so vulnerable to these risks as a homosexual.
In
her book “Sexual Sabotage” (WND Books, 2010), American-Jewish author Judith A.
Reisman, addressing what she labeled varied deviant behaviors, quotes that “11%
of married individuals participate in anal sodomy at least once.” This
percentage probably is much lesser, because, as Reisman makes it clear, its
source, the Kinsey Institute, exaggerates in its sexual claims and inflates its
sexual numbers. This institute is notorious for its blatant advocacy of
homosexual acts and behavior.
Exaggeratedly,
only 11 percent married women have engaged in anal sex at least once.
Probably,
the Christian married men who require their wives to submit to this kind of sex
are silent in the church and in their Christian testimony about risk factors of
anal sex for homosexuals. They are right about their silence. After all, what
is the point for married men who do it to condemn it among homosexuals if the
risks are just the same for non-homosexuals?
In
both cases, they are involved in sodomy,
which, according to the Macmillan English Dictionary (2nd Edition, 2007), is
defined as “a sexual act in which a man puts his penis into another person’s
anus.”
So anal sex, by homosexuals or not, is sodomy.
There
is a number of health risks with anal sex, and anal intercourse is the riskiest
form of sexual activity for several reasons, including the following:
·
Unlike
the vagina, the tissues of the anus are not stretchy. This means that the anus
can easily tear, which puts the receiving partner in danger of anal abscesses,
hemorrhoids, or fissures (a very large tear). Penetration can tear the tissue
inside the anus, allowing bacteria and viruses to enter the bloodstream. The
fragile nature of the anal tissue makes it easier for STDs and bacteria to
enter into the bloodstream. A very tiny tear may provoke, among many other
bacterial infections, infective endocarditis, by taking fecal bacteria through
the bloodstream into heart valves.
·
The
tissue inside the anus is not as well protected as the skin
outside the anus. Our external tissue has layers of dead cells that serve as a
protective barrier against infection. The tissue inside the anus does not have
this natural protection, which leaves it vulnerable to tearing and the spread
of infection.
·
The
anus was designed to hold in feces. The anus is surrounded with a ring-like
muscle, called the anal sphincter, which tightens after we defecate. When the
muscle is tight, anal penetration can be painful and difficult. Repetitive anal
sex may lead to weakening of the anal
sphincter, making it difficult to hold in feces until you can get to the
toilet.
·
The
anus is full of bacteria. Even if both partners do not have a
sexually-transmitted infection or disease, bacteria normally in the anus can
potentially infect the giving partner. Practicing vaginal sex after anal sex
can also lead to vaginal and urinary
tract infections.
Anal
sex can carry other risks as well. Oral contact with the anus can put both
partners at risk for hepatitis, herpes,
HPV, and other infections. For heterosexual couples, pregnancy can occur if semen is deposited near the opening to
the vagina.
Even
though serious injury from anal sex is not common, it can occur. Bleeding after
anal sex could be due to a hemorrhoid or tear, or something more serious
such as a perforation (hole) in the colon. This is a dangerous problem that
requires immediate medical attention. Treatment involves a hospital stay,
surgery, and antibiotics to prevent infection.
Dr.
Stephen Goldstone, an open homosexual and author of “The Ins and Outs of Gay
Sex: A Medical Handbook for Men” (Dell: New York, 1999), said
in his book,
“Just as your
internal sphincter muscle involuntarily relaxes when feces enter your rectum,
it involuntarily contracts when a penis or other object attempts to enter from
the outside…An anal tear can occur during the initial phase of anal sex
precisely because your partner pushes his penis through a closed sphincter.
Think of his penis as a battering ram, one for which your internal sphincter is
no match.”
Dr.
Goldstone is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at The Mount Sinai
School of Medicine and an expert on “gay men’s health” and “anorectal
disorders.”
The
Medical Institute for Sexual Health, founded by evangelical author Joe S.
McIlhaney, Jr., M.D. (a prominent obstetrician/gynecologist and infertility
specialist), says about anal sex:
“It is very damaging to your health
and quite possibly life threatening.”
“Anal sex is clearly a dangerous
form of sexual activity.”
According
to Dr. David Delvin, of NetDoctor, “Anal (rectal) sex used to be referred to in
English law as ‘the crime against Nature,’ and this alarming term is still used
in the legal statutes of about nine American states. Anal sex has always been a
highly controversial subject, and the controversy that surrounds it looks set
to continue for years to come because evidence is accumulating that this
practice may sometimes lead to anal cancer.”
He
also says:
The American Cancer Society states
that having anal sex is a risk factor for anal cancer in both men and women.
Our impression is that during the
21st century anal sex has become more common in heterosexual couples, partly
because they have watched porn in which this activity so
frequently occurs.
One small study carried out in 2009
suggested that in the UK, around 30 per cent of pornographic DVDs feature
rectal intercourse. Often, it is presented as something that is both routine
and painless for women. In real life, this is not the case. Anal intercourse is
often very painful for women, particularly the first few times.
Many
point that because the Bible is silent on anal sex, it is allowed. Yet, the
Bible is also silent on a number of today’s important issues, including pot and
cocaine. So are they allowed too? Of course, they are not, and the critics are
fast to emphasize the health risks of drug use, but many are very slow to
recognize that a man and a woman engaging in anal sex run the same health risks
as two men engaged in the same sexual activity.
Let
us see the Bible “silence”:
“Let marriage be held in honor among all,
and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral
and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:4 ESV)
This
verse implies that, besides adultery, the marriage be can be defiled by an unspecified
number of immoral acts, making clear that God is going to judge those who
defile their marriage beds.
God
is not silent also in this instruction:
“For this is the will of God, your
sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you
know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of
lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong
his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things,
as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us
for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards
not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 ESV)
About “that
each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,” the
Expanded Bible (published by Thomas
Nelson) says this passage can also be put
this way: “He
wants each of you to learn to live with your own wife in a way that is holy and
honorable.”
About “that
no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter,” the Expanded Bible
says this passage can also be put this way: “Do not exploit or take
advantage of your sister” in this sexual matter.
Is
there exploitation in regard to anal sex? Some years ago, a prominent Brazilian
lawyer told me that she had divorced wives from their husbands, who were evangelical
ministers. The women were suffering anal and other anus-related ills and, to
avoid the causes by their insistent and uncooperative husbands, chose divorce.
How many women, unwilling to sacrifice their marriages, sacrifice their health
to satisfy the anal lusts of their husbands? This lust, with his aftermath on
the health of Christian women, seems a major silent problem in the church today
— more silent than the alleged silence
of the Bible on the issue.
Even
though the First Command of our hedonist culture is ENJOY SEX, God’s First
Command, which includes pleasure, has other priority.
Married
people engaged in anal sex are not collaborating with God’s First Command to
the first married couple: Increase and multiply. Vagina and uterus are proper
channels to increase and multiply and bring babies. An anus has nothing to do
with this command. Anal sex brings diseases, health problems and no babies. So
husbands are cooperating against this command when they choose the wrong channel
and potentially harm their wives’ health.
Besides,
because a Christian’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, lovers of anal sex
should face the reality that this sexual activity can damage this temple. Yet,
if they do not want reasons from the Bible, there are abundant medical reasons
to avoid this activity and focus on the proper sexual channel created, planned
and blessed by God.
If
they do not want to give attention to common sense in God’s Word, by appealing
to a supposed “silence,” the megaphone of medicine shouts in their ears the
consequences of sodomy.
Perhaps
the 11 percent of the married people, according to the inflated numbers of the deceptive
Kinsey Institute, do not care about health risks in sodomy, but the 90 percent
deserve to know them.
If
homosexuals deserve to be warned about the health risks of sodomy, why should Christian
wives and their husbands be deprived of it?
With
information from NetDoctor, Medical Institute for Sexual Health, Peter LaBarbera and WebMD.
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