TLDR: This is how you clean your butt so there's no poo during anal sex, but it can also help with bloating, constipation, and just feeling clean.

What Is Douching?

There's some people who make a distinction between an "enema" and a "douche", but in reality there's a wide range of bowel cleansing tools and techniques and they're all broadly enemas, i.e. injecting some water in your butt to help get out all the poo...

The distinction here is that a douche is to facilitate a regular bowel movement. You're cleaning out poo that's ready to go from your lower intestine, not plunging the depths of your entire gastrointestinal tract. However, the end of your bowels is still very, very long, so if douching is done right there should be no chance of poo contact with any human penis or even the longest sex toys.

What Do I Need?

The device typically used is called an anal douche, sometimes a "bulb", just browse any sex toy site and you'll see the variety of devices. In fact almost any squeezable water vessel can be used as a douche, such as a syringe or even an off the shelf plain water bottle, just make sure you can guarantee everything is clean and hygienic.

How does it all work?

It generally goes like this. You feel some pressure in you bowels, maybe after a coffee, maybe you have no "urge to go" but you just know you've got a poo in there. You fill your douche with hot water, spray some in your butt, feel your muscles contract and expel everything.

I know what you're thinking, "hot water?!", and this is very important, do not burn yourself, really it's only warm tap water, but if the water is too cool you'll have the same problem I see so many people have who are new to douching. You can seriously just check YouTube for people giving douching a go and they nearly all have the same beginner problem... the water gets stuck. If the water is too cool you'll find your butt just sucks it up and you feel no urge at all to expel. You'll leave the toilet disappointed, then for the next hour your gut will be making squelching and gurgling sounds, you'll feel like you need to hover around the toilet in case you start to leak, and you'll dismiss ever trying douching ever again. This is the only skill or learning curve involved in douching, getting the temperature right. If the water is too hot to run over your wrist or hold in your mouth, then it's too hot! Did I mention do not burn yourself? The good news is that stuck water can be retrieved and expelled with just another good temperature douche, so don't worry if you're starting out and get some stuck water, just set aside a bit of time for your first attempt and start slow.

If you master this the entire process will literally take a few minutes, and you will be clean for hours, or the rest of the entire day. You can douche after your morning coffee and be squeaky clean for anal sex that night!

If done right, when you inject the water you will immediately feel your anal muscles wanting to contract and expel everything. Have you brushed your tongue with a toothbrush and gone too far back and gagged? Consider it like that, you're stimulating a response to facilitate a bowel movement. This is called a "full evacuation", and you know what I mean. Have you taken a poo and not everything comes out and you can't squeeze out that last bit? Has your butt just clenched up and snapped the poo in half? You're wiping for half an hour and still not clean, well douching fixes that problem.

Q&A

• How many injections or squirts of water will it take?

If you're a pro, 1-2, but if you're starting out it'll probably take more, also if your stool is loose it can take a few more to get really clean.

• How long does it take to master?

I can tell you my girlfriend failed horribly the first time (stuck water and hovering the toilet), the second time took almost an hour but it went well for her, from then on she's figured it out and has no problems. I myself douche, and I'm a guy who has no interest in being on the receiving end of anal, I just like to feel clean!

• How do I refill the douche?

If your toilet has no tap nearby then take a second bottle filled with water to top up the douche if needed.

• How far do I push the douche nozzle in?

You barely insert it at all, in fact it's basically just pressed against your outer anus to make a seal. This is actually very important, the nerves inside your bowels work very different to the rest of your body. If you insert the nozzle in deep and spray too hot water you're not going to react like if you spilled hot coffee on your hand. However if too hot water touches your anus you will know it immediately, so don't push the nozzle in!

• What if I'm out and about at a bar or club and want to go back to someone's house for anal?

It's just like I said before, almost any squeezable water vessel can be used. If you buy a plain plastic water bottle and excuse yourself to the toilet, all you need is a tap to fill it up with warm water and a few minutes. I know of people carrying a medium-sized plastic syringe in their handbag for this exact reason.

• How do I talk to my partner about this?

It's true that couples can feel nervous, shy, or embarrassed talking about poo. However people generally want to feel desired or "sexy" in the bedroom, and the possibility of pooing on someone's penis can cause massive fear of rejection or feeling dirty. It can actually be the main mental block for anal sex, someone can desperately want anal sex but can't get over the fear of feeling dirty, and us at /r/AnalOnlyLifestyle can't have that!

It's my advise to have a conversation about douching as an act of cleaning. You brush you teeth, wash your hair, douche your butt, it's all the same. There's no one that feels embarrassed brushing their teeth to avoid bad breath, well just think how clean and desirable you'll feel after douching. I can tell you at a personal level that my girlfriend still feels awkward talking about taking a poo, but at the same time talking about anal douching is as trivial as brushing teeth to her. That might seem weird, but I guarantee you once the switch is made in your mind that douching is just normal cleaning it'll change your life.