Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author s and the source are credited. This study used qualitative methods to assess why women engage in heterosexual anal receptive intercourse AI with a male partner.
Four focus groups which comprised women from diverse ethnicities were conducted. All groups were digitally recorded for transcription; transcripts were analyzed using the methods of grounded theory to determine themes.
The riskiness of AI was assessed within relationship contexts. Past experience with AI including emotional and physical reactions was identified.
Among the negative physical experiences of AI were pain and disliking the sensation, and uncomfortable side effects, such as bleeding of the rectum.
Negative emotional experiences of AI included feelings of shame, disgust, and being offended by something her male partner did, such as spitting on his penis for lubrication. Positive physical experiences included liking the sensation. Many of the women also endorsed positive emotional experiences of AI, including that it was more intimate than vaginal sex, and that it was something they reserved only for special partners.
