A Therapist’s View of Anal Expansion
This article is a lightly-edited summary of our interview with Sara Carvey, MA, LPC.
As a therapist, Sara Carvey didn’t set out to become so involved with the anal expansion community, but she’s now a key ally.
THE FIRST STRETCH
Almost twenty years ago, Carvey was counseling a couple that had grown apart. They had several different problems and points of conflict. “They needed to reconnect and get excited about each other again,” says Carvey. “If a couple can reconnect sexually, it tends to smooth out a lot of other problems.”
She looked for any kind of untapped sexual interest they both had. It didn’t even matter what it was as long as it drew them both in. She learned that the wife had fantasized about wearing huge anal plugs and immediately saw the husband’s reaction. “He was interested, to say the least.”
She started the wife on a schedule of wearing small plugs regularly, going up in size over time, and had the husband monitor it. “The results were unreal,” she says. A lot of the wife’s thoughts were about the anal sensations she was feeling, and the excitement of having that secret in public places. The husband dutifully kept her plugged and really enjoyed seeing her reactions and progress. “They were so fixated on this new experience and journey they were on that they forgot to argue.” They did still need therapy to overcome some issues, but it was ten times easier once her anal expansion started.
“The expansion part was key as well,” Carvey explained. “I sometimes think about how if that wife had happened to only have the fantasy of wearing small anal plugs during the day, that they might not have made it as a couple.” The beginning of that experience would have been similar, but her actual fantasy meant that she never got used to her situation. She never got bored. There was always a larger size to go to and it fueled them both staying interested in the process.
THE NEXT STRETCHES
A year later, Carvey had trouble with two more couples. The first was a 19 year old girl who was dating a man old enough to be her father. The second was a lesbian couple. Both couples were dealing with several issues, but Carvey was optimistic. “You might think the age-gap couple was doomed from the start, but they really weren’t. They were great together most of the time.” She says the lesbian couple’s problems manifested as constant superficial arguments that were never really about whatever they claimed.
She interviewed each patient separately and again wanted to use the strategy of bringing the couples together sexually somehow, to smooth out the other problems. Based on her sessions about their sexual fantasies, she thought maybe the same trick could work again for both of them: female anal expansion via plugs of increasing sizes. She floated the idea to both couples and they both accepted.
Each couple had a different experience with female anal expansion. With the age-gap couple, it changed their dynamic completely. He was handling inserting and removing her plugs. If she needed to use the bathroom, she asked him permission and he’d remove the plug if it was allowed. He gave her enemas to keep her clean. He tucked her in and made sure her bedtime plug was in. He was treating her like a daughter and caring for her, and she felt cared for.
“Their relationship might make some people uncomfortable,” Carvey said. “But it’s not my job, or anyone’s really, to judge what works for them.” Carvey says her role is to help patients live their best lives and be happy, whatever form that takes. In this case, she speculates that this dynamic was latent, under the surface anyway, but came into its own once her anal expansion began.
For the lesbian couple, Carvey laid out the rules that each woman was to have virtually no control over her own plugs or own asshole. Each woman should manage the other’s asshole, including when her plug is inserted and removed, how much lubricant is used and when lube is re-applied, when plug size has to go up, and so on.
This created a deep sense of intimacy between them. “Being so deeply involved in each other’s assholes, so to speak, brought them closer together. When your anus depends on the good treatment of another, you tend to improve your attitude toward that person right away,” Carvey says. “They used to argue about furniture decor. After their anal expansions began, I never heard one word about furniture from either of them again.”
THE WORD GOT OUT
Carvey had suggested female anal expansion three times at this point, and all three saw positive results. “With that kind of record, you’d think I’d try it again and again. But here’s the surprise: I hardly ever suggested it again. I didn’t need to.”
The young woman in the age-gap couple had told a friend (or two or three) about the whole experience and about Sara Carvey’s role in it. Likewise, at least one of the lesbians had done the same. Within a year, Carvey was seeing several new female patients who were plugged regularly and going up in sizes.
“Word had spread that I was an ally to women practicing anal expansion,” she explains. Women weren’t coming to her ABOUT their anal situations though. They just felt most comfortable knowing they wouldn’t be judged for it and knowing that Carvey would understand any anal-specific issues that might come up.
Carvey says we might be bored to hear about her practice after that point. It did involve more and more anally plugged women (about 80% of her current patients are plugged), but they came to her for issues including: worrying about getting a promotion at work, struggling in school, conflicts with family members, boyfriends who weren’t good enough partners, and so on. She would check in on their anal situations to make sure there were no problems and they were progressing, but sessions weren’t dominated by it.
“The anal issues they needed the most help with were mental, not physical.” Occasionally women would have anxiety about being caught at the gym with a plug bulging out of their yoga pants, or some such issue. Carvey helped them reframe the experience and focused on reducing anxiety. In order to have easy plug insertion, girls need to associate anal stimulation with relaxation, not anxiety. And when it comes to social situations of being “found out” or when others already know and the anxiety is about them thinking and knowing about the girl’s asshole, the anxiety has to be transformed. By just looking at the situation a different way, it can become arousing.
“Most girls didn’t even need this guidance,” Carvey explains. “But a few need help seeing these slight embarrassments as a fun thing, not the end of the world. All I did was ask them during these moments of embarrassment when someone knows about their full asses if they could feel a tingling in their pussies. Then they’d put two and two together themselves.”
MEMORABLE PATIENTS
Though most sessions weren’t anally focused, the ones that were stand out in Carvey’s memory. First, was a mother who had progressed to large anal plug sizes and her daughter was about to turn 18. She wondered if her daughter should start anal expansion.
The mother had also discovered the daughter’s secret anal plug and dildo hiding place in the closet. Carvey gave the mother the conceptual tools to start a conversation with her daughter about it and let her know that she supports her daughter to whatever level of expansion she wants to reach.
“The anal fisters surprised me. Or at least, their partners did,” says Carvey.
At one point, Carvey had three different female patients that had reached large plug sizes for daily wear. None of the women knew each other. In all three cases, after their plugs were removed, their assholes could easily accept a fist without any pain or trouble. And in all three cases, the women had starting accepting fists fairly regularly.
“They all liked the feeling of a fist inside their assholes, and they really really like the pumping, fucking motion of a fist,” says Carvey. And it was not just a random activity to them: it was sex. All three of them saw it specifically as sex.
What she didn’t expect was how the boyfriends participated. “Men are not known to be enthusiastic about sex or sexual activity that doesn’t involve their cocks,” Carvey says, bluntly. She expected most men to see this as a chore to perform for a girl. Even if she wants it, it takes a lot of energy and time to pump their fists in their assholes, and to make sure they’re doing it just right to arouse her. She had all three women talk to their boyfriends about why they were so enthusiastic about it.
She found that it wasn’t any single element. The boys liked seeing their partner’s gaping asshole. They liked seeing the partner have enough endurance to take the fist pumping. They liked that anal focus the girl was showing, and they liked the excitement of the girl now having a second fuckhole. “The common element was that all three boys liked their girls having a fuckhole in front for their cocks and a fuckhole in back for their fists. If a girl could prove she could take it, they wanted to keep her in shape, and keep exercising her for fear of her asshole losing the ability to be fisted.”
PERSONAL ANAL EXPERIENCE
Sara Carvey was reluctant to tell us if she is currently or has ever trained for anal expansion herself. “I knew we’d get to this eventually,” she said as a delay tactic. “I started a long, long time ago.”
Carvey started wearing plugs to better understand what her patients were going through. She soon found that living through the details of it all helped her connect with her plugged patients. “I let them know I’m plugged, I let them know the diameter as well. It calms them to know they’re not even the widest-plugged girl in the room.”
She usually wears a slightly wider plug during therapy sessions (about 0.25” thicker at the neck) than the rest of the day. It keeps her alert and ready to help. Several of her female patients do the same. “When both the patient and therapist have extra pressure and dilation during the session, it helps with bonding and the patient usually lets out their deep truths more readily.”