Upon reading the title of this post, I honestly thought there was going to be something involving dogs (eg: Labrador retrievers).

I knew ass to mouth was a bad idea!!!! This proves it, butts are icky and ass play is dangerous. I never understood the draw to female anal sex (mostly because it feels terrible to me and is a huge turn off.) Why fuck a dirty stinky ass hole when you have a beautiful delicious pussy readily available?

ATM can be hot, but it can be mitigated by the 'ick' factor. A cleansing douche will take care of most of the evil bacteria, but one must still exercise caution. When going ATM, don't swallow any of your saliva whilst taking the cock in your mouth. That will also help lessen the chances of any unwanted bacteria getting into your system. Its not fool proof, but if you're into ass play, do these simple steps and it will greatly reduce the chance of you getting sick.

The reason people (ok, men) like it is simply the taboo factor involved. Even if something is kind of gross if you stop and think about it, it can still be kind of hot to watch other do. The conversation in Clerks II about ATM applies here as well.

I would never ask a partner of mine to do it, but if they wanted to, I'd be more than happy to feed them my goods after sticking it where the sun don't shine.

But this begs the question: what about felching?

:D

Joke or not, its a good idea! Do you think that if there was such a vaccine that it would become standard practice among the vanilla set?

I love that you take the time to investigate things like this and spread your wealth among the rest of us. Great stuff TBK!

I wonder... if you take acidophilus or other healthy bacteria on a regular basis, if it would help to kill off the bad bacteria from the ATM fun?

Hmmm....

If you put aside all the icky feelings, the medical personnel's advice, and look at the whole issue pragmatically:

Yes, there are tiny little buggers in your colon that may not be safe to ingest. Then again, your mouth and your anus are connected through one tube (okay, things usually go one direction, but for the sake of the argument), so basically one person already has ingested said bacteria (assuming they didn't teleport themselves up your butt). Bottom line: While it may not be the smartest thing to do, a grown up, healthy person will not be harmed by responsibly acting out such practices some 99.9% of the time.

If you want to live forever: Don't do it!
If you think it is gross: Don't do it!
If your immuno-suppressed: Don't do it!
If you and your partner are healthy and interested: Give it a try!

You've earned my honorary geek award! This sounds like something I was dieing to do when I had microbiology lab. Unfortunately we were only allowed to swab the parts of our bodies our clothing didn't cover. The party pooper lab instructor told us, "If I see anyone lifting clothing to swab they are in for it!" I think she didn't wanna touch our sexy petri plates.

I was waiting the whole time for him to point out the fact that this should not be taken as representative of all the bacteria from any of these locations!

Here's an interesting and plain-english intro to studying bacteria:

From Harvard Magazine, The Undiscovered Planet:

For more than a hundred years, scientists had been mystified by what was called the “plate count paradox.” Whenever they tried to grow a sample of bacteria from the environment on a nutrient medium in a petri dish (an agar plate), only a few microorganisms grew and multiplied to form colonies, when there should have been at a minimum thousands of such colonies (based on the number of different species discernible just by looking through a microscope).

ATM, by the way, is way over the line for me. I mean, there are a lot of hardcore things for which it's a turn-on if a gal is into it or willing, even if I'm not, but this is not one of those.

I don't think I'd even be willing to indulge. Blech.

This is why playing in the shower can fun, you wash first, then play, then wash again...rinse and repeat...

A doctor I knew told me a story about when she was a med student in Hawaii. The cool, class clown guy got paired up with the meanest bitch in class to grow throat cultures and then check each others Petri dish after the weekend to see what kind of bacteria grows in there. After peering into the microscope at the bitch's dish, he exclaimed "Oh, My, God!, That's sperm in there!". The class snickered and the girl protested "No Way!" The instructor said it was probably just bacteria and to be sure he'd take a look. After adjusting the microscope, the instructor shook his head and said "Yep, That's sperm." The girl ran screaming from class and didn't return for a week.

Of course, the sperm belonged to the class clown who jacked off into her Petri dish before class. Greatest practical joke I ever heard of.

Wow, I'm surprised at all the protesting! I love ATM both giving and receiving and engage in it all the time. I've never had a bad experience. Of course I echo RBG in that people have to bathe. It's immediately apparent to me if they don't and my tongue is not going anywhere near someone who didn't care enough to make him or herself presentable.

As far as anal sex, my ass belongs to one man. He knows who he is!!! As much as I love it, my ass is privileged territory! He's happy to share me and show me off but we both like saving some things just for us. He fits perfectly inside and we don't even need or use lube. He just makes me that crazy; he slips it from my pussy to my ass. I never know when its coming, he just surprises me. If an "accident" happens, we just hit the shower, no big deal!!

That being said even HIS dick is not going in my mouth after it was in my ass. Nor is it going in my pussy without a cleanup. Okay, we may have gotten carried away in the moment and done that once but to no ill effect. I still wouldn't make a habit of it, bacteria play is not my idea of fun! My line may be WAY out there but I still have one I'm PROBABLY not going to cross!

Just stumbled across a... ok, not exactly *appropriate* joke on a one-liner website but: The difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer is in the taste.

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I liked your post a lot, TBK. Enough to link to it from my blog. It's a really, really cool to see original research reporting in blogs. Also really cool that you a) proposed a hypothesis, b) someone conducted an experiment that disproved it but c) you published the results anyway. Great science isn't about being right about our guesses, it's about learning something when we try and find out if our guesses are right.

I feel honored that my colonic bacteria have been immortalized on the web. Thanks TBK. I will get working on obtaining some delicious vaginal swabs next. I might be able to get a pic of my sperm. Although, sadly, the guy in charge of the good microscopes might not take so kindly to taking pictures of a slide of my flagellated DNA packets. We may have to settle for old fashioned light microscopy.

[...] in the last post: I was writing about The Beautiful Kind’s awesome and yet disgusting post on ass to mouth.  She recruited a “sexy microbiologist” (who doesn’t want one of those?) who [...]

Seeing sperm under a microscope is pretty awesome, especially when they're fresh and you can see them squiggling around.