Consider the butt plug.

A few years ago, back when I was in my twenties and still regularly reviewing sex toys, I received a sample of a rather unusual product. The name escapes me now — it may have been called the Jolie? — but the form, and the function, does not. Narrow at either end and thickly humped in the middle, it was a solid hunk of purple silicone that was designed to the enter the vagina and just stay there, providing the user with an intense feeling of fullness. Unsure of how else to describe it, I ultimately began referring to the Jolie as a “vaginal butt plug.”

The odd construction of that nomenclature highlighted the truly unusual nature of this product. By and large, toys designed for vaginal pleasure are created with motion in mind. A dildo pleasures through thrusting, a vibrator franticly trembles even when it is held still. Even kegel balls — perhaps the most static of all vaginal stimulators — are still weighted in such a way as to rock around within the vagina, prompting clenching and flexing of the muscles in response.

The butt plug, on the other hand, just stays there. While it can be used as thrusting toy, pushed in and pulled out of the anus repeatedly, that is not its primary purpose — and indeed, for many butt plug enthusiasts, that usage would utterly miss the point. The purpose of the butt plug is not to fuck but to fill, to create a pleasurable sensation simply through its presence, simply through its ability to transform the wearer from an empty vessel to one that is full.

And notably, for many anal enthusiasts the butt plug itself is enough. Despite our collective conviction that anyone who opens their asshole must needs want that asshole to be fucked, many people do not. Many people are perfectly happy to begin and end their anal adventures with a butt plug. Sometimes it is because they’re uninterested in expanding the capacity of their anus to the point of being able to take a cock. Sometimes it’s because they aren’t interested in the frenzied stimulation of being fucked, but only in this static pleasure of anal expansion*.

There are some obvious physiological reasons for this difference in how we stimulate the anus and the vagina, of course. The anus, with its tight outer sphincter, is designed to grip and retain; the vaginal opening is not. While vaginas can certainly store and transport items (tampons and menstrual cups being obvious examples), securing safe passage requires stowing those items relatively deep into the vagina, where nerves are sparse, rather than near the nerve-rich opening, where the bulk of pleasure is felt. A product designed to both stay stationary within the vagina and provide it with pleasure requires some very special consideration (and, based on my experience with the Jolie, is not really a product you can just insert and walk around with)**.

But setting aside the whys, the fact that this form of passive pleasure is easier to achieve with the anus is, I think, a part of the asshole’s appeal. You can insert a butt plug and go about your day; you can wear one out of the house, even show up at work with no one else the wiser about your naughty little secret. The butt plug enables the wearer to freeze oneself in a state of erotic awakening, achieving a stable plateau that does not require persistent motion to be maintained. It creates a meditative state, one where the mantra that keeps you grounded is the gripping of your asshole***.

This is, then, another thing to love about the asshole. It does not require frenetic enthusiasm in order to stay engaged, it does not demand constant entertainment and engagement, like some easily bored toddler. It asks only for the chance to embrace, to curl itself around something solid. And through that simple act of contact, it connects you to a steady, simple state of eroticism.

* Or, in some bodies, pressure on the prostate.

** And again, yes, you can put kegel balls up there and walk around, or insert a remote controlled bullet vibe, but these products are still very different from the butt plug.

*** Also, if you are inclined, you can literally meditate with a butt plug inserted up your ass. I mean, if you want.