It was only recently that I heard about the 'cult' of the enema. That is, the use of the enema for pleasurable and in some cases erotic purposes.

I had always thought of enemas as being administered purely for medical or therapeutic purposes, and it struck me that having an enema for other reasons, to put it mildly, a somewhat bizarre practice.

However, my curiosity had been aroused and as one who prides himself on his objectivity and his tolerance of human idiosyncrasy I decided I ought to find out about the 'Cult' if cult there was.

The obvious starting point was to meet someone who actually subscribed to the cult and indulged in the practice.

The man from whom I heard about the cult of the enema and who had come across references to enema eroticism gave me the address of a man who regularly 'took' enemas and said that he was turned on by them. Unfortunately, by the time I got round to his address he had left London and his present whereabouts are not known

Therefore, I had to start from scratch and discover for myself what it was that attracted people to the enema. Perhaps, I decided, I would find references to enema eroticism in books on sexual practices, especially those dealing with unusual or out-of-the-way sexual behavior, generally thought of as aberrative. But nowhere did I find any reference to the use of the enema, let alone its use for erotic purposes. Even the index to the thousand page Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior, a standard work on the subject, was silent of the matter.

It was at this stage that I consulted a doctor friend.

Although he hadn't actually come across anyone who could be called a devotee, he had seen references to patients who had taken up the enema 'habit', and, indeed, had as he put it, become addicted. He wasn't able to provide me with any specific sources, but he went so far as to concede that a simple soap and water enema, normally administered for cleansing purposes, might well be not unpleasant and be found even enjoyable by some people. He drew my attention to the fact that on the Continent, in Switzerland in particular, resort is frequently made to enemas for all manner of minor aliments.

My doctor friend hadn't got me very far but at least he had heard that people did have enemas administered for other than medical reasons.

Enemas Defined

I had consulted books by sexologists on the subject unavailingly but so far had not referred to medical writers. It was unlikely that works on medicine would have anything to say about what I have referred to as the 'cult of the enema', but at least they would tell me how enemas were prepared and administered and for what reasons. Before pursuing my inquiries any further it now seemed to me essential that I should find out as much about enemas as possible.

An enema, I was soon to learn, 'is an injection of liquid into the rectum or colon by way of the anus for the purpose of emptying the lower intestine, or to introduce food or medicine for therapeutic purposes'. It is a perfectly simple operation and the most frequent use of the enema is for severe constipation or when, for surgical or other reasons, it is necessary to completely evacuate the colon of fecal matter.

At this stage I learnt also that enemas are used by health faddists who believe that enemas and colonic irrigation (irrigation by fluid of the higher part of the colon) are the sole means of getting rid of poisons ('toxins') resulting from modern diets.

The normal enema, then, is a cleansing one.

Procedure

The procedure of administration I found to be more or less as follows:

A solution of liquid soap in water about I ounce to I quart at a temperature slightly higher than body temperature (say 105 degrees) is used.

It is not injected under pressure (as sometimes the case with colonic irrigation) but use is made of gravity. A can or other container is raised about two feet above the recipient of the enema and filled with the liquid to be injected. The can or other container narrows at the base into a tube to which is attached a long rubber tube which ends in a nozzle or catheter. The flow of liquid is controlled by a stop-cock.

The usual procedure is that the 'patient' is asked to lie on his left side, with his right leg flexed in as comfortable a position as possible. The enema can is usually hung from a stand which is now moved close to the bed, covered with a rubber sheet, and on which the 'patient' is lying. A bedpan is usually available.

The nozzle or catheter is now lubricated and then introduced three or four inches into the anal canal. The stop-cock is then opened and the fluid allowed to flow, under the pressure of gravity, into the colon. Generally about one pint or more of liquid is administered but if the patient is unable to retain the enema the stop-cock is turned off (the bed pan slipped under him if necessary) and after a minute or two the flow is resumed. When all the fluid has been run in the nozzle or catheter is drawn from the anus.

These were the bald facts about enemas and their administration that I learned from the medical dictionaries I consulted. There was no mention of the use of enemas for other purposes than cleansing or medical ones. Although I had learned Precisely what took place on the administration of an enema I was still no nearer finding out what it was that moved or motivated' devotees of the cult.

I continued my researches but without coming up with anything other than the story of a man who was given an enema by a prostitute during a visit to Japan (published later in this volume), but otherwise I had come to something of a dead-end.

I now realized that there was nothing else for me to do but to have an enema myself. It seemed to be the only way I could really find out what it felt like to have a pint or more of fluid injected into one's colon.

Visit to an Enema Clinic

It was at this point that I recollected once having seen a small advert in the personal column of a well-known national newspaper, the advertiser offering to give enemas and colonic lavage. I searched through a number of copies until I found the announcement, whereupon I rang the number.

I felt that the whole idea of wanting an enema was somewhat odd, especially for a man who had never had a day's constipation in his life, so my approach was somewhat hesitant.

'I have seen your advert in . . .,' I began.

'Yes,' came a cool, but unfriendly voice.

'I am interested in having an enema. I'm wondering whether I could make an appointment.'

'Is it just an enema you want?' said the woman's voice.

'Yes, just an enema.' I was beginning to feel mean already.

'There's no need to book for an enema. You can call anytime between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.'

'I see. And could you tell me what the charge is?'

'Ten pounds.'

'Thank you. Well, I'll come along tomorrow.' She then gave me the address. Quite unjustifiably, as I was to find out, I got the impression of a somewhat seedy place rather like a Soho massage parlor. I suppose it was when she had asked me whether I wanted 'just an enema', for that at once suggested that a range of other possibilities were on offer, from massage to what is known as 'relief'. I began to feel a distinct reluctance to go through with my quest for the enema. I might be taken for a big ride, perhaps finding that I'd have to part with considerably more than I could afford, quite apart from which I wasn't keen, even in the interests of an objective study of enema eroticism, to submit to what might well be amateur and unhygienic hands.

The next day, however, I felt rather differently. I had made up my mind to have an enema, to find out what there was to find out, and I was determined to go through with it. After all, the address the woman had given to me wasn't in Soho and I really had no grounds at all for visualizing it as if it were in Gerrard Street

I would have to prepare myself carefully. I could imagine myself lying naked on a bed while some bright blonde tampered with my anus and waited while I used a bed-pan. The least I could do was to he as clean inside as possible. Even if my colon was 'full of toxins' as the health faddists would have claimed, I could make sure that I had a full and complete evacuation as possible. I even went as far as avoiding certain foods and eating as much roughage as possible for the rest of the day and the next morning.

Then it was enema day.

I bathed meticulously, rubbed myself in eau de Cologne, and put on clean linen. When a few minutes after my bath I had to evacuate I was not content with toilet paper but carried out a fastidious perennial toilet with soap and water.

Bracing myself I made my way to the Marble Arch region of London.

It was eleven o'clock and 1 thought a drink would help although I had purposely avoided alcohol from the moment I had decided on the enema. But it was much worse than facing a dentist and, after all, it was my anus whoever administered the enema would be concerned with, not my mouth.

I went into a pub I remembered writing a piece about some years ago, the 'Carpenter's Arms'. I called it the 'Temple of Beer' because it was the first house I discovered that took seriously what has come to be called 'real beer'. Perhaps I would be writing an article called 'The Enema Temple' in a few hours time. I hoped that I would get at least as much satisfaction from the enema as I got from Young's bitter.

But my pulse was racing and I almost decided that I'd stay in the pub and forget the enema. Making an effort to cm myself, I decided that things would look different after a few pints so I decided to stay in the pub for a while until I felt I had the courage to continue. It occurred to me that it was a good thing that an appointment wasn't necessary for an enema: perhaps all the customers felt the same way as I did, and that they'd discovered that appointments were never kept.

At three o'clock I felt I could face a firing squad without trepidation. I left the pub and made my way to the block of flats where the enema 'clinic' was situated. Despite the Dutch courage I had built up from the beer, my heart sank as I saw the name of the block just ahead of me.

It certainly didn't look seedy and I decided that it must be an ordinary residential flat with perhaps a retired nurse administering enemas to pay the rent.

I was to have quite a surprise, however. I rang the bell and from the flat opposite the glass door a young woman in a white overall and nurse's cap appeared. When she saw me through the glass doors she released the catch and I entered. There was no turning back now.

'Good afternoon,' said the obviously proficient young woman who ushered me into the flat. She had an air of competence and authority about her, very different from either the seedy blonde I first imagined I should be meeting and the retired nurse I had conjured up a few minutes before.

The place looked immensely professional. I found myself in a reception room from which opened a passage leading to a number of small rooms furnished almost clinically with nothing more than a bed and chair.

But first the young woman who had opened the door sat at a desk and invited me to sit down.

'I phoned you yesterday,' I began. 'I said that I would be coming today for an enema.'

'Just an enema?'

Once again I felt mean. But there was no choice as I had only about £15 on me.

'This time,' I confirmed. 'Just an enema. Sort of experimental.'

'I see. No massage then'.

'No.' It was time to be firm.

'Then will you come with me?'

She led me to one of the small rooms. On the way I caught sight of another woman, small and fair, wearing a similar uniform to my interrogator.

We entered the small room and she told me to undress and put on the 'gown' after which she left me.

The gown was the sort of thing I'd expect Judo experts to wear before entering the ring. It was saffron colored, made of cotton, with short sleeves and reaching to my knees.

I quickly undressed and put on the gown. By now my fears began to abate: I was too preoccupied with doing as I had been instructed to have time for further worries.

Almost as soon as I put on the gown the young woman returned with a pair of mules. 'Put these on,' she said, 'Or you will be cold.'

I followed her and this time she led me to the enema room.

It was a properly fitted out theater with all the necessary equipment for administering enemas and colonic irrigation. Nothing seedy about it, 1 decided once and for all. It was the real thing, efficient and clinical.

I had hardly a moment to take in the fact that in at one end of the room there was a bed covered in plastic or rubber sheeting, fitted with cushions or pillows at one end, and close by a gleaming metal enema stand. In another corner, not far from the bed, was what looked like an elaborate water-heater. This I found out later was used for colonic irrigation. In another corner there was a loo and a bidet.

I had no time to do more than glance at these things before I was told to lie on the bed, facing the wall. I clambered onto the bed and pushing back my gown to expose my buttocks. The young woman then placed a towel over the uncovered part of my body.

I was expecting some elaborate preliminaries, perhaps the lubrication of my anus and the nozzle which was to be inserted therein. But almost at once she took the end of the tube that had been hanging on the enema stand and thrust it quickly and efficiently into my anus.

'I'll turn on the fluid,' she said. 'When you get a feeling of fullness inside let me know.'

I could feel the liquid being injected into me and in a moment or two there was a suggestion of the fullness she had mentioned. But, at the risk of evacuating it involuntarily, I decided I would go on until I could take no more.

It wasn't long before I decided this moment had come.

'I think that's about it,' I told her.

'Good,' was her comment, taking the tube from my anus.

She drew the gown over my buttocks and told me to lie there for five or ten minutes. Then would I get up and use the loo in the corner? After that would I ring the bell?

Moment of Truth

Well, here I was with the enema inside me at last. Until that moment there'd hardly been a moment to think about how it felt. I'd almost forgotten my reason for coming to the clinic at all, so preoccupied had I been with carrying out the young woman's instructions, and fearful that I should make a fool of myself by rejecting the enema. Only then did I have a moment to assess my situation.

I can't say that at that moment I had any particular feelings about the enemas inside me one way or another. There had been no stimulating preliminaries. For example, I had not had my anus lubricated by the young nurse in attendance, nor had she even touched my body. The tube had been inserted into my anal canal quickly and efficiently without her hand even touching me.

I had barely felt the fluid entering my colon, and now that it was filled with a pint and a half of water there was nothing to it but a certain heaviness.

Enema Fantasies

As I lay there, however, my imagination got to work. What had been a nurse administering an enema became a woman who with extreme capability and proficiency had got me onto my side and filled with water I dare not object. I began to feel that in some strange way I was in her power, that the weight of liquid inside me was something I had to put up with because she had told me to.

In my mind there was already a rapport between us, an unspoken relationship in which she was the dominating partner and I was the recipient of her domination.

I tried to stop my imagination running away with me but as the seconds Licked by and the load of fluid inside me began to feel almost painful, I knew that I had to put up with it and that there was no escape, except the disastrous one of evacuating it there and then, on the bed, the result of which would be that she would have nothing but contempt for me and our rapport would be severed.

No, I had to submit to the increasing pain in my colon, to brace myself to keep the fluid there at all costs until the time limit was reached when I would be justified in expelling it. Until that moment I had to lie there aware of my impotence and vulnerability, a man completely in the power of an anonymous nurse waiting in an adjoining room.

The ten minutes seemed an inordinate length of time, but when it was up I felt that I would have been able to go on much longer especially if I had been commanded to do so.

Back, however, to the world of reality.

I made my way without difficulty across to the loo, beginning to wonder by now whether I would be able to expel the fluid. Why hadn't it rim out from me already?

As soon as I sat on the seat I knew at once that I had no need to fear that I would be retaining the fluid, for immediately I exerted myself the water began to flow out.

And then an evacuation followed of such an intensity that I thought my bowels were falling out of my body. I have said that I have never been constipated in my life and I fully expected that there would be very little to rid myself of in the lower part of my colon. It may be that I was misled into thinking I was evacuating fecal matter as the water left my colon and was ejected through my rectum, and it is true that there was no odor in the room (though that may have been because of an extractor fan); but the sensation was one of sustained and unending release almost as if I were being disemboweled. This went on for some three or four minutes until I was convinced that the whole of my insides had fallen into the pan. It was a strange, almost pleasurable, but somewhat unnerving feeling.

I got to my feet, carried out the appropriate perennial toilet and then, as I had been instructed, looked for the bell my attendant had told me to ring when I was ready. There were a number of cords suspended from the ceiling and the end of the curtains. I must have pulled the right one unwittingly for as I went on searching I found the woman at my side.

I could see a look of satisfaction on her face. It was apparent that I had not failed her.

She told me to dress and after I had done so we sat facing each other over the desk in the reception room.

Did I want colonic irrigation? I could have had it for a further £5.

No. I was certain that I did not want colonic irrigation if only because my time was running short and I had a train to catch.

Then what about another time?

Why not?

I agreed at once to come in a fortnight when I would first have an enema and then that would be followed by colonic lavage.

I hoped that she would be there too.

Unfortunately not. She was going abroad on holiday and wouldn't be back for six weeks, but the fair girl I had seen earlier would look after me.

It was a pity because I felt that the rapport between us had begun to develop and although nothing had been said about my reasons for having an enema I felt she was beginning to understand me.