For the uninitiated, ass worship is exactly what it sounds like : the erotic act of kissing, licking, and adoring a partner’s ass, sometimes literally, sometimes through praise or touch. It can be submissive, dominant, or just deeply affectionate.

For the newest installment in our series on the Secret Lives of Men , we talked to Hunter*, a data analyst from Hartford, Connecticut, about how a fetish that began in an AOL chat room in his teens evolved into a refuge from shame through his twenties, a substitute for intimacy in his thirties, and what changed when someone finally turned the worship back on him.

*Names and identifying details of the subjects have been changed to protect their anonymity.

Hunter, 36, Healthcare Data Analyst

One of my first sexual experiences happened over

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