An anal hook — ass hook in North American informal speech — is a sex toy built for anal penetration and the bondage scenes that hang off that penetration. It looks like a fish hook on purpose: a curved bar, a ball on the inserted end, a ring on the other. Stainless steel is the usual material. Other metals and finishes exist, but the common shop object is a rigid steel curve, not a soft toy.
Ball, ring, and why the steel does not flex
The standard design is simple. A metal ball seats inside the body and keeps the curve from slipping out. A ring at the free end takes rope, a clip, or a decorative tie. Unlike dildos and anal beads, which are often made to bend, anal hooks are almost always inflexible. Steel does not give when the wearer moves. Used badly, a rigid hook transmits force straight into tissue that a silicone toy would have yielded around.
Never load-bearing: hair and harness only
A bondage hook is never a load-bearing restraint. Do not hang a body from it. Do not use it as the anchor that takes a person’s weight, a hoist, or a hard yank. The injury potential is the whole reason for the rule. What people actually do with the ring is lighter. The hook is sometimes woven into a rope harness on the torso, or into rope tied into the hair, so that a turn of the head or a shift of the chest tugs the curve. In those setups the harness or the hair — not the rectum — takes the load. Treat the steel as inflexible, treat the ring as decoration-plus-tension, and never ask the toy to hold a body.
