The Truth About Fisting.

I have learned a lot about fisting this week. While spamming the social networks trying to reach out to bloggers, fans, performers, and everyone else, I’m starting to get the impression that not many people understand what I mean when I say “fisting.”

So, this post is an uncensored explanation. I will show you some photos. I will lay it out for you in a way that will hopefully fit within whatever your own gender and sexual situations may be.

nina hartley fisting jiz lee in Live Sex Show

GENDER AND ANATOMY

I enjoy fisting other people. I enjoy getting fisting. I may speak from this point of view within this article, but I would like to aknowledge also that people of all genders and sexual orientations can paritcipate in fisting and enjoy fisting. Heterosexuals do it. Gay men do it. Lesbians do it. Trans people do it. Some people can do it to themselves. I will be addressing heterosexual, cisgendered sex in this post as well as other kinds of partnering. If you’re interested, tonight at 8pm PST, I will be teaching a workshop on fisting, and trans male porn star James Darling will be my demo bottom, you’ll get to see a queer fisting partnership in the sense that we both identify as queer, although technically we are a gal and a guy!

Ignorance often presents itself as an absence of representation. In the same, bigotry and hateful actions and words often come from ignorance. How much of censorship in pornography, and also in life, could we evolve out of, if people were to know more about things like fisting, female ejaculation, and menstruation sex? Sex is a universal language, we speak it globally, despite our differences. Pornography can be used as a common language, it can be used to introduce new ideas – remember when interracial sex was a new idea? Remember when masturbation was a new idea? Remember when lesbian sex was a new idea? Remember when BDSM was a new idea? Remember when free love was a new idea? Remember when safer sex was a new idea?  Let’s make fisting a new idea.

quinn valentine fisting me in Valencia: The Movie

IS IT PAINFUL?

There is an overwhelming sense that fisting is punching. That it’s violent. That you’re beating something up. That you’re hurting someone. That it’s abusive.

The truth is, any sex act can be done incorrectly, against our will, or by somebody we’re just not that into. Getting head can be painful and abusive if you’re not into your partner. Your favorite sex act can be destroyed for you if it’s done to you against your will.  Masturbating can make you cry if you’re having a bad day. All sex lives in this liminal space – who we let close to us and what we are willing to do with them relies so heavily on our attraction and also where our bodies and minds live at that moment. If you are with someone you’re attracted to, that your body responds to; if you’re calm, in a good mood, turned on; and if you have the time to spend getting there – fisting is the opposite of all of those scary things. It becomes soft, gentle, sweet, loving, intensely beautiful, life-altering.

This is exactly why we need to lift the self-imposed ban on fisting in mainstream pornography. If we don’t show it the way it’s meant to be and how to do it properly, we will keep seeing only these violent images that are out there, and perpetuate this idea that fisting is dangerous or harmful.

I too have seen gross, scary, painful looking photos online of “fisting” – there’s not much of it but the stuff that out there isn’t always that pleasant looking. In the age of Two Girls One Cup. Goatsee, and Mr. Hands; some of these amateur-looking “fisting” videos have gone the way of shock value and disgust instead of high production value, education, and a good scene. And because there’s not much else out there to weigh against it, that’s all we see.

A NOTE ABOUT CENSORING FEMALE PLEASURE:

Remember that old movie Deep Throat? When it went to court for obscenity charges in the early 70’s, an attorney argued that it be censored, not because there’s cocks way too far down a woman’s throat, but because “the movie says it’s perfectly normal to have a clitoral orgasm, and that is wrong.” In 40 years we have not gotten too much further in the fight to bring female pleasure to the surface of acceptability.  So when I hear a guy comment on fisting, “Stretch a pussy open like that?!?! GROSS!” I roll my eyes – go back to the 70s dude. Some of us want our pussies stretched out like that. Don’t be ignorant.

I’m going to speak from my own female pont of view for a second and speak directly to the heterosexual guys out there reading this: Women do not want to have sex with people who don’t know how to have sex. Want to get laid? Want to get laid over and over and over again? Get yourself sex educated on female pleasure. Learn about the clitoris. Learn about sex toys. Learn about anatomy, fingerfucking, fisting, female ejaculation, cunnilingus, dirty talk, BDSM, kink, fantasy role play. Your ignorance is keeping you down. The guys who get laid all the time (and aren’t just lying about it) are the ones who know what they’re doing. Pop Quiz: You’re fucking a babe. You orgasm. She doesn’t – WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?   Your answer to this question is pivotal to your sex score. Thinking that female pleasure is “Gross” will get you nothing. No pussy for you. If you don’t know what to do with a pussy when your dick is soft – you don’t deserve any pussy.

WHAT IS FISTING?

Fisting is simply four fingers and a thumb sliding into a vagina (or ass, for those inclined and well-lubed). The hand then slips delicately inside the hole, past the knuckles and anywhere along the palm of the hand, even up to the wrist. It’s basically allowing the vaginal muscles to decide how little, or how much, the body wants to take in. The fistee is left feeling full, and often times the fister can feel the beating of the heart, muscle swelling, and the walls of the vagina moving up and down the hand. There’s a misconception that’s it’s forced in, when most fisting is initiated entirely by the person getting fisted. In fact, it’s usually the vagina itself that will decide to just swallow a hand entirely.

Once the hand is fully inside, it generally stays still, allowing both parties to experience that connection. Some movement is natural, and after a while, light thrusting may or may not happen. Every once in a while it might be faster or harder, but in general, fisting is all about a hand and a hole listening to each other very closely. It’s one of the most beautiful, intimate sex acts I’ve ever experienced. It’s sex positive and builds a deeper connection between sex partners. It’s encourages deeper communication. And most people who have been fisted will probably tell you, it’s one of the best ways to orgasm in the whole wide world.

SAFER SEX

The animated .GIF above is of me and my fluid-bonded, exclusive partner, and I wanted to show you the individual fingers and the wetness, so I skipped the gloves. There are many reasons to wear latex (or alternative materials if you’re allergic) gloves when fisting someone. First of all, it can protect you from STIs, though hand sex in general is fairly low risk – cuts on your hand or around your cuticles/nails should be covered by a glove. If you have long nails, you can put a little cotton under them and slide your hand in a glove. And overall, gloves are slicker and don’t absorb lubricant like skin does, so first-timers can use gloves to make fisting easier!

WILL IT MAKE ME “LOOSE?”

This is just a short note, but no – fisting will not make your pussy “loose” – not that you should be worrying about that anyways.  Women in our society feel a lot of pressure to have “tight pussies” – that it enhances male pleasure, which is so often the focus of sex as we are taught to have it. Fisting, instead, celebrates the incredible elasticity, motion, and strength of our vaginas, refocusing on our pleasure.

Your vaginal walls will stretch only enough to form tightly around the hand inside it (a VERY pleasurable feeling for the person with their hand in an incredibly form-fitting hole) – and once the fisting is over, your muscles will very quickly, like immediately, go back to where they were before. I can usually grip one finger firmly about a minute after being fisted.

You can keep your pelvic muscles fit and “tight” easily in general, by doing kegal exercises. These simple flex-and-release movements will not only keep your vagina strong, it will improve your uterine health AND help you along a path to female ejaculation if that’s something you’re interested in.

WHY IS IT BANNED FROM PORN?

Adult industry lawyers have a list of things that can trigger obscenity lawsuits. This list, in no particular order what-so-ever, includes things like dripping wax, bisexual sex, blindfolds, and interracial sex – in equal offense with things that are actually illegal and totally fucked up, like rape, underage fantasies, and incest.   Fisting is on this list. Right next to female ejaculation, which has it’s own AVN award. I’d love to see “Best Fisting Scene” next year – I bet I’d win!

This list was created by Paul Cambria in 2001, and is known as the Cambria list. On this list, fisting (and squirting, sharing a dildo, wax dripping, blindfolds, bondage toys, transsexuals, bi-sexual sex, menstruation sex, and interracial sex) are listed in equality with underage fantasies, rape, necrophilia, incest, and bestiality. Bukkake and facial ejaculation shots are also on this list.

Why most of these sex acts or themes have been allowed into the mainstream adult showcase while fisting remains as prohibited as some of the more serious acts is beyond me (SEE NOTE ABOUT FEMALE PLEASURE). Further more, many of these prohibited things, such as transsexuals, bisexual sex, menstruation, and squirting, identify a larger problem within the community of adult industry lawyers that mandate these guidelines, and the filmmakers and producers that perpetuate this list’s power over our work – that the adult industry at large is misogynist and homophobic.

Fisting is important to me because it’s so intimate. Usually, it’s slow, connected, loving, sex. I think people assume that fisting is fast, painful, scary. If it’s done correctly, it’s exactly the opposite. It takes time, lubrication, eye contact, connectedness. It’s my favorite kind of sex to have with my boyfriend.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

If you, like me, love fisting and want to see it become a less shamefull, tabboo sex act. If you, like me, want the world to understand what it is, and how to do it safely. And if you, like me, want to see it included in all those porn scenes where it’s been edited out, angled out, or removed entirely, here’s what we can do:

– Come Out! Tell the world you like fisting. That you’ve tried it. That you want to try it.  Sex positivity is about opening up, it’s about being out of the closet, and embracing the lost list of desires out there in the wolrd.

– Request that your local porn shop or favorite retail porn site carry ethical, independently made porn that includes fisting! FYI: Smitten Kitten, Early To Bed, Good For Her, Fatale Media, and Trouble’s Porn Shop are already on the bandwagon!

– Support the pornographers who are taking a stand, and letting the fist stay in! These porn sites include QueerPorn.Tv, No Fauxxx, Crash Pad Series (the website, not the DVDs), and Good Dyke Porn (all queer, indie sites), and check out my new film Live Sex Show, a brand new release that features a gorgeous fisting scene with Nina Hartley and Jiz Lee, as well as 5 other scenes that were shot all in one day in front of an audience of 200! The film Trans Entities also has a fisting scene in it, if you can find it!!!

14 Comments

  1. When I first came out as lesbian (I’m now married to a man, so I guess that makes me queer) fisting was something that NOBODY talked about. I discovered it as one of my first girlfriends had found out about it by accident, loved it, then later taught it to me.

    It is intense. Some of the best and most intimate orgasms were achieved through fisting. I also found it very emotional, as my relationships would break down(to eventually end0, fisting would became difficult to nigh on impossible.

    I knew a queer pornographer for quite a while who was fine with the exclusion of fisting from porn. Her biggest fear was to produce hardcore lesbian films, that straight men would watch, and then attempt to bully their girlfriends or wives into. Fisting done wrong Hurts! It can also hurt for quite a few days afterwards. I had an experience due to inattention and lack of care which left me in pain for almost two weeks.

    Fisting is something that should be a mutual experience between two people and I’m sorry, but most porn out there has no interest in mutual pleasure.

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