I’ve discovered that today is (unofficially-officially) International Fisting Day. I discovered when Jiz Lee and Courtney Trouble told me about it. Seems there’s a movement going on to, more or less, raise awareness about fisting as a legitimate intimate act. Seems there’s a generally-held belief in this country that fisting is an extreme sex act that can’t even be safely filmed without fear of obscenity charges, so most scenes where fisting takes placed are actually cut so you can’t see what’s going on.
This strikes me as about as close as we get in America to censorship. And I do not like that one little bit.
I, myself, don’t know much about fisting on a personal level. I’ve never tried it, probably owing a lot to that misconception prevalent in society about how it’s a “fringe” act. But I’ve seen some porn in which fisting happens (mostly off-screen, leaving only the general pumping motion of the arm and wide-eyed gasping facial expressions to clue me in), and I have never seen anyone who’s doing it look sad or pained or unhappy. I’ve seen faces open into what can only be described as transcendent smiles and wide-open pleasure. I’ve seen women squirt. I’ve heard people scream in orgasm… In general, I’ve only ever seen good things.
But I’ve never tried it. And you know, now that I think about it, maybe it’s not just this seemingly unfair prejudice against fisting that has stopped me. There’s the logistical issue–I’m very very sensitive and small down there–but more than that, there’s the syntactical issue. The word itself–fisting–brings to mind images of faces being punched. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the idea of putting one’s whole hand into someone else’s orifice, at least not so far as I’m concerned, it’s that the terminology applied to the act is so violent-sounding. So aggressive. Why not “handing” or “five fingering” or something slightly less heavyweight-champion-esque? If regular sex was called “face-smashing” I might be less inclined to try it, too.
But that’s only the veneer, the very outer skin of the deliciously sweet fruit that I’m told by many adult performers and friends is the truth about fisting. And a rose, by any other name, would still feel fantastic. I don’t know that I’ll try to jumpstart my personal experience with fisting today, but I will talk to people about it and ask them about their experiences to find out more. There is no reason under the sun not to be open-minded about it, to discuss it and make it more generally understood. Nor is there any reason not to let it be shown on camera. But one step at a time, I suppose, is the way these things go.
Conflicted Exxistence