Fisting, also called handballing, fist-fucking, brachiovaginal, or brachioproctic insertion [Edit]

Fisting, also called handballingfist-fuckingbrachiovaginal, or brachioproctic insertion, is a sexual activity that involves inserting a hand into the vagina or rectum. Once insertion is complete, the fingers are either clenched into a fist or kept straight. Fisting may be performed without a partner, but it is most often a partnered activity.

History

Fisting’s emergence as a popular sexual practice is commonly attributed to gay male culture and it may not have existed until the twentieth century. Robert Morgan Lawrence, a sex educator, however, believes the practice dates back thousands of years.

MSC Hamburg is a gay men’s leather club in Germany which was founded in 1973; this club began due to the fact that German leatherman Gerd Pohl held a party in Hamburg in 1973, which included the first fisting scene at such an event in Germany. The party was raided by the police, and when Pohl began to organize a second party, he came to realize that founding a club would make it easier.

The most famous fisting club in the world was the gay male – and eventually also lesbian  – S/M leather fisting club called the Catacombs, located in San Francisco. Steve McEachern was the founder and owner of the Catacombs; it originally operated from 1975 to 1981, and reopened at another location from 1982 to 1984 after McEachern’s death in 1981. Cynthia Slater persuaded the management of the Catacombs to open up to lesbians. The Handball Express was another notable fisting club.

Crisco was commonly used as a lubricant for fisting before more specialized personal lubricants became available.

A table in Larry Townsend’The Leatherman’s Handbook II (the 1983 second edition; the 1972 first edition did not include this list) which is generally considered authoritative states that a red handkerchief is a symbol for fisting in the handkerchief code. As well, placing a hanky in the left pocket indicates the wearer’s alignment with a top/dominant role, while a hanky in the right pocket indicates the wearer’s alignment with a bottom/submissive role. Townsend noted that discussion with a prospective partner is still important because people may wear a given color “only because the idea of the hankie turns them on” or “may not even know what it means”.

In the 1980s, it was assumed that unprotected fisting—which often produces small injuries to the anus, permitting microorganisms access to the blood—was an easy route for transmission of HIV. This, combined with sexual squeamishness towards the public fisting culture in gay establishments of San Francisco, led gay writer Randy Shilts to successfully campaign for the closure of venues, such as gay bathhouses and sex clubs, that openly permitted it. Fisting gradually returned as a sexual practice over the next 30 years.

The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley consists of four works of art along the Ringold Street alley in San Francisco’s South of Market district honoring leather culture; it opened in 2017. One of the works of art is bronze bootprints along the curb honoring 28 individuals who were an important part of local leather communities. One person honored with such a bronze bootprint is Steve McEachern, founder and owner of the Catacombs, a gay male – and eventually also lesbian – S/M leather fisting club located in San Francisco that was the most famous fisting club in the world. It originally operated from 1975 to 1981, and reopened at another location from 1982 to 1984 after McEachern’s death in 1981. Another person so honored is Cynthia Slater, who persuaded the management of the Catacombs to open up to lesbians. Another person so honored is Bert Herrman, an expert on fisting  – which he preferred to call handballing – who wrote Trust: The Hand Book: A Guide to the Sensual and Spiritual Art of Handballing (1991).

Techniques

The “Silent Duck”, also called “Duck-Billing”, is the technique often used in which the person engaging in hand insertion shapes their hand to resemble a duck’s beak. Typically, fisting does not involve forcing the clenched fist into the vagina or rectum; this is a practice called “punching”. Instead, all five fingers are kept straight and held as close together as possible (forming the beak-like “duck”), then slowly inserted into a well lubricated vagina or rectum.

In more vigorous forms of fisting, such as “punching” or “punchfisting”, a fully clenched fist may be inserted and withdrawn slowly.

Fistees who are more experienced may take two fists (double-fisting). In the case of double-fisting, pleasure is derived more from the stretching of the anus or vagina than from the thrusting (in-and-out) movement of hands.

Risks

Fisting can cause laceration or perforation of the vagina, perineum, rectum, or colon, resulting in serious injury and even death. In addition, sexual activities that cause air to enter the vagina can lead to a fatal air embolism, and the risk is probably higher during pregnancy.

Anal fisting carries risks of colorectal perforation; participants are advised to use latex gloves and lubricant, and designate a safeword, the utterance of which will call an immediate halt to the activity. The practice, along with the insertion of hard objects into the anus, has been significantly related to the traumatization of the rectal mucosa in increasing the likelihood of infection, including Hepatitis B.

Legal status

In the United States there is nothing inherently illegal about any pornography so long as it is not child pornography; however, it can be found to be obscene. Fisting is on the Cambria List, a list of sex acts which may be prosecutable under U.S. obscenity law, created by lawyer Paul Cambria in 2001. The list is intended to act as guidelines to help producers avoid obscenity lawsuits.

In the United Kingdom fisting is legal to perform. The Crown Prosecution Service did consider publication of fisting material to be grounds for prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act 1959; however, following a public consultation, the Crown Prosecution Service published guidelines in 2019 indicating that pornography depicting consenting adults engaged in legal acts would no longer be prosecuted under the Act, provided no serious harm was caused and the likely audience was over the age of 18. The guidelines also clarified that material that is purposefully obscene can be justified as in the public good if it is “in the interests of science, literature, art or learning”.

In 1998, the University of Central England was involved in a controversy partially regarding fisting when a library book by Robert Mapplethorpe was confiscated. A final-year undergraduate student was writing a paper on the work of Mapplethorpe and intended to illustrate the paper with a few photographs from Mapplethorpe, a book of the photographer’s work. She took the photographs to the local chemist to be developed and the chemist informed West Midlands Police because of the unusual nature of the images. The police confiscated the library book from the student and informed the university that two photographs in the book would have to be removed. If the university agreed to the removal (which it did not) the book would be returned. The two photographs, which were deemed possibly prosecutable as obscenity, were “Helmut and Brooks, NYC, 1978”, which shows anal fisting, and “Jim and Tom, Sausalito, 1977″, which is of a man clad in a dog collar, a leather mask and trousers, urinating into another man’s mouth.” After a delay of about six months, the affair came to an end when Peter Knight, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, was informed that no legal action would be taken. The book was returned to the university library without removal of the photos.

In the United Kingdom case of R v Peacock in 2012, Michael Peacock was found not guilty of breaching the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for selling DVDs containing anal fisting.

There was an unsuccessful prosecution in the United Kingdom in 2012 where it was argued by the prosecution that images of anal fisting constitute extreme pornography and thus are illegal to possess because the act is “likely to result in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals”. Specifically, in August 2012, Simon Walsh, a former aide to then London mayor Boris Johnson, was charged with possessing five images of “extreme pornography”, which were not found by police on his computers, but as email attachments on a Hotmail server account. He was found not guilty on all counts. Three images were of urethral sounding, and two of anal fisting. The images were all of consensual adult sexual activity. The Crown Prosecution Service maintained that the acts depicted were “extreme” even if the jury disagreed in this case.

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