by Jon Pressick
As someone who loves to receive a fist, what I enjoy about it is an unparalleled feeling of fullness. The most sensitive areas of the vagina are just within the first few inches, which is where I like to use my kegel and pelvic muscles to grip snugly around a lover’s wrist, which can be compared to the girth of a medium-large dildo. Deeper inside, pressure feels good for me. I like to rock my hips against a lover’s hand, or hold very still and squeeze hard, creating a game where I try to hold their hand tightly in place as they move against me. I do my kegel exercises and am pretty strong so I have a lot of control over my vaginal muscles and can make myself very tight, or, allow myself to stretch open. Or pulse between the two extremes. Combining clitoral and vaginal stimulation, the network of nerves and contracting of muscles orchestrate some of the most amazingly intense orgasms I’ve had.
What do you say to people who think it’s dangerous or scary?
Some people think fisting is intense in a bad way—that it hurts. But anyone who loves fisting knows that it can be the most intimate and beautifully connecting experience with a lover. Or really fun in a threesome—I’ve held the hand, fingers locked, of a lover while the two of us have fisted a friend. I’ve also had both my fists inside two different lovers at the same time, while they kissed intensely. I’ve 69ed with fisting, and I’ve even fisted myself!
Fisting isn’t scarier than any kind of unwelcome sexual advance. However many people don’t know that much about it. We learn about sex as only being penis-vagina intercourse. But sex is so much more! We don’t learn much about sexual anatomy, how to communicate with lovers, or about pleasure. In fact, when we see a fist, we may be more inclined to think of it punching someone in the face because we see images of violence more commonly and at a younger age than we do sex (e.g., cartoons show characters throwing punches and shooting guns, yet won’t show even a bare breast). In This Film Will Not Be Rated, we see the MPAA approve violent scenes with more leniency than they do sex scenes, especially ones featuring female pleasure. So when we as a culture are more familiar with a fist being used to harm someone, it’s no wonder that someone who hasn’t had a healthy sex-positive education about fisting would assume it is painful. In our culture we see fists as painful weapons, while I see them as revolutionary weapons of sex-positive progress. Or, you know, the ASL symbol for the letter E. See? That’s not so scary.
What’s your experience with fisting?
Personal love of the topic aside, my work in adult film has primarily featured fisting. In fact, I fist in my films more often than I’ve worn a strap-on. This may come as a surprise to many DVD buyers, who would never see the act as it’s been edited or angled out of the scenes, with the exception of online website content for queer porn sites. I’ve performed as a demo model for fisting demonstrations in adult classes such as Reid Mihalko’s Iron Slut: Sex Educator Showdown! and have taught it as a guest lecturer on sex ed at colleges and universities. I was also a contributor to The Official Book of Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll Lists, where my “Top Five Songs about Fisting” was censored out of the book, due to the sensitive topic…really!
So there you go. While it’s not the first time I knew fisting couldn’t be shown in a hard-copy DVD, this was the first time fisting was banned by a Video on Demand (VOD) company. And here’s where some background comes into play. Because: WHY is it okay to show fisting ONLINE, but not in a hard-copy DVD?
Well. Here’s what I know.
DVD distributors, retailers, and porn producers are afraid to sell porn if it means they might be charged with an obscenity.
Fisting appears on the Cambria List of sex acts not allowed for inclusion in content meant for physical distribution.
From PBS:
On January 18th, 2001, Adult Video News reported on the so-called “Cambria List.” Paul Cambria, a longtime attorney for the porn industry, was involved in the list’s preparation. The list is controversial within the industry and interpretations differ on how it was meant to be applied. Some in the industry say it represents guidelines for the box-covers of adult videos, not for the sex acts they depict. Nevertheless, there is wide agreement that the Cambria List shows how the adult industry is seeking to be more careful, fearing a potential crackdown on pornography by the Bush Administration.
The Cambria List: Box-Cover Guidelines/Movie Production Guidelines
• Before selecting a chrome please check facial expression. Do not use any shots that depict any unhappiness or pain.
• Do not include any of the following:
• No shots with appearance of pain or degradation
• No facials (body shots are okay if shot is not nasty)
• No bukkake
• No spitting or saliva mouth to mouth
• No food used as sex object
• No peeing unless in a natural setting, e.g., field, roadside
• No coffins
• No blindfolds
• No wax dripping
• No two dicks in/near one mouth
• No shot of stretching pussy
• No fisting
• No squirting
• No bondage-type toys or gear unless very light
• No girls sharing same dildo (in mouth or pussy)
• Toys are okay if shot is not nasty
• No hands from two different people fingering same girl
• No male/male penetration
• No transsexuals
• No bi-sex
• No degrading dialogue, e.g., “Suck this cock, bitch” while slapping her face with a penis
• No menstruation topics
• No incest topics
• No forced sex, rape themes, etc.
• No black men/white women themes
Several things are not on this list and several things are on this list, which should never have been. I mean, WTF?!
I emailed Queerie Bradshaw, who has a legal background, and she confirmed what I expected about the legal aspects behind several porn obscenity trials when it comes to bringing visibility to marginalized sexual practices. Particularly in terms of freedom of expression. She wrote back:
It’s a double-edged sword because the more a topic, scene, or act becomes mainstream, the less likely it is going to be considered obscene against the community standard. But, if you’re constantly censored for fear of being prosecuted, you can’t make those acts known or commonplace. I know authors that have had fisting (or the mention of sex at all even) censored out of their beautiful nonerotic literary works of art. People are afraid and the only way to stop that fear is to talk about it, but you don’t know if you talk about it if you’re going to be prosecuted. And that is why I totally agree with you, Jiz, that this is completely and totally a free speech censorship issue and that we need to talk about how healthy it is so people stop seeing fisting as this thing that people do to degrade and dishonor another (which is justification often for censoring anything).
Despite this go-to list, another aspect about pornography and obscenity is the Miller Test, which courts use to determine what might be obscene when there’s no written rule.
The Miller test was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California. It has three parts:
Whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,
Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
The work is considered obscene only if all three conditions are satisfied.
The first points are up to the standards of the community. What community? Whatever applies! That’s what makes it vague. The last one in particular is held up to whatever is reasonable to a person of the United States as a whole. The Miller Test is the reason there’s more freedom of sexuality online, while less on physica
l goods like VHS or DVDs. While there are many areas in the United States where it is illegal to mail pornography, it’s more difficult to determine online community. This is especially true for queers who have found community online. Many queers think fisting is completely normal. (If not just normal: it’s amazing!)
If I had a dime for every time I’ve given a talk and had people give me a confused “WTF?” look when I brought up the fact that fisting was banned from DVDs—“Why? What’s wrong with fisting? ”—I would have enough money to pay my way into Congress and provide adequate (queer and kink friendly) education to every citizen in the U.S. so that people will understand gender, sexuality, pleasure, and consent.
So here we are.
I’ve fisted in much of my film and online content. In fact, I think I’ve fisted more times than I’ve ejaculated or even worn a strap-on. It’s that common. While I have been somewhat unfortunately hesitant to fist on film because I know about the ban, I also have the liberation with companies who have web content because I know they won’t have to edit it out. I also know that film crews can film a “soft” shot of the action if they need to. It’s something I’ve dealt with for a while now, and because the way we consume porn is changing and going more and more to the Internet, fisting will reign.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that Courtney’s film submitted for VOD was denied because of the scene. Not VOD! The Internet is supposed to be okay with fisting, because it’s my community who likes to see it. That’s what prompted our Fisting Day. We have to let people know more about fisting. Why it’s supposedly banned, why it’s awesome if they’ve never thought about it before. Why it’s okay, even political, to love fisting.
Tell Me You Want Me.
Mollena Williams
As someone who is submissive, not only in terms of power-exchange relationships but also quite sexually submissive, I field a lot of questions about what that means.
“So, do you just, like, lie there?”
“You don’t care what happens to you in bed?”
“Will you just do whatever they tell you?”
“I assume you have to be spineless to be a sub.”
“Awesome. I command you to suck my dick.”
Well. No, no, maybe, hell no, and after you suck mine.
One of the things that get me going on rants is the assumption that so many people make that submission is tantamount to cowering in corners, waiting to be used and abused. There is an insane amount of energy, drive, will and desire that it takes to submit successfully. And by successfully, I mean to the mutual satisfaction of all involved. Because yes, submissives and slaves and bottoms need to have their needs met, too. And for some of us, one of the hottest ways we have our needs met is by providing pleasure to others, facilitating ease in their lives.
The first connection I made with how aroused I became as a result of serving someone else was an interesting by-product of a rather passionate affair I had many years ago. Interestingly, after a rather earth-shattering first meeting with a man who had a certain…something…that wound up disabling my not insubstantial defenses, and after a rather exhilarating, dangerous, edgy, deeply erotically brutal encounter, I had an unsettling epiphany. All I wanted to do was keep him happy. Bring him coffee, get his dry cleaning, buy his cigarettes (after taking note of what brand he smoked) draw his bath, find a restaurant I thought he would enjoy...anything to have him pleased with the job I’d done. And the more I did for him, the more irresistible he found me, and the dynamic fed on itself, a sexual weather system that exploded in gorgeous thunderstorms of intense passion and lustful liaisons. And when he told me how hard he got, how much he wanted to fuck me and exactly how he was going to do it, and assured me that I was the cause of all of the delicious torments that were about to be inflicted upon my quivering, sweaty, willing flesh? Well...well.
This initial experience was enough to turn my head towards a path of submission and service that I continue to walk to this day.
When I was first exploring my submissive self, I assumed that deducing and doing whatever the dominant wanted me to do would be fulfilling enough, and I would be pleased by that and that alone. This is an ideal that some people hold holy: the selfless slave, the doting submissive who only needs the sustenance of knowing they did a good job to be satisfied. That affection, feedback, love and attention from the dominant is a “gift” that may be given at the whim of the dominant, and they are not entitled to those bits of emotional nourishment. I have learned the hard way that a diet of emotional crumbs leads to spiritual starvation. There are absolutely things I need, as a submissive, as a slave, as a human in bondage, to thrive in my desired role. And that is part of what makes me who I am. It is not just me putting everything I am on the table that makes these connections erotic and beautiful and edgy and vital.
So. What about submitting, what about service, what about taking a thorough flogging, what about menial chores, what about being useful, is sexy? Why is it eroticized? What makes it hot?
In a word? Passion.
The first time I looked into the eyes of someone who was using me with a seeming disregard for my own satisfaction, saw the heat and fire in the eyes of my lover as they took what they wanted from me and effortlessly bent me to their will, when I saw how ferociously and almost dangerously aroused they became? That passion pulled me abruptly from the realm of what I had known about sex into a new place. I was rather shocked to experience the oxymoron of feeling closer to the person who was causing me intense erotic pain than I had to previous lovers who had been gentle and circumspect in their lovemaking. This realization—that the brutal edge of passion was intensely erotic and profoundly compelling to me, drove me to question many things. My sanity, first! But then what the root of that desire was. And then to question how I could have more, and more, of that energy in my life.
As I become involved in the Leather, kink and BDSM communities, I realized that that passion came in so many more flavors than even I could have imagined. The first time I was to do a rope bondage scene, I thought it would be quite tedious. It was anything but. I wrote a bit about my love for rope and how it evolved and certainly the intense desire that my partner had to see me bound and helpless fueled my own passion.
I have had other play partners for whom a very different type of play ignites their own fires. And I have discovered that, for me, asking a new play partner “Where do you want to go today?” is the best way for me to serve them and, in turn, serve myself. It can seem an evasive technique to answer a query of “What do you want to do?” with “Well, tell me what you find hot, what draws you in, what it is that made you decide to jump into this dark world.” But in fact, I learn so much. The dominant whose eyes light up as they talk about scenes where their partner is squirming in embarrassment, the top who eagerly shows off an impressive selection of canes, the switch who loves nothing more than pony play because they know what it is like from both sides of the bridle, the master who is dedicated to their path of mastery and seeks their partner, their counterpart, in whom they will manifest themselves and invest their love, time and energy...all of them are now engaging in foreplay with me. Yep, foreplay. Because I am certainly turned the hell on listening to what turns other people on. And if I am interested in playing with you, I certainly need to know what pleases you most. What gets you hot the fastest, what you think about when making yourself come...over and over...in the dead of night when you are playing the film of your darkest dirtiest hottest fantasies in the private theater of your own mind.
The passion doesn’t have to be for a specific type of play in order to get me hot. Someone keenly attracted to me is more likely to pique my interest than someone who does not demonstrate an intense desire to get into my pants. If I am interacting with someone, and I don’t feel a particular spark, I can promise you that I will take a second look at that person if they manage to frankly express a sincere expression of the fact that they find me desirable. The people I recall with the most passion
(and when I say “recall” I mean “masturbate furiously while recalling”) are those who were the most flagrant in their lasciviousness. From the exboyfriend who reveled in my fat belly and became immediately hard when I took off my shirt to the lover who agonized for several long moments trying to decide to come in my cunt or in my mouth (“Both are so, so sweet, baby, I can’t decide…” he whispered), their expressions of lust for me were hypnotic and irresistible. Passionate lust is sexy as hell. Wanting me...wanting to do bad things to me, and telling me so, wanting to possess me, use me, consume me, with ferocity and delight is an aphrodisiac like no other.
Desire is sexy. Lust is hot. Once I know what you crave the most, when you tell me you want me, and I have absorbed some of your joy and delight in these things, in me, I have a handle on how to do what turns me on the most: be aware, open, present, aroused and rarin’ to go and do what it takes to bring that fantasy to form. And I know this is true for people all over the spectrum of kink. Dominant, submissive, switch, top, bottom or just a kinky motherfucker? We ALL love feeling desirable, feeling wanted, feeling like the center of the universe for our partner. Regardless if it is for a fleeting few hours of play, a quickie in a borrowed bed or a lifetime committed relationship: bringing the rawness of passion to the fore can move a quotidian encounter into the realm of heroic hedonism that will leave an impression that will not soon fade.
The Gates
Tina Horn
“I was thirteen. My friend Annie that I was with pointed to a woman on the BART train and said, ‘There’s my friend’s older sister. She’s a dominatrix.’ And I was like what’s that and she led me up to this woman who was all of the things that an alternative woman in the ’90s was—tall, long, lean. She was wearing all this black and leather and her hair was dyed that kind of burgundy wine-red color and she had pale skin and dark eyeliner and dark lipstick and she looked really intense. Annie asked her to tell us about her job as a dominatrix and she said I have to pee really badly right now because I have a client who likes getting pissed on a lot and I was floored. I was intrigued by this idea that you could get paid to dress up and hit people or boss them around or generally be domineering. That’s something I had never considered as something that was ever going to be socially acceptable for me to do. The idea that I could look good and get paid to do it while being bossy and pushing people around was exciting. The thirteen-year-old me thought it was awesome. The twenty-nine-year-old me thinks it’s pretty awesome. Now nine years into my career, I’m getting close to being the person I wanted to be in my fantasy world when I was thirteen or nineteen.”—Davina is twenty-nine years old. She has worked as a dominatrix and manager at the Gates since she was nineteen.