HOOK: E-zine By, For, and About Men in the Sex Industry

Welcome back, bros! In part one of this article, I talked about why I love fisting, dispelled some myths about it, and described the circumstances under which I think it’s okay for a newbie top to accept his first handballing assignment. Now that you’re ready to dive in, let’s talk about safety and technique.

Our bowels are pretty resilient, but they get more fragile as you get deeper. Most of the time you’ll be playing inside your partner’s rectum: the cavity just inside the butt that collects your fecal matter until you shit it out. It’s where your dick is in when you’re fuckin’ your man. As anyone who has given or taken a major pounding can tell you, it’s pretty sturdy and flexible. Beyond the rectum, through a structure most fisters call the “second sphincter” (the first one is your asshole), is the colon (large intestine). It’s much more delicate and a lot less elastic.

To avoid damaging these structures, it’s important to cut your nails as short as you can and give them a good once-over with a nail file. Be sure to use your own equipment when you do this. If you have some cosmetic or professional reason for not cutting your nails, you should leave the fisting to someone else. (Believe me, it is no fun to have a bunch of sharp fingers pokin’ around in your happy place!) And cut your nails before you see your client. It’s just plain rude to have him pay for your prep time.

Right before you get started, wash your hands and forearms up to the elbow. Yeah, some extraordinary super-pigs can take it past the elbow and over the bicep, but that sort of depth should be left to more experienced tops. After you’ve washed up, glove up. I like to do both hands so that I can alternate them during play. Also, since the sizes of our hands never exactly match, it gives me the option to use whichever one is more comfortable for my partner.

Yeah, I said glove up. You may be saying to yourself, “Rik, the last time I checked, my fingers weren’t capable of shooting mondo loads of jizz up my bottom’s hole. What do we really have to worry about?” Well, grasshopper, that is an excellent question.

We use our hands constantly to perform thousands and thousands of tasks each day. This activity continually abrades our fingers, resulting in hundreds of tiny cuts and cracks. Some of these fissures are visible, most are microscopic. No matter how careful you are, fisting also creates tiny fissures in your partner’s butt. When you fist without gloves, your finger fissures come in close contact with your partner’s butt fissures, allowing the two of you to have the kind of blood-to-blood contact that can transmit disease.

It’s not likely that HIV is transmitted through fisting, though it’s also not impossible. Recently, however, there’s been a spike in Hepatitis C infection among fisters. Hep C is the newest killer STD on the block. It is passed by means of blood-to-blood contact and was formerly most prevalent among people who shared needles or got accidental needle sticks or received a blood transfusion. Hep C is easier to transmit than HIV because it lives longer on surfaces (like the straw you might use to snort tina or a person’s nail clippers or nail file). Hep C is called “the silent epidemic” because it slowly destroys your liver over 20-30 years, often with no visible symptoms. Hep C can be treated, but has no cure. Avoidance of Hep C is a great reason to play sober, trim and file your nails using your own equipment before you see your client, and glove up when you play.

To me, there’s also a much more mundane reason to glove up: fisting is messy! Sometimes, no matter how hard he’s worked at cleaning out, your partner’s still got some shit deep inside. Or maybe he tends to bleed a little. Or maybe you just don’t want to smell like Crisco for days. All excellent reasons in my book to wear gloves.

Now, glove selection is very important! A lot of bottoms cringe at the mere mention of gloves because they remember the awful latex ones of the past: large, wrinkly, floppy, powdery things that stuck to your guts and just, well, generally sucked. Latex gloves are the whitish ones that you usually find in your drug store’s first aid section. Often well-meaning but misguided safer sex educators will give them out along with their condoms. For the sake of all of us hole pigs out there, please don’t use them!

What you want are nitrile gloves. These are the powder-blue gloves made for people who are allergic to latex. They’ve replaced latex gloves in many doctors’ and dentists’ offices and are also used by cleaning services and industrial workers who spend time around caustic chemicals. Nitrile gloves fit tightly with few, if any, wrinkles, so they won’t irritate your bottom’s hole. They’re also slippier than latex gloves. And you can use them with any lube (remember, Crisco breaks down latex!).

You can find nitrile gloves at medical and industrial supply stores and at some pharmacies and home improvement centers. You want to find the ones that are unpowdered, without a texturized grip. I find it easiest just to buy them online. The best source is Delta Gloves (http://www.deltagloves.com/products.htm). Choose the CFN series. Buy them one size smaller than you would normally wear so that they fit very tight. It’s rare that anyone needs a size larger than medium. Most people do quite well in a “small.” Honest, this is not the time to be a size queen!

What about lube?

The bottom usually provides the lube that he prefers. This is cool, because your nitrile gloves allow you to use whatever is on hand without fear. I tend to like the creamier stuff that comes in tubs, like Boy Butter, Elbow Grease, Slam Dunk, or vegetable shortening (hint: generic or store brands don’t usually have a smell like Crisco). These thicker lubes just seem to make me last longer. A safety tip: remember that any time you’re repeatedly dipping your hands into a tub of lube, it can only be used for that single play partner because his juices get mixed into it. If you provided the tub, give it to your client as a parting gift!

Other bottoms prefer silicone-based lubes, like Eros or the “platinum” versions of ID or Wet. These are great because they’re extra-slippy and don’t dry out. Even though they’re kind of expensive (and the clean-up can be a bitch), they’re worth it. I always keep at least one silicone lube in my trick bag.

It’s best to stay away from water-based lubes like “regular” ID or Wet because they dry out too fast. And be sure to stay far away from any lube that contains the spermicide nonoxynol-9. It just irritates the hell out of your butt and makes it easier to transmit HIV and other STDs!

How about enhancements?

If you remember Sloppy Whore-Cunt’s story from part one, you know I have a definite preference for playing sober. Your bottom’s face and butt will give you all the feedback that you need to give him a great experience, but you’ve got to be able to see and feel what he’s telling you to make it happen. It’s even more important for you to be alert if your bottom’s high. Though his body will give you the same signals, they’re harder to perceive because of the masking effects of the drugs.

Fisting Technique

Fisting is an art because everybody’s insides are different and everybody gets off on it in their own special way. I can’t give you a recipe on how to do it, but I can leave you with a few tips that will help you perform like a pro.

Know who’s in charge.

When it comes to fisting, the bottom is always in charge. Only he can let you in his hole! Let your client’s words and reactions guide you throughout your play.

Tease his butthole first.

Those sweet little butt-lips that you’re about to stretch open wide are sensitive and love attention. Play with them some before you get all hell-bent on penetration. And if you like rimming, then by all means please do! Regardless, lube up that crack real good and give ‘em a nice massage. Get your man so hungry and horned up that he just begs you to dive inside!

Ask lots of questions, like:

Do you like the pace to be slow or fast? Do you like to be stretched open wide or to take it deep? Once I get inside, do you like me to stay there or fuck you in and out? Do you like me to move around a lot or to stay relatively still?

A great way to build trust is to ask, “How does it feel when I do this?” and then do something. The more you know, the happier he’ll be!

Use his breathing as a guide.

Experienced hole pigs use their breathing as a way to relax and get you (more) inside. A good long exhale releases energy and causes the body to become more open. If your partner doesn’t know this, be a hero and tell him! And when he breathes out, gently push in.

Some bottoms like to start out doggie style, but hopefully yours will get over it and flip onto his back so that you can look him in the eyes. His face will react involuntarily to almost everything that you do. Watch it to get an indication of where to go and what he enjoys. You want to see his eyes roll up inside his head. A lot.

Take your time, gradually adding one finger after another into his butt. Sometimes try pulling in opposite directions with a couple of fingers from each hand to stretch his hole wide. Don’t force anything. He’ll let you know when he wants you to make the final push. As you prepare to enter, keep your fingers and thumb elongated and your hand scrunched up as small as possible. Once you’re inside, remember that every movement you make is magnified tenfold to him. You don’t have to go crazy to drive him crazy!

His butthole will tell you where to go.

When you’re not sure where to go next, focus intently on your hand and gently move your fingers up and down and side to side. When both of you are calm and centered, the next passageway will reveal itself. And if his butthole starts to push you out, by all means exit and take a little break.

Most bottoms want you to do something when you’re inside, even if it’s just rotating your hand the teensiest bit from side to side. A “dead” hand can tire out or irritate a hole. The same goes for when you’re working to get inside. Once you get to a sticking point, do something else. Don’t just continue to push or leave your hand stuck—unless of course the bottom says so!

Think of your arm as a dick.

Do you often hold yourself up by using your hardon as a kickstand? (If so, perhaps we ought to meet!)

Seriously, even though we don’t use dicks that way, we often lean against our hands and forearms when we’re tired or lazy and want to keep from falling. It’s all too easy to forget about this and start doing the same thing when you’re inside somebody. But when you start leaning into your partner, you create an uncomfortable downward (or upward) pressure that is the prime cause of premature butthole burnout. Avoid this behavior by thinking of, and using, your forearm like a dick. Imagine it fixed to your body, yet also floating weightlessly in space. It can go in and out, but not up and down. And if you lean against it, you’ll fall over. Do this right, and your partner will think you’re amazing!

You can never have too much lube.

Feed it to him constantly. ‘Nuff said.

Play with his prostate.

Unless he just can’t stand it. It’s what makes this damn thing so much fun.

Don’t slap his ass while you’re inside of it!

It ain’t a porno. All that slapping his ass is gonna do is make him clamp down hard on your arm. And neither one of you is gonna like it.

Wipe off carefully when you’re done.

Eventually you’re going to want to take a break or end your playtime. Remember those sensitive butt-lips that you teased when you were getting started? Well, they’re even more sensitive now. Be a sweetie and wipe the excess lube off gently. You don’t want a wonderful session to be ruined by the searing pain that you inflicted at the end.

Where can I learn more?

Red Hankies San Diego and Hot Desert Knights Video have made a how-to video entitled Fisting 101.

RedRight’s personal page compiles all kinds of great information about fisting, including articles on being a responsible top and fisting a virgin.

Trust, the Hand Book: A Guide to the Sensual and Spiritual Art of Handballing is the seminal book on the subject. Some of the safer sex information is a little dated, but the rest of the work is still state-of-the-art.

And you can always write me.

I hope this information makes you confident enough to try getting a hand up some eager client’s hole. And when you do, I hope you blow each other’s minds!

Rik Jammer’s most recent fisting two-parter was just awarded the 2004 Grabby Award for best fetish feature. You can read more about him at RikJammer.com.