International Fisting Day

What Is Fisting Day?


Every October 21st marks the annual International Fisting Day, where bloggers, artists, activists, journalists, and fisting lovers all over the world come together to celebrate this beloved and controversial sex act. We hope that International Fisting Day gives you a day to feel pride in your favorite sex act, no matter how misunderstood or shameful they have made you feel in the past.

Fisting Day was created by queer porn legends Jiz Lee and Courtney Trouble as a response to the overwhelming censorship of fisting as a sex act in pornography, and three years later these “obscenity guidelines” are still effecting our lives as porn makers. We still believe that fighting fisting censorship is a needed cause and hope that you’re involvement in talking about fisting, celebrating and learning about fisting helps us reach our goals of fighting this censorship!

Fisting Day used to be notoriously celebrated via Tumblr content mostly, but we’ve also spread to Twitter, and trust that despite Tumblr’s exclusion of NSFW content, we wil continue to try to provide a space for the creation of art, stories, education, and awareness! 

Between my site, Jiz Lee’s site, and the endless internet culture around the holiday, I hope you find the info you need to celebrate Fisting Day on your own. Some our events have been documented and preserved here, as Tumblr finally got rid of explicit content and we couldn’t host our sit there any longer. If you’d like the entire Tumblr archive for research purposes you can reach out to me. Happy Holidays, Happy fisting!



Fisting day is a global event, celebrating and debunking the negative stereotypes of fisting, a act that uses the entire hand.

Fisting Day was created in 2011 by co-founders Courtney Trouble and Jiz Lee. Coinciding with the release of the banned and censored film Live Sex Show, directed by Trouble and starring Lee and the legendary Nina Hartley in a fisting scene, Fisting Day began not only a celebration, but a call for awareness – this act is banned and censored in most forms of adult entertainment, and that fear is reflected outside of the sex industry as well.

We believe that education, exposure, information, and discussion is an easy cure for this fist-phobia!

That’s why Fisting Day exists, as a day set aside to aid in the debunking of the myth that fisting is inherently painful, obscene, or wrong.

Many people enjoy fisting for many reasons, which is why we invite bloggers, writers, photographers, film-makers, adult performers, and lovers of sex to participate in this day-long love of fisting by publishing something you’ve made, by saying what you think, for sharing your fisting stories, for trying it out with your partner (or yourself!), for writing a research paper, posting an interview on YouTube, or hosting a sex education event in your city on this fantastic subject.

FISTING-DAY-WITH-TEXT-WEB-SIZE

How Fisting Day Began

In 2011, Courtney Trouble was gearing up the release the very first DVD by TROUBLEfilms. This being the first release for Courtney’s brand new company, i

Not too long ago, I was chatting with my friend and fellow Courtney Trouble, about her recent film LiveSexShow, which is a fundraiser for the Center for Sex and Culture filmed during the non-profit’s annual Masturbate-a-Thon. I performed with Nina Hartley, for an audience of pleasure activists. And the chemistry was high with me and Nina, and we jumped into each other, and we had a grand time, and during that time, her fingers and then her whole hand went inside my cunt. And then I came for the crowd and for myself, and for my friend holding a video camera for the world to see.

At least, we hope the world could see.

– Jiz Lee, Fisting Day

Live Sex Show was refused by most of the large distribution companies it was offered too due to this beautiful scene from Jiz and Nina. Courtney was asked to edit it out and submit a non-fisting version of Live Sex Show to all of these companies. Before TROUBLEfilms, Courtney was a hired director for Good Releasing, co-creating the Reel Queer Productions line with them and directing 12 full-length films – all of which happened to include fisting in the filming process, and all of which did not include any signs of fisting in the final product put on shelves. They were left on the editing room floor, elsewise, the films would not have been released.

I am a female as well as an artist, small business owner, and performer. I have spent ten years in front of and behind the camera, running my own websites and editing my own films, every single day FIGHTING for my rights as a female to have and show authentic orgasms and authentic sex on camera.

– Courtney Trouble, International Fisting Day

Courtney was obviously pissed, and Jiz Lee knew exactly what to do: Fisting Day coincided with the release date of Live Sex Show, released in full to those stores and VOD companies that would take it – every second of fisting footage in tact. TROUBLEfilms has grown from there, showing fisting – and whatever else may happen between two performers on a TROUBLEfilms set – in it’s full glory whenever and wherever it happens.

Fisting Day was Jiz Lee’s idea, and Courtney Trouble’s savior. It’s provided an outlet for exhibitionism, education, and expression among indie and thier fans, performers and vouyers, fisting pros and curious newbies alike.

Why Is Fisting Censored?

Jiz Lee keeps a beautiful account of why fisting is banned from on thier yearly Fisting Day blog. Here is the text in full. Here is the link to their blog post.

DVD distributors, retailers, and producers, are afraid to SELL if it means they might be charged with an obscenity. To date, some men are in jail or have had court orders for showing “obscene” content, such as John Stagliano and Seymore Butts. This content includes female ejaculation, enemas, and in 2001, fisting. The charges in the case of fisting were dropped with an plea bargain for a meager $1,000 fine. However this scared distributors because since that date, at least in terms of the companies who have distributed my films, fisting was NOT to be shown. If fisting was present, footage was edited out if it was visible, or left in if the camera angle was such that you couldn’t tell fisting was occurring. Why fisting?

Fisting is 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 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 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 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 (bodyshots are OK if shot is not nasty)
  • No bukakke
  • 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 OK if shot is not nasty
  • No hands from 2 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 in-cest 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 Queery Bradshaw, who has a legal background and she confirmed what I expected about the legal aspects behind several obscenity trials when they come 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 least 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 common place. I know authors that have had fisting (or the mention of sex at all even) censored out of their beautiful non-erotic 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, there’s more info to know about and obscenity, which is the Miller Test, which courts have gone to in efforts to determine what might be obscene when there’s no written rule. Here’s Constance Penley talking about obscenity. (Constance is a co-editor of the upcoming “Feminist Anthology” which will be made available to the gender studies classes to colleges and universities world-wide.)

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 basically the reason why it’s okay to have more freedom of sexuality online, while less on physical DVDs. While there are many areas in the United States where it is illegal to mail, it’s more difficult to determine online community. This is especially true for queers who at least in my case have found community online. To further prove my point, 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 US so that people will understand pleasure and sex-positivity.


The Truth About Fisting

January 2, 2012 by courtneytrouble

People of all genders and sexual orientations can participate 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!!N

Fisting.

by COURTNEY TROUBLE on OCTOBER 5, 2011 

This is another Blog Jinx!!! with my dear friend Jiz Lee, where we simultaneously post a blog on a subject that means a lot to both os us!

I am a female pornographer, as well as an artist, small business owner, and performer. I have spent ten years in front of and behind the camera, running my own websites and editing my own films, every single day FIGHTING for my rights as a female to have and show authentic orgasms and authentic sex on camera.

Me, getting fisted by the incredible Quinn Valentine, for my short film Valencia: Chapter One.

In the past month, I have had one full length film and five of my best porn scenes denied by a mainstream company for publication because of one thing: fisting. Unless you’re a member of No Fauxxxor QueerPorn.TV, most of the porn scenes out there directed by me, I’ve had to edit out the fisting.

Fisting: When one person puts their hand into another person’s erogenous entries. It requires some patience and some lube, but it’s just sex – and there are certainly bigger things you can put in those holes.

Why: Many companies are afraid of getting hit by an obscenity lawsuit and ending up in court over it, although, there have been no major cases against fisting, consent and pleasure are always shown in my scenes, and, its funny – these companies usually carry things that have been brought to court, or brought to obscenity charges, many times – while fisting is still “not allowed.” I’ve even seen some of these stores in question carry Max Hardcore films, and HE WENT TO JAIL FOR OBSCENITY CHARGES, for things much, much more “questionable” than hand sex.

Let me rephrase this : there is no law against fisting, not in porn or in life. The reason you can’t see it, isn’t because it’s illegal – it’s because retailers refuse to sell it.

I can’t take it anymore.

I from here on out refuse to make edits to make my work “safe” for companies. My work is offered as-is, take it (and make money off of it), or leave it.

THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION. Call up your favorite porn retailers, fill out those Contact Us forms, spread the word on your Twitters, Tumblrs, and Facebooks -that you WANT TO SEE FISTING and you will happily spend money on a film that shows authentic orgasms and authentic fucking on film.

INTERNATIONAL FISTING DAY: OCTOBER 21ST 2011

Bloggers: Please write and schedule a blog post for Fisting Day, and send me or Jiz Lee your link the day before so we can compile a list and have HUNDREDS of blog posts about how awesome and amazing fisting can be!

On October 21st, I will be blogging about fisting techniques, with an excerpt from my upcoming book! I will also be posting a list of my favorite fisting scenes, including free trailers and/or clips.

October 21st is also the release date for LIVE SEX SHOW, my brand new, independently released full length film, starring Jiz Lee and Nina Hartley in the most beautiful fisting scene I have ever seen. (You can pre-order here)