Happy International Fisting Day! Here’s Some Willfully Misinterpreted Lesbian Poetry

Feature image by Nomy Lamm via the fisting day tumblr.


Today is International Fisting Day! A day for spreading the joy and knowledge of fisting throughout the internet so those who aren’t familiar with it can learn and those who are can fist bump.

Jiz Lee, one of the people who started International Fisting Day in 2011, writes about why fisting isn’t scary, why everyone should try it and why it’s just amazing:

“What I love about fisting someone vaginally (or through their front hole, if they don’t associate with the v-word) is feeling them TAKE ME IN. There’s a moment where the person just opens up to you. Once inside, they’re warm, wet, and every little movement you make can be felt. It’s something that may take time. Fisting is something that doesn’t necessarily happen right away. You put a finger in. Then two. Then three, four, and then… and sometimes after long and gentle coaxing, the thumb. Sometimes lovers can try several times in sex before fisting happens. But once you’re in, it’s golden! You can angle your hand for G-Spot stimulation. You can find your lovers’ ‘A Spot,’ which is just under the cervix towards the back. Some like to feel a bit of pressure there. You can carefully stroke and ‘jerk-off’ the cervix, as if it were a small, internal cock. Unlike using a strap-on or dildo toy, my hand can feel every motion. It’s incredibly intimate and really sexy. If the chemistry and connection with my partner is strong, I can come from penetrating with my hand!

As someone who loves to receive a fist, I enjoy an unparalleled feeling of fullness. The most sensitive areas of the vagina are just within the first few inches inside. I like to use my kegel and pelvic muscles to grip snugly around a lovers’ wrist, which can be compared to the girth of a medium-large dildo. Deeper inside, pressure feels really good for me. […] Combining clitoral and vaginal stimulation, the network of nerves and contracting of muscles orchestrate some of the most amazingly intense orgasms I’ve ever had.”

In the past, we’ve written about five fisting tips, published a cool infographic and fisting love story and generally shared resources, but there are only so many ways to say “lube up and make your hand look like you’re reaching into a Pringles can very, very gently” so this time we’re celebrating fisting through pure poetry.*

*I may be willfully misreading and decontextualizing some of the following poems and excerpts so that they are more relevant to actual fisting as opposed to receiving love or four fingers but no thumb or whatever.


“#184” by Anna Pulley

Why you should be proud
to have small hands: sewing,
picking your teeth, fisting.


“this is what it looks like when it finally comes” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

I open under her hand
wider than I ever have
and there’s no clenched fist vulva, no bleeding,
no little welts rising up on my labia saying no
I open to her fist like the biggest cracked grin
bigger than anything I’ve known how to know


“Love Poem to a Butch Woman” by Deborah A. Miranda

Sweetheart, this is how it is:
when you emerge from the bedroom
in a clean cotton shirt, sleeves pushed back
over forearms, scented with cologne
from an amber bottle—I want to open
my heart, the brightest aching slit
of my soul, receive your pearl.
I watch your hands, wait for the sign
that means you’ll touch me,
open me, fill me; wait for that moment
when your desire leaps inside me.


“The Aureole” by Nikky Finney

The stars over the Atlantic are dangling
salt crystals. The room at the Seashell Inn is
$20 a night; special winter off-season rate.
No one else here but us and the night clerk,
five floors below, alone with his cherished
stack of Spiderman. My lips are red snails
in a primal search for every constellation
hiding in the sky of your body. My hand
waits for permission, for my life to agree
to be changed, forever.


“The Dream” by Aphra Behn

The soft resistance did betray the grant,
While I pressed on the heaven of my desires;
Her rising breasts with nimbler motions pant;
Her dying eyes assume new fires.
Now to the height of languishment she grows,
And still her looks new charms put on;
Now the last mystery of Love she knows,
We sigh, and kiss: I waked, and all was done.


“Dear Andrea” by Eileen Myles

I love you too
don’t fuck up my hair
I can’t believe
you almost
fisted me
today.
That was great.

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Ryan Yates

Ryan Yates was the NSFW Editor (2013–2018) and Literary Editor for Autostraddle.com, with bylines in Nylon, Refinery29, The Toast, Bitch, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, and elsewhere. They live in Los Angeles and also on twitter and instagram.

Ryan has written 1142 articles for us.

17 Comments

  1. This is very weird timing, as only this morning I was thinking about how my small and strangely malleable hands would be perfect for fisting, and I have no idea where that thought came from.

  2. “Dear Andrea” is literally the most on point lesbian poem I have ever met. That is literally my inner monologue. You guys get me.

  3. Will never get over the fact that Aphra Behn (17 th century playwright if my theatre history serves me right) wrote a poem that can be interpreted to be about fisting. This will forever make me happy

  4. I met my girlfriend on international fisting day, so I found this oddly touching. Fisting is so fucking romantic.

Comments are closed.