A lover observed to me lately, "You know what I realized? If it weren't for social conditioning, people left to their own devices to explore sex would discover fisting pretty rapidly. I mean, you try one finger, and then you try two...it doesn't take a genius to eventually get to five."
She was using the word to refer to vaginal fisting--the insertion of a hand into someone's cunt. I'll be doing the same in this essay. I have no experience with anal fisting, and few opinions about it.
She was struck by her insight for two reasons. One is that, like most people in our culture, she'd absorbed the image of fisting as an act of extreme BDSM, on a par with, say, coprophagy or branding. The other is that the two of us had recently started exploring vaginal fisting's sexual, emotional, and, yeah, spiritual rewards in our time together.
This lover is not an exceptionally debauched person (yet!). I'm the first person to have tied her up; I'm the first person to have spanked her. Yet fisting arose naturally between us, without either of us intending it in advance. Meanwhile, in the larger world, it's one of the few acts still legally obscene to portray in many communities. Wikipedia contributors heatedly debate whether it's appropriate to even mention.
What's going on here? Why this disconnect? I think the reasons for these perceptions go to the heart of male insecurity. Essentially, to consider fisting as normal undermines the conception of coitus as an act of male dominance.
Consider this: What is the Cult of Big Cocks built on, if everyone is going around with a penetration toy bigger than the biggest cocks? If it takes a big dick to satisfy a woman, what does five fingers do? How much satisfaction would that produce?
Here's another thing: inexperienced girls are preferable, the culture tells us, because their cunts are still tight. They haven't been ruined by having all those dicks stuck in them. This notion is bullshit, it reflects a complete misunderstanding of how cunts work. Tightness is determined by muscle tone, not absolute orifice size. But that doesn't stop unscrupulous doctors from trying to persuade women otherwise. If this rule were true, fisting would ruin you for "normal" sex.
We want our cocks to be seen as fearsome truncheons, emblems of our power and dominance. What woman can be suitably intimidated by a cock after she's had a hand inside her? If size is what matters, how could a woman who wants to be fisted ever want to be fucked?
In fisting, the determining factors in how much penetration a woman can take are patience, mood, and skill. (And lube. Lots of lube.) The receptive partner sets the pace, either explicitly or through subtler cues. It's this very gentleness that makes the act so threatening to the status quo--penetration is supposed to be an act of aggression, and the more penetration, the more aggression.
I'm not suggesting some sort of deliberate conspiracy; but sex that breaks us out of established roles shakes the foundations of the power structure, and can frighten those who are comforted by stasis. Cool, huh?
PS. Words LJ spellcheck suggests as alternatives: foisting, fasting, feasting, fitting, histing, listing, misting, wisting, fixating, frosting, dusting, gusting, siting, Faustina, Faustine, Faustino, fating, fusing, sting, feating, fighting, footing, fussing, busting, costing, fainting, feinting, flirting, flitting, hosting, justing, lusting, ousting, posting, rusting, visiting, vistaing