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