Fisting. It’s one of our more controversial pastimes. Some are addicted to it, others can’t stand the sight of it. Over the past half a century, it’s carved its own niche in gay identity, spawning a subculture all of its own – one with its own social networks and its own rules. For many of its devotees, it’s an almost spiritual experience, while others love it for the pure, down n’ dirty, bad-boy sleaziness of it.

A brief history of handballing

The origins of gay fisting have been debated by social historians for some years. Rictor Norton’s A History of Gay Sex declares: “fisting was invented in the summer of 1971, in the ‘backroom’ of a gay bar in New York City.” It’s a nice thought – that you can so exactly pinpoint the moment one of us first had the bright idea of having someone’s hand stuffed up his butt. But Norton’s on shaky ground: other sources suggest his dates are out by at least several years.

Fisting had already made an appearance in the novels of Dirk Vanden, notably in All or Nothing in 1970. Meanwhile Gayle Rubin’s reminiscence on San Francisco’s The Catacombs, widely credited as one of the most authoritative accounts of the early fisting scene, makes mention of the Fist Fuckers of America (FFA) having been around for some years before handballing became a feature of the underground club circuit.

What’s interesting is that there’s no suggestion fisting had a place in emergent gay societies further back than that: no tales of handballing from the gay scene of swinging 20s Berlin or the polysexual utopia of ancient Greece. In fact, most sources agree that its gay provenance only goes back to the second half of the 1960s.

Fisting on film

It wasn’t until the early 70s that gay porn developed into a coherent industry resembling the one we know today. Before that, it was underground, clandestine and illegal. Hardcore films were often silent, short subjects, distributed on 8mm and changing hands between private collectors or playing in peep shows. And while there are certainly fisting films among them, they’re notoriously difficult to date.

Whatever Turns Ya On (1972)

Alexander Levin’s fetish flick uses its loose narrative – two pornographers talk about the film they’ve just completed – to shoehorn every possible kink into its 57-minute running time. Bodybuilder Jim Cassidy, a popular star of the underground circuit in the 60s and 70s, is on spectacular form, at his best in a (vanilla) tussle with an unnamed blond hunk in the movie’s final scene.

The film’s nine-minute handballing sequence comes about halfway through. The bottom, in a harness and chaps, is already on his back with his legs in air when the scene begins. Cassidy and partner-in-crime Laurent have Crisco, poppers and toys at the ready. They waste no time getting to work on the sub’s accommodating hole with a series of dildos of increasing girth, before sinking their hands deep inside.

It’s not the hottest fisting scene you’ll ever see, even if it’s notable for being one of the earliest. The bottom spends most of the time with his face hidden under Cassidy’s butt, the closing shots revealing him to be somewhat less photogenic than his pals. While it’s explicit, there’s a lack of chemistry between the performers, resulting in an oddly clinical tone.

Levin’s film stands as an interesting early example from right at the beginning of a period when handballing films caught on rapidly. Another film to show fisting, released the same year, was the bisexual fetish feature Left-Handed by Jack Deveau and Jaap Penraat. And high points in fisting porn’s evolution over the years that followed include Peter De Rome’s Drive and Erotic Hands, both 1974.

Watch Whatever Turns Ya On at Tribal Male

Born to Raise Hell (1975)

Roger Earl’s infamous roughie follows the brutal exploits of a Stetson-sporting leather daddy (Val Martin) and his sadistic sidekick (Quave Dahon). The film’s first chapter has them wreaking havoc in a bar, subjecting two of its occupants to a merciless SM ordeal.

Dahon comes close to handballing one young victim as the boy is strung up in the middle of the bar and forced to endure a series of humiliating tortures.

More controversial though is a later sequence where, after picking up an unsuspecting passer-by, our two antiheroes imprison him in Martin’s in-home dungeon. There they lay into him with gleeful abandon, flogging him, crucifying him and decorating his face with pegs. At one point, Martin rams his fist into the man’s butt – with virtually no warm-up – extracting a bloodcurdling scream from his hapless victim.

With its grindhouse tone and its themes of rape and revenge, Earl’s landmark shocker echoes some of the decade’s most subversive horror films. Think Last House on the Left with cock rings.

Watch Born to Raise Hell at Tribal Male

Cruising (1980)

Not actually a porno, but in some scenes William Friedkin’s trippy psycho-chiller feels as good as. This one deserves recognition for bringing the first realistic depiction of gay fisting to the cinema-going masses. (Although strictly speaking it was narrowly beaten in the handballing stakes by Tinto Brass’s historical romp Caligula in 1979.)

Based on a bestseller that had already caused a stir for its depiction of a seamy gay underworld, Cruising found itself in the firing line with accusations of homophobia before filming had even completed. But with sequences shot in famous venues like The Mineshaft and featuring real punters as extras, it might now be the best surviving record of the New York leather circuit in its heyday.

What starts as a gritty cop thriller with a gay SM twist develops into a darkly ambiguous play on shifting identity. Al Pacino’s wide-eyed NYPD officer goes undercover to investigate a horrific murder, only to lose himself in the secret underbelly of the city’s nightlife. Friedkin’s camera is unflinching as it captures the sweaty, amyl-fuelled hedonism of the 70s leather scene in all its glory.

The film’s famous fisting sequence is about halfway through. Descending into the smoke-choked interior of a heaving leather bar, Pacino spies a group of men huddled around a sling. One of them, with a red hankie tied around his bicep, is slowly slathering his hand and forearm with lube. The sense of anticipation builds as he advances on the man in the sling. So when we see the bottom throw his head back and his body buckles, we’re left in no doubt as to what’s just occurred.

The Other Side of Aspen (1983)

The recollections of a horny ski instructor gave Falcon Studios a blockbuster that spawned five sequels over three decades.

Al Parker and Casey Donovan – probably the two biggest stars of porn’s golden age – appear together in the movie’s second scene. Against a backdrop that wouldn’t be out of place on Lurid Digs, Parker and Donovan hunker down for a marathon fuck session, behind the closed doors of a snowbound chalet.

Partway through the scene, Parker’s fingers are nudging Donovan’s waiting hole. Interestingly, there’s no attempt to show him lubing up, and we cut straight to a shot where his hand – now lightly covered with a discreet layer of grease – slides easily into Casey’s butt. It’s as if the fantasy here is that fisting comes as naturally as fucking, without the need for preparation or passion-killing interruptions.

Watch The Other Side of Aspen at Falcon

The Abduction II: The Conflict (1993)

“Take it,” snarls sadistic top Zak Spears in Steven Scarborough’s slick prison camp fantasy The Conflict. With his crooked smile and earth-trembling growl, Spears cuts a mean figure as the evil commandant, who has taken one of the camp’s inmates, muscular Ray Butler, back to his quarters to use as his plaything.

The scene plays out like some abominable experiment. Spears stretches his captive’s hole and his limits, first using a monster dildo, then a row of balls on a string. But it’s when he slides his hand inside that the real test begins.

Easily the best of the three Abduction films, Falcon’s classic effortlessly mixes hard fetish action with scenes of vanilla sex. The movie’s other eye-watering highlight comes when an errant guard is required to receive an enema of apparently several gallons of water, before shooting it out into an enormous tank.

Watch The Abduction II: The Conflict at Falcon

Handball Marathon: Part 1 (1994)

The first entry in this infamous series brings Spears and Butler back together – this time at the opposite end of the budget spectrum.

It’s got harsh lighting, a crude synth score and it looks like it’s been edited with a blunt spoon – but that all contributes to the movie’s grotty intensity. In fact, its pervasively grubby tone, combined with some very hard action, often feels reminiscent of classic Christopher Rage.

Zak and Ray are the main focus of what looks like a mostly continuous shoot, probably filmed over a day or a weekend. About halfway through, Spears has Butler and his fellow bottom DJ Austin side by side on a platform – with a hand stuffed deep inside each of them.

Spears works the two like a pair of glove puppets, simultaneously fisting both. Despite the fact he clearly has his two ass-pigs well in hand, he’s eventually joined by a second top – blond stud Wolfe – who gets down to tongue Zak’s butt before slipping on a pair of gloves to get a piece of the fisting action.

Only available on DVD, it’s becoming more and more difficult to track down. If you see a copy, buy it.

Berlin Techno Sex (1998)

When Cazzo Film made its debut with Berlin Techno Dreams in 1996, the German studio’s delirious blend of quirky, creative photography, hard sex, hot European men and pounding techno music was instantly successful. It reinvented the sex club film and offered a gritty, authentic-feeling alternative to glossy American studio porn.

A sequel of sorts, Berlin Techno Sex came two years later. Filmed in the famous Kit Kat Club, it follows the exploits of sexy blond barman Thom Barron and a troupe of other Cazzo regulars as they get down n’ dirty in every dark corner of the club.

In the film’s penultimate scene, an orgy erupts on the dance floor as the dancers get hot and sweaty and the clothes begin to come off. The action builds to a climax when Barron gets stuck into a rubber-clad skinhead on the edge of a podium. After ramming his cock into the horny skin’s hole, he begins to work his fingers inside – and soon he’s punch-fucking him to the throbbing beat of the hypnotic electro soundtrack.

Watch Berlin Techno Sex at GayHotMovies

Fistpack VIII: Elbow Room (2006)

Raging Stallion director Chris Ward may have pulled off some kind of record with this scene from his long-running Fistpack series.

Francois Sagat presides over a bizarre, fisting human-centipede: each link in this chain of butt sluts is on his knees, with his hand buried in the ass of the man in front. The action begins with Sagat feeding his cock to the headmost fistee, as another three men give and take fist behind him, and fisting top Taurus brings up the rear.

Founded in 1999, Raging Stallion gained a reputation for polished, sound-stage-filmed handballing videos. It was around this time we saw a rapid development in the genre’s evolution. Films that offered an assorted smorgasbord of kink, interwoven with scenes of good ol’ vanilla – a familiar formula in the 90s – lost ground to movies that gave us fisting and nothing but. What audiences wanted, it seemed, was wall-to-wall fist action with no distractions.

Watch Fistpack VIII: Elbow Room at Fetish Force

Mister Fister (2006)

This one brought together two titans of fisting porn for its scorching curtain-raiser. Instantly recognisable for its simple, blue-lit backdrop and its crisp style, it could be seen playing in sex clubs for years after its release, on a seemingly infinite loop.

The movie’s opening chapter has Matthieu Paris kicking back in a dentist’s chair, playing with his already-dilated hole. (Even in the very opening moments, he’s got three fingers in there, no problem.) It’s while he’s toying with an enormous torpedo of a dildo that Kent North enters the scene to offer him a hand. After helping Paris take another massive dildo all the way, North gets down to eat his gaping hole.

As the scene progresses, Kent ends up punch-fucking Matthieu’s butt while he sucks hungrily on his dick, before they swap positions. Lying back on the floor, the pair pull off an impressive 69er, each man sinking his hand into the other’s slack hole.

Mister Fister shows Kent North at the peak of his career. A Hot House exclusive, he had a string of hits with the San Francisco studio before his death in 2007.

Watch Mister Fister at Club Inferno Dungeon

Folsom Flesh (2009)

No roundup of fisting scenes would be complete without one from fetish gurus Titan Media. The catalogue of kink in Brian Mills’ celebrated Folsom series encompasses everything from hard SM to piss play, electro and bondage. Most of the action is filmed against minimalist studio sets; the focus here is on hard sex and graphic detail.

The standout fisting scene in the series’ fifth entry, Folsom Flesh, comes at the end of the movie. Leather hunk Rick van Sant poses against his motorbike in front of an eerily green-lit parachute backdrop. Enter swarthy, ruggedly handsome Colin Steele and the two begin to play.

When they move over to the nearby sling, Rick fucks Colin’s hole before drilling him with a thick dildo until he’s leaking lube. But van Sant gets his turn too, lying back in the sling while Colin punch-fucks him, before they swap positions again so the two men can fist each other at the same time.

Watch Folsom Flesh at Titan