My partner and I are relatively new to anal fisting after almost 30 years of marriage. We bought your book about five years ago, and we also have all three of your anal sex guide videos. She tells me that her hand hurts, then goes numb while she is fisting me. She thinks that there is a lot of pressure on her hand, and she’s scared and nervous about going too deep and thrusting. Do you have any suggestions to help us achieve more depth with less pain for her?
–Fisting in the Golden Years
Anal fisting is possible because the sphincter muscles can be trained to relax enough to make penetration comfortable and the rectum can expand to accommodate something as sizable as a hand. However, the anal opening and the anal canal (the first few inches inside) still tend to feel quite tight once you’re inside, and that’s because of the sphincter muscles. I’ve certainly felt like my hand was in a vice grip a time or two during an anal fisting! That said, the vice grip sensation was fleeting and subsided as the person’s ass relaxed. Plus, while it has felt really snug inside someone’s ass, I’ve never felt pain or a loss of circulation, and it sounds like your partner has experienced both.
She is correct — there is a lot of pressure on her hand, but that pressure should not be so intense that it causes pain. Beyond the pain, the numb feeling she experiences means she’s losing circulation to her hand, which is actually quite dangerous. I suspect that your ass may not be relaxed enough once she gets inside, so perhaps more warm up is necessary before she proceeds from five fingers to the whole hand. Because you mentioned being in “your golden years,” I also wonder whether she has arthritis or another condition which is causing the pain in her hand. The safest solution to this problem is to switch over to some large plugs or dildos instead: they will give you the feeling of fullness and deep penetration without giving her discomfort.
