Abstract:
Anal fisting amongst gay men has been characterised as a risky
form of sexual play, particularly for the bottoming (receptive) playmate. This view may be over simplistic and fail to recognise how
fist-bottoms ready themselves for fist-play through preparatory
journeys of bottom training. This study explored how gay men
who bottom in fist-play understand bottom training and how this
understanding informs their personal sense of pleasure, risk, and
safety. Unstructured individual interviews were conducted with 8
gay men who play as fist-bottoms. An inductive thematic analysis
was conducted on the data, from which four main themes were
developed: (1) training the body to play; (2) training for headspace;
(3) training to understand pleasure; and (4) training by rules. Taken
together, the findings highlight how fist-bottoms understand their
bottom training as both a formative and transformative process
that shapes their corporeal, psychological, erotic, and subcultural
knowledge and skills to navigate play. Through bottom training,
fist-bottoms explore and attune their understanding of what is safe
and pleasurable, as well as riskier play
