Martin, Jarred H.2024-03-042024Jarred H. Martin (2024): No Cock Needed: Exploring the Hapto- Erotic Assemblage of Fist-Play in Gay Men’s Anal Fisting, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 71, no. 13, pp. 2974-2996, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2023.2275299.0091-8369 (print)1540-3602 (online)10.1080/00918369.2023.2275299http://hdl.handle.net/2263/95060In this study, I explored how haptic modes of sense, contact, and practice affectively shape, become shaped with/in, the erotic experiences of gay fist-fuckers’ fist-play. Unstructured individual interviews were conducted with 9 gay fist-fuckers from South Africa. Theoretically framed by DeleuzoGuattarian-inspired work on sexuality-as-assemblage and Mark Paterson’s concept of feeling-with, a thematic analysis was employed to identify instances where participants’ haptic sites and senses were co-articulated with the erotic experiences of their fist-play. What emerged were four themes of hapto-erotic sense-making in fist-play: feeling-with trust, feeling-with desire, feeling-with care, and feeling-with pleasure. Together, the findings highlight that erotic experiences of fist-play become (trans)formed with/in fluctuating assemblages of desire, communal ethics, repertoires of technique, sense perception, inter-corporeal contact, as well as nonhuman objects and substances that affectively charge and channel haptic sites and senses. The findings point to a queerer and relational sensing and making sense of intimacy, pleasure, and play that is not reliant on phallocentric logics or tropes of gay sex.en© 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 71, no. 13, pp. 2974-2996, 2024. doi : 10.1080/00918369.2023.2275299. Journal of Homosexuality is available online at : https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjhm20.AssemblageFeeling-withFistingGay sexPlayPleasurePostprint Article