Exploring gender subversion and recuperation in anal fisting among gay men

Bibliographic Data

ID11011687
AuthorsJulia H Martins (0000-0001-7406-147X, University of Pretoria, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume50
Issue3
Pages336-346
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouth African Journal of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0081-2463 • E-ISSN: 2078-208X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0081246319888975
OpenAlexW2995494677
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited22

Anal fisting among gay men, that is, the sexual(ised) and erotic (single or partnered) practice of inserting the hand(s) and/or forearm(s) into the anus and rectum, has historically been framed in medical and medico-forensic case studies as a violent and dangerous sexual practice associated with the contraction of disease, heightened risk of sexual injury, and the possibility of death. In contrast to this, pro-Queer scholars of gender and sexuality have conceptually reframed the act of anal fisting among gay men as a subversive sexual practice which in its discursive and material performances radically transgresses the heteronormative tropes which typically underwrite human sex/uality, especially in ways that render the preferred representations of (gay) sex as ‘vanilla’. By drawing from unstructured individual interviews with a sample of eight (self-identifying) South African gay men who regularly incorporate anal fisting into their sexual relations, this study explores the gendered contradictions which rhetorically circumscribe how these men discursively construct and experience the corpo-erotic practice of anal fisting. In doing so, the findings highlight that while anal fisting among gay men may in fact engender shades of a sexually subversive practice by the way it radically (re)makes the material and erotic possibilities and connections of gay men’s bodies in exceptionally non-normative and perhaps Queer ways; it is, at the same time, also invested with, and reiterative of, discursive repertoires which actively recuperate heteronormative as well as heteromasculinist tropes and gendered power relations that, in some instances, appear femiphobic

Anal sex · Human sexuality · Men who have sex with men · Normative · Politics · Queer · Sociology · Subversion · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Medicine · Psychology