Go Ask Alex: Whatever happened to fisting classes?

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Back in the day, I remember there being fisting classes. I think there was one in San Francisco called "Hell Hole," which eventually grew into the Fist Fest events.

While I'm a big fan of fisting parties, I wonder where the teaching and mentoring part of our community went. It seems essential to me, not just for safety but for connection.

Are there good fisting classes or clubs around that still create this type of educational community?

Hungry for Knuckle Knowledge

Hey FFriend,

You're right about Hell Hole. Larry Shockey ran the Hell Hole parties in San Francisco for years. He also started Fist Fest, and for awhile ran both.

In a 2014 article in the Bay Area Reporter called "A Fistful of Happiness," he explains that proceeds from the sale of Fist Fest passes and Hell Hole parties benefit "the educational programs of the Handball Academy."

The Handball Academy is still going. It was founded in 2010, and its mission is "to provide safer sex education and training about safer sex practices, harm and risk reduction, prevention and technique to individuals who engage in high-risk sexual activities through the dissemination of printed materials, publications, visual and audio broadcasts, and the presentation of programs and workshops, public forums, lectures, panel discussions, and retreats." Larry keeps the teaching part of our scene alive, and he's not alone.

I love Fist Fest. While not explicitly classes, they are events where a beginner can learn tips and techniques, ask pros for advice, and safely practice.

Fist Fest has invited me twice to read my first book at their events. The book has graphic depictions of fisting, stories from my own life. Reading them, and the lessons I've taken from them, at real fisting events is beautiful and bewildering. When I describe fisting as holy, the crowd doesn't need further explanation. They get it.

Today, Fist Fest happens a few times a year: SpringFFling, FFullMoon, OctoberFFist. All these events happen at the Metropolis Entertainment Complex in Augusta, Georgia. Fist Fest has been running events continuously since 1997.

Elsewhere in the U.S. are events by Reegür, which I've also attended (and read the book at). Reegür is a fisting-community brand built around a mobile app for fisters, like a fisting-specific version of Recon, a hookup app for kinky men. Founded by Brandon Kennedy, Reegür throws two annual weekend gatherings, Spring BLOOMS and Rose Bowl, in Dallas, Texas, and both build fisting classes into their schedules. In a recent program, there were sessions called "Fisting 101” and “Fisting 201."

Your question inspired me to go back further, to before Hell Hole. There was a famous fisting club in San Francisco called the Catacombs, broadly considered the most famous fisting club in the world, which ran from 1975 until AIDS-era crackdowns closed it in 1984. There was also Handball Express and the Red Star Saloon, both in San Francisco's SoMa (South of Market) neighborhood, where the 43rd Annual Folsom Street Fair happened weekend. The Red Star Saloon publicly advertised fisting events as early as 1973.

New York had the Mineshaft, which ran from 1976 to 1985 and is still spoken of as one of the greatest gay fetish spaces, akin to what Berlin's Lab.oratory is today.

By 1980, there were several fisting groups across the United States: Fist Fuckers of America, or FFA, had chapters in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, and D.C., and it was cautious enough in its time to register itself as a nonprofit with a boring cover name, "Fall Festival Association," so nobody would ask questions. There was also TAIL, the Total Ass Involvement League, which was genuinely international, with members across the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. And there was MAFIA, Mid-America Fists in Action, founded in Chicago in 1978, which I'll come back to, since unlike much of this history, it's still around.

In their heyday, all these groups had regular fisting classes and workshops.

In 1975, FFA threw a two-day fisting convention in Ossining, New York, and over 300 men showed up for it. In 1992, a newsletter called Trust, put out by the same small press that published Bert Herrman's seminal fisting bible, started holding events called Red Hankie Socials, community bar nights that ran simultaneously in nine cities: Fort Lauderdale, Houston, LA, Phoenix, New York, Provincetown, San Diego, San Francisco, and Vancouver. FFA ran similar nights in Fort Lauderdale and DC. MAFIA ran Chicago's. This was a huge, thriving, international scene.

What happened? Two big forces hit. AIDS took a staggering number of the men in the scene, and in the mid-1980s, public health crackdowns closed the remaining spaces, the Catacombs among them, on the idea that shutting down sex venues would slow the epidemic. We lost the Mineshaft and other legendary spaces at this time. (We in part have AIDS activists like Larry Kramer to thank for this.) Most of the old guard, Catacombs-era SF scene didn't survive that double blow.

MAFIA did, and not by luck. According to its own stated history, the board debated shutting down its fisting events during the AIDS crisis but chose instead to double down on education and safer play. It also opened itself to non-members starting in 1983 and built real international reach, gaining members from Australia, Canada, and West Germany by the mid-1980s.

MAFIA was founded in 1978 by Glynn Sudbery, Donovan Ash, and Roger Blaisdell. It's still headquartered in Chicago, and still organizes events there, more than four decades later. You need two current members to sponsor you, and the board has to approve you. That's essentially a mentorship structure built into how the organization works.

Recently, MAFIA partnered with International Mr. Leather on Fist Club Rush, an event held at the Congress Hotel during IML in Chicago, described as "a powerful return to shared roots and a fresh commitment to visibility, education, and community care."

San Francisco currently has Fist Buds, a fisting party organized by 442 Events, held on the second Sunday of each month. I’ve been to events at 442, and while the space seems like more of a sex club than a place to learn, Fist Buds has this mission statement: “Beyond just having fun, our mission is to build a skilled community through shared practice and supportive coaching."

Yes, overall, the internet, social factors, the AIDS crisis, and massive recent upheavals in gay life, including the losses of legendary spaces, have changed how people learn how to fist and reduced the number of classes, workshops, and events where people can learn techniques and safety and build community.

But the fisting scene is growing. If anything, the highly active fisting community online, especially on X, and the multitude of content creators making fisting content on JustFor.Fans tell me the scene is more active than ever. More and more people, at younger ages, are getting into it; it's left the underground. Online, the mentorship and teaching aspects are certainly harder to find. I wish we all prioritized teaching and helping each other more and outperforming each other less; there are dangers about the competitive nature of the online fisting scene that I've written about before in this column. But among good fisters, good players, and good people, that mentorship still happens, and IRL spaces to learn in are still around.

Some of the best are in Berlin, where I live. Once a month, we have Fausthouse, the monthly fisting night at Lab.oratory, a gay sex club housed in the same building as the legendary techno club Berghain. We also have regular fisting nights at clubs Böse Buben and Club Culture House. Böse Buben in particular is less about sex and more about community and connection: it’s a relaxed gathering place, somewhere you can chat, grab a drink, smoke a cigarette, and maybe fist if there's a spark of interest. This is where a beginner can ask questions, learn from pros, and get some practice in a safe, supported environment from people who know what they are doing. (I'd recommend Fausthouse a little less to beginners; it's my least favorite IRL FF event in Berlin.)

If you're willing to forego actual sex entirely and just want to meet other fisters in Berlin, there's a weekly fisting bar night at the legendary Schöneberg gay bar Prinzknecht, every Thursday, run by a group called Berlin FF Buddies. Everyone's welcome, whether you're into fisting or not, and they're the first to say it's often more about hanging out than anything sexual.

I know all this is just Berlin and requires a plane ticket for anyone not here, but it’s proof that at the local, grassroots level, in gay urban communities, teaching and community can be found. I know these events and places because I live here. And yes, Berlin is special: it’s a kink city. But I am sure that if I currently lived in New York or London or Paris, I’d be able to list different things, which is my point: getting connected to the local sex scene of a nearby city, even one you don’t live in, will bring you into contact with people who can teach you, people you can learn from. It might not be classes; it might be play dates with nice, patient, sober people. That’s one-on-one instruction, the best you can get. Screen people carefully and build relationships that grow with time.

While researching this piece, I learned something fun: Wikipedia's own page on fisting cites me four separate times. These are old pieces I wrote for The Advocate and Them, back when I was writing lists of kinky terms and tips for first-timers. So I'm apparently already a small footnote in fisting history.

That’s nice, and it is also, in its way, a heartening reply to your question: As long as there are hands and orifices, someone will be writing about fisting, passing it along, teaching it, giving it to the next generation. Desire never dies.

Hey there! I’m Alexander Cheves. I’m a sex writer and former sex worker—I worked in the business for over 12 years. You can read my sex-and-culture column Last Call in Out and my book My Love Is a Beast: Confessions, from Unbound Edition Press. But be warned: Kirkus Reviews says the book is "not for squeamish readers.”

Here, I’m offering sex and relationship advice to Out’s readers. Send your question to askbeastly@gmail.com