The Journey From Curiosity to Participation in FF

I've been thinking lately about how rarely someone's fisting experience actually starts with fisting.

For me, my first exposure happened in San Francisco in 2016, when a friend and I accidentally ended up at a fisting party called Friendly Fire. I was very much not ready for what I walked into (lol). At the time, I didn't leave thinking, "This is something I need to explore." It was simply an unexpected introduction to a world I knew very little about.

My curiosity came later, and for me, it started pretty simply: I got my first butt plug. That experience made me wonder what else was possible, and I started paying more attention to FF. What had initially been this completely foreign thing I stumbled into became something I was actually curious about understanding for myself.

I think that's how it happens for a lot of people. There's an initial moment of exposure, and then there's the much slower process of deciding whether that thing you saw is actually something you want to explore.

At first, that curiosity might be pretty passive. You might just want to understand what you're looking at. You might start searching for more information, watching more content, or following people who talk about FF. Eventually, though, curiosity can turn into something more personal. You start wondering what it would actually feel like to experience it yourself.

I think there's an interesting space between those two things. Knowing that something exists and deciding that you want to experience it are very different moments.

For some people, that gap might be a few days. For others, it can take months or even years. You might spend a long time learning about FF before ever trying it. You might buy a toy, talk to a partner, experiment gradually, or simply keep thinking about it without doing anything at all. There isn't really a universal timeline for becoming comfortable enough to move from curiosity into participation.

There's often an assumption that once someone is interested in something, the next logical step is simply to try it. But interest doesn't necessarily mean readiness. Sometimes people need time to become familiar with an idea before they feel comfortable enough to actually explore it.

I've seen this in my own work with clients, too.

By the time someone submits an application to work with me, I've often had no idea how long they've been thinking about it. What looks like a simple application on my end may actually be the end of a much longer process for them.

They may have found my work months earlier. They might have spent time looking through my website or social media, reading my newsletters, watching how I talk about FF, and getting a sense of who I am and how I approach this work. They may have been thinking about reaching out several times before actually doing it.

And then, eventually, they decide they're ready.

There's a similar process happening for people who never become clients. Someone can spend months learning about FF, experimenting on their own, talking to partners, or simply sitting with the idea without ever pursuing a professional experience. That's still part of their journey.

And maybe that's one of the things I appreciate most about FF. There isn't one correct way to move from curiosity to participation.

Some people jump in quickly while others take their time. Some discover FF through porn or social media and eventually want to understand it more deeply. Others encounter it through a partner or a friend. Some people explore it privately for years before ever talking about it with another person.

The important thing is that curiosity doesn't have to become action immediately.

Sometimes you need to spend some time with an idea before you know whether it's actually something you want.

And when you do eventually decide to try it, you're bringing all of that history with you. Your first experience isn't happening in a vacuum. It's shaped by what you've seen, what you've been told, what you've imagined, what you've worried about, and what you've learned along the way.

I think that's worth paying attention to.

Because when we talk about FF, we often focus on the experience itself. What happens during it, how far someone goes, what they can accomplish, or what they want to try next.

But there's an entire journey that happens before any of that.

For many people, the first step isn't opening up or trying something new.

It's simply seeing something that makes them curious enough to wonder, "Could this be something for me?"

And sometimes, that's where the journey really begins.

—Danny Mercer