Stinkfist

This song is about we as individuals & society as a whole being overstimulated with superfluous bullshit, including sexual titillation, that we have become numb to the subtle beauty of things, & must always be striving for more (over) stimulation to the point of brutal perversion, (as in fist fucking up to the shoulder which is tantamount to killing). While fist fucking in this song is metaphorical, it is also quite a literal example of our societal perversion due to our materialistic drive & loss of spiritual connection.

I couldn't listen to this song initially, thinking it was simply a naïve rebellion in profanity, but in fact this is very much a rebellious song, however it is rebelling against the very quality many people consider so important today; the freedom to satisfy ones desires to the utmost, the greatest trick of our consumer driven existence. I find the juxtaposition of the song's lyrics with the brutality of the music interesting, the music portraying the quality of over stimulation with the exception of the beautifully gentle middle break in which there is a mourning over the loss of subtlety. Very clever song. Intensely powerful in its portrayal of the resultant personal cataclysm. This is not a song about the freedom in satisfying debauched desire.

According to Maynard himself. He said it right before the song start "This song is about choosing compassion over fear"

The illusions to fisting...extreme sexual activity in order to feel, the progression from a finger tip to knuckle to hand to shoulder...hoping to banish a numbness...requiring something shocking that you don't really want just to feel something...what does that say about a person? I think that's the point of the song.

What I think is interesting is that he seems to explore both POV here...the person being entered, the person who needs the pain to push past the numbness...and the person who needs to do the pushing, needs to force the envelope, in order to feel.

The dichotomy of sado masochism...but more, I think, in an emotional and psychological sense.

As Treestump began to point out, I have thought that this song was about desensitisation. People get involved or addicted to certain things, living in a cold and numb bubble of existance, ultimately missing out on life.

DUUUUUUUDES ....... Stinkfist is about all the stuff our minds are exposed to by the media in modern society. We see so much stuff on tv that its desensetized us to reality. To get our kicks now we need something more.

All the stuff we see around us should repulse us(the pain caused by the fisting). But it doesent because we're used to it.

Very simple, guys. This song is primarily about how everybody is becoming desensitised to everything. It literally says this in its lyrics. It's not about anal sex, it's not about some sort of dysfunctional relationship, though you're all welcome to relate your own experiences to the song because it frankly doesn't bother me...but the fact is, and this is what TOOL is renowned for believing in (facts)...that this song is meant to wake us up and ask us 'what is the point?' If you've seen any or all of the Zeitgeist 'documentaries', you'll understand.

Also, if you're simply perceptive enough to notice just how malleable western society really is, how easily manipulated and conditioned we are by corporate manipulation and media influence (think the hype generated around APPLE products and their ideals of planned and intrinsic obsolescence, and the values/mores fed to us by hollywood and pop/rap/rnb/hip-hop music), then the idea that this song could possibly be about something as petty as a relationship or even about sex, is simply ludicrous. The lyrics encourage us to think outside the box, and simply put, people here are not thinking outside the box. Maynard would be most disappointed...we need to keep riding the spiral, people...

I am fairly certain that this song is about "borderline personality disorder". Could be wrong though. It portrays a journey of emotion as he slips deeper into the borderline. I often wonder why things are the way they are. I don't understand why. I don't understand why I let one person affect me so deeply. Two years have passed since she replaced me. I wake up not knowing what love feels like anymore. Or if it was love at all. I still wonder how someone can change within a single week. I still ache within for apparently no reason. I am only nineteen years of age and am ridiculously nonsensical for feeling this way. With music I transcend the bullshit.

This song and many others enhance my experience on Earth.

I always thought it was about heroin use, because I guess you would feel a bit numb after using that and the more you had the more you wanted as in this part: It's not enough I need more Nothing seems to satisfy I don't want it I just need it To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive

I conceive this to be one of the band's greatest songs. As most of their songs it's metaphoric. We all want to know what Maynard meant when he pulled them from the depths of his mind and wrote them into song, but thats not what he intended them for. He wants us to apply them to our own life related experiences. Hince the name TOOL. Music is a tool for most of us today, to slip into memory, or some form of spiritual healing, to find a comfortable center within. I relate songs to certain happenings in my life, good and bad. With this song you could apply it to a few different things, love, drugs, sex, self affliction, or maybe looking within one's self. Who knows what he truly meant? Apply it to something in your own life and you'll find the true meaning behind it. It's up to you.

Well, this song is only about BORDERLINE-DISORDER. and nothing else... really! if someone of you have this disorder, you'll understand it. If you want to understand this song, you have to know this disorder. Otherwise you won't get this....