Other Kinds of Pleasures posts
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Happy Spring to you my friends, readers and perverts
Happy Spring to you my friends, readers and perverts <3I grew up in a Northern city where springtime has always been truly brutal: everything that was dead coming back to life with a violent relentless energy, the air smells of bonfires and dirt, and you're tired all the time because winter took it all, yet again. Seasons in the UK are much milder, but I'll remind myself of that just for fun. Hope you enjoyed Easter or other religious festivities you practice or prefer. I've met a fe...
On heavy rubber and weirdness liberation
Writing this felt like an early Christmas gift – for all these times when I shared a meaningless Monday dialogue with a colleague omitting the fact that I spend Sunday night washing a latex straight jacket. I love being a weirdo. Thank you for staying subscribed during this year - was definitely part of my personal lifeline <3Happy holidays! xxxStanding by the coffee machine at work, I admit that I had another “very chill weekend”. I look out of the window and rest my eyes on elegant offic...
On latex monsters, the ravenous and the queer
Great memories of standing in the middle of Rose Easton trying to smell latex through the glass. The sexiest thing in this sculpture is a breathing tube sticking out to the side. Not many people noticed, but us? We did. Was a pleasure to talk to Jenkin van Zyl about latex inflatable and obscure online fetishes which are not meant to be lived out. Read the i-D feature below.In a windowless room on the first floor of Rose Easton in east London, a creature is stuck in a large brightly-lit glass vit...
Frilly fleshy fantasy: an interview with Soft Skin Latex
There is a special pleasurein unwrapping an item by Soft Skin Latex.I remember taking a Large Ruff out of the box, everything about it perfectly satisfying: the immaculate folds, the deep plum colour, the latex scent and the movement. But apart from the pleasure of the object, Soft Skin Latex does stand out among other latex brands. Their creations draw from the queer and fetish history, but also incorporate elements of 16th-century menswear and subcultural heritage. Crafted in gentle translucen...
On leatherdyke history and 'FIST' by Ella Boucht
Earlier this year, London-based fashion designer Ella Boucht asked me to model for their latest collection titled 'FIST'. The collection is inspired in equal parts by the history of queer people in martial arts and boxing and the leatherdyke culture and S/M. I was honoured to embody the latter, inspired by the many incredible leatherdykes of the past, including Tala Brandeis cracking the whip at a dyke march in Washington DC.I also wrote the text which seeks out the essence of hurting ea...
A letter from a wet room is a Berlin kink club
And I am back. Hello, my beloved perverts, fetishists and friends. I’m bringing you a little text on change, piss and collective intimacy.To me, the most integral part of being a kinkster is accepting that thing do change. Trying new things is a big part of how we operate as perverted beings - chasing highs, imagining new ways of getting off, trying to touch what we’re scared of. There are times in life when everything pales compared to kink-related experiences, times when they give way to s...
Queer Beauty in Leather
Last month, I wrote the text for the beautiful collaborative project by Fleet Ilya and Anna Sampson exploring the potential of leather and erotic gaze beyond the binary. The project draws leather's queer heritage and explores the possibilities of gender expression through the material. We love to see it <3We often think of leather purely in relation to our bodies – a garment to wear, an object of desire, a sculptural piece of design. But while encompassing all these things, leather is more...
Cream on Oyster, Charm a Snake: the new book celebrating masturbation
The London Vagabond is truly a gift to us all. Every time time I write about their work, it makes me think of the multitudes of ways we see sex through a cultural lens these days – which sides of it we celebrate, and which we hide. Masturbation is an interesting one: there is a glamourised pornified portrayal of it, and there are ways we actually get off. Sometimes, these ways are something we keep extremely private - these moments of uncoiling the vibrator's cord, staring at the screen or...
Photographing the queer leather community of today
I have already interviewed Steven Harwick, the brilliant photographer behind Bound Leather Zine once here. But I got to talk to him again, this time about his brilliant new book 'By The Skin of My Teeth', which comprises essays, interviews and photography – a beautifully crafted portrait of the queer leather community. You truly know when a book was made by a fetishist because it's a beautiful object - ORDER HERE. We also talked about representation in leather, the golden era of le...
On the gaze of a pervert
When I stood there naked, I felt powerful. There is definitely a correlation which exists for me: I always say, I’d gladly walk around topless if it was socially acceptable. It’s both about my intimate connection to my flesh – and the way it intimidates people by simply existing.Nudity is often perceived as vulnerability and softness, something to be regarded and consumed. The relationship of (especially female) nudity to power and dominance is something I wanted to explore on a shoot we d...
On latex: isolation and protection in the 21st century (Part 2)
What is beyond the look and the history of latex? Sliding into our shiny garments in the current moment in time, we get to ask the ever pressing questions: are we alone or together, are we restricted or free? The second part of journey to the core of the highly fetishised material.Read Part 1 here.Two decades into the 21st century, and the technologies and experiences which shape our sexualities have shifted massively. But we hardly think of looking for an up-to-date perspective on what we seek ...
On latex: aesthetic, substance and history (Part 1)
I wasn't born a fetishist. Or so I tell myself. Is anyone ever really? Or do we all get introduced to fetish by the consumer society or the expansive sexy horizons of the internet? The moment I first put a latex catsuit on has changed my life forever. Once it's tightly clung to my body, this memory will be with me forever, in anything I wear after. Latex is a cornerstone of the aesthetic associated with kink and fetish – but its cultural history and sensory experience often get overloo...
On all things golden
Golden showers as a subject of contemporary art. Piss as a way to narrate queer history. Watersports as the deepest expression of intimacy.This project is over a year old now! I remember that in the beginning I was a little worried, thinking how would I manage to bring myself into something which is more explicit than writing about rope or leather. Rope or leather are of course still sexual – but they can very easily be perceived by the mainstream through a desexualised cultural lens. "But...
Playing with grief and anger: interview with International Dominatrix Eva Oh
"Once you have that presence and that ability to move somebody to the ground without having to do anything, except to stand there and be you... Everything else you can learn. But that is pretty hard, I think."Eva Oh, or Mistress Eva, is an International professional and lifestyle Dominatrix – and a person of incredible presence. This goes for her place in the global kink scene (she is the winner of the 2022 ‘Sex Worker of the Year’ Sexual Freedom Award and the face of the 2022 Germ...
A love letter to London's kink spaces
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a little love letter to kink spaces for i-D Magazine – in response to Tower Hamlets actively trying to shut down Klub Verboten. It is, in a way, a love letter to Klub Verboten because the event and the team are very close to my heart. What followed was a kink event on the course of which we were not allowed any nudity or semi-nudity or any play – which gave me an uncanny feeling of online censorship spilling into the real life. I did enjoy walking around in publ...
On sex, grief and history
First of all, I would like to thank you for still staying subscribed during the last month. It means a lot to me. This is a space where I write for pleasure – and having someone to talk to in this space feels good on many levels. Now I have to type that again, the strange beginning of the sentence: since the war started…Since the war started, it’s been increasingly difficult, strange and alienating to think about desire – and what desire means when the world is being burnt to the ground....
There is no better feeling than this
Got into my latex catsuit for Anna Sampson a couple of weeks ago."I love it," she said. "Something else gets into you when you put it on". Bring in latex is a completely different feeling compared to wearing anything else – being powerful and slightly otherworldly, high on your own slowly rising body heat. The sensations of time and space and presence are very slightly altered when the zip goes up.I recently read this very great piece by Kitty Drake on latex as a liminal space ...
Atom, the intimate book exploring sexuality and desire in the pandemic era
In the past few months I've working with Fleet Ilya leather label and artist Ekaterina Bazhenova-Yamasaki on some communication around the very beautiful book Atom they produced together. It's a book about the pandemic – isolation, loneliness, introspection and what it means for our ideas of the body and private space. It's also a book about fetish (or at least the way I think about fetish) – about all the ways a wearable object can create new states of mind and self-awareness. A...
Portraits in leather by Anna Sampson
I shot with Anna Sampson a couple of weeks ago, which was pretty special, because I think she is the most iconic fetish photographer of our times. I just got to put on some leather and show up in my queer power, and I don't think anyone has ever got me that well. So I'll just leave these here.Axxx
On being a sadist
Thank you for sticking around this month as it took me longer that usual to gather my sexy thoughts (covid among the reasons)<3 Today's essay is on one of my favourite things – being sadistic. I tried to reflect what it's like beyond the guilt-inducing preconceptions. I also wrote about art, empathy, needles, my shadow self and consuming beautiful things. Enjoy xxx I’ve always loved BDSM as a form of alternative sexual imagination, the possibility to question what sex is. Leathersex ...
On kink and intimacy
“Have I always been like this - or have I just happened to meet the right person?” We all contemplate this question from time to time: which of our desires are authentically ours and which are invoked by other people? My latest essay looks at how much agency we have in the very beautiful yet seemingly unpredictable fluidity of kink sexuality – and the vulnerability, ecstasy and grief of BDSM intimacy.I stand there with a cane in my hand. I have no way of knowing how much pain reverberates ...
Is there such a thing as too many black latex catsuit photos?
No. Merry Christmas. xxx
Happy Holidays to pervs and pervs only <3
Thank you all for subscribing, reading and following my work here in 2021 <3I hope you're having a nice festive time in which you are probably intermittently bored, peaceful or thinking about something filthy and inappropriate at wholesome places like supermarket isles or family dinners or even churches – cheers to that.I started planning "Other Kinds of Pleasures" in January 2021. During the winter lockdown we were playing with the lights with my artist friend Anya Gorkova trying ...
Bound Leather zine: crafting a collective portrait of today's leather community
Bound Leather zine offers a fascinating portrayal of today’s leather community: artful, hot, empathetic and real just like the leathers. It’s a reminder of the many meanings of leather: a source of erotic energy, a fetish, an aesthetic with history and something which unites an incredibly diverse community of people worldwide.NYC-based photographer Steven Harwick started Bound Leather in 2017. Previously, in his photography studies, he focused on the mid-century Americana aesthetic from the ...
Bondage erotica, 1970s
These images are from the Spring 1973 issue of Bound to Please, a bondage magazine published by company called House of Milan in Los Angeles (my version is most likely a UK bootleg reprint). The content ranges from bondage-themed fiction, erotic illustrations, photo shoots, and personals. The most fascinating part, however, is photos sent in by members of the magazine's Bondage Club and then rated by the editorial on the scale of 1 to 10. The first strap bondage image is from a submission by...
The poetic side of leather fetish in "Box Hill" by Adam Mars-Jones
I ended up with a copy of “Box Hill” by Adam Mars-Jones by accident when Aesop ran their Queer Library project in June (the full excellent book list can be found here) – someone at their Borough store just randomly gave it to me."On the Sunday of his eighteenth birthday, in 1975, Colin takes a walk on Box Hill, a biker hang-out. There he accidentally trips over Ray, a biker napping under a tree – and that’s where it all starts," reads the description on the back. "Box Hill&...
In Fleet Ilya leathers
Some more outtakes from a shoot I did with an incredible photographer Ekaterina Bazhenova-Yamasaki for Fleet Ilya (full story on my leather fetish and being seen here). I think it was the third time she photographed me fully or almost naked and it's always a pleasure when you can just show up the way you are.Ax
On perception and perversion
Does everything have to be about sex? Well, everything is sex. As queer people, kinsters, or self-proclaimed sexual deviants – do we see the world differently? And what does society have to say about this perspective? A lot of questions, some serious contemporary art and the joy of rubber and petrol smell from a local garage – all in one essay.“Socks fit into open mouths, ripped vests stretch over pumped bodies and the taste of soft cotton and sweat; leaves a metallic taste. It’s a remin...
On leather fetish and being seen
A few months ago Fleet Ilya, London-based leather brand working between fashion and fetish, asked me to collaborate with them on some writing. They also asked me to shoot with an incredible artist Ekaterina Bazhenova-Yamasaki wearing pieces from their new season (leather in lilac, who could have thought it would look so good wow). So I wrote the first in the upcoming series of pieces on my leather fetish, the pleasure of being photographed and the power of showing up as you are. Thank you for yo...
Latex & Red
Last week was the first time in ages I dressed up in latex just for myself. It felt like coming back to my deepest most sincere essence of being a perv. But then, once a perv always a perv. It's a pleasure to have access to something so sensory and lush.xxx
