Second Skin

A taboo-bursting, personal and cultural tour through different sexual fetishes that asks: Do we have the courage to look at our desires directly, and express them unapologetically?

The smell of leather. The flash of a harness. The snap of a latex glove. Welcome to the radical, vibrant world of sexual fetishists.

In twenty-first-century commodity culture, we are all intimately involved with objects: we covet a Birkin bag; we keep trainers box-fresh. We are, in a sense, all fetishists. But occasionally this desire spills into something more subversive. Second Skin offers a tour through the materials, objects and power dynamics commonly fetishised, unpacking their histories, their expressive potential, and the communities they give rise to. Drawing from her encounters with fellow fetishists and kinksters, it is also the story of Anastasiia Fedorova's own journey: of what it means to come to terms with one's sexuality.

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"[Fedorova] writes shrewdly about how we imbue objects with meaning and status . . . She takes a historian’s pleasure in handling obscure ephemera and a kinkster’s delight in the scent of the Dettol spray used to clean fetish clubs . . . Fedorova seems to understand that sexual deviation is an extension of everyday life: the most moving passages in Second Skin aren’t the scenes of masked ravers in clubs but those in which eroticism shades the gap between the banal and the intimate . . . [Second Skin] takes our most uncanny attractions and reveals their eminent humanity." —Lilian Fishman, The New Yorker

"An interior exploration of kinky desire and its impact on and integration into modern society. In this dynamic debut, writer, queer archive curator, and fetishist Fedorova, believes that kink communities don’t deserve the judgmental disapproval they receive, and she encourages a deeper understanding, appreciation, and social valuing . . . Creatively fusing the worlds of art, alternative sex, and fashion into her study, the author diligently explores a provocative collective of kink and fetish categories . . . Fedorova writes with passion, knowledge, and authority to dispel these perceptions, noting the 'many ways' fetishists can always 'find home.' An intimately written, sex-positive look at the history and ongoing preservation of kink culture." —Kirkus Reviews

"An elegant, intelligent, intimate exploration of the way a sexual charge can alchemize objects and vibes into worlds unto themselves" —Michelle Tea, author of Knocking Myself Up

"A personal and informative exploration of the many worlds of fetishism. I really enjoyed it" —Cosey Fanni Tutti, author of Art Sex Music

"Expansive and intimate, probing and emboldening... A book for anybody who has ever wondered what it might mean to put more of ourselves - dare we say, all of ourselves? - into sex" —Polly Barton, author of Porn: An Oral History

"Insightful, clear-eyed, generous and surprisingly tender... You will feel it wrap itself around you like a gimp mask or a hard-earned embrace from your perfect Domina" —Brittany Newell, author of Softcore

"At last, a book on kink that isn't squeamish and that doesn't act like its subjects are bewildering freaks! Part tender investigation, part ecstatic hymn, Second Skin will give you goose bumps in all kinds of places" —Charlie Fox, author of This Young Monster