Second Skin

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 21st 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.

Brave and searching, SECOND SKIN reveals how what we deem ‘taboo’ is never static, while asking: do we have the courage to look at these desires directly, and express them unapologetically?

“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