This week’s VIP Interview is with Ayzad – A sex scholar, coach, teacher and author specialising in alternative sexualities.
VIP Interview With Ayzad – A Sex Scholar!
I’d like to thank you for agreeing to do this interview. As mentioned, I actually have come across your website a few times, and one of my favourite things are the posts of “Inexplicable moments in the history of sexuality”. Those keyhole posts are always so frustratingly good! I also love the subtle, yet important distinction between sex blogger, and sex explorer as well as the reasonings and research behind that.
So let’s introduce you first as Ayzad, A Sex Scholar and sex explorer, owner, curator of ayzad.com where you explore unusual things about sex, sexuality, kink and fetish. You’ve written several books and articles. You hold workshops and lectures, and you also do personal coaching all from your base in Italy. There’s certainly enough there to keep you busy! Did i miss anything?
Thank you for your appreciation! The Inexplicable Moments series started as a joke with puzzling online pictures. It’s now over six years strong. I love the wonderfully odd ways people have of distorting the very idea of sexuality… After the first laugh, those images make you really wonder about our fellow humans and ourselves, don’t you think?
I organized Italy’s largest BDSM party, Sadistique, and trained kink-aware professionals among psychologists, sexologists, and law enforcement.
I have to start with the basics. You were once a “traditional” journalist – how did you move into talking about sex and sexuality?
Around the year 2000, a nasty combination of insolvent clients and a market crisis hit me in the local publishing industry. So I took a sabbatical to nurse my business wounds and I ended up using the time to write BDSM – A Guide for Explorers of Extreme Eroticism, a book meant to collect what I had learned about erotic domination and submission games and pass it on to the kink community.
To everyone’s surprise, it became a mainstream best-seller instead. It sparked collaborations in sexology and received many letters thanking me for validating diverse sexual preferences. Many readers recounted how my book saved their marriage, or pointed them to meet the partner of their dreams.
At that point I had to make a choice. Continue providing information that can bring happiness to people’s lives, rather than promoting fear and consumerism. Choosing to prioritie happiness over financial security, supported by an understanding life partner with a stable job, eased the transition. Almost twenty years later, the messages keep pouring in and I am still happy with that decision.
You’ve often stated that you began exploring BDSM at 18. How were your experiences when you were young in comparison to now? Has the community changed much in your opinion?
This is a great question that I actually ponder upon rather frequently myself. In many ways, the Nineties (and – ahem – the Eighties) were much darker times for kinksters. Information was rare and questionable; most people didn’t really know how to deal with their own kinks; finding play partners was a feat made even harder by the lack of digital tools to connect with each other; toys were impossibly expensive and often of very low quality.
Overcoming these obstacles meant that fewer people engaged in unusual sexualities were extremely committed to their play. In fact, I recall many of them recoiling when I used that word: to “old timers” BDSM (or ‘sadomasochism’, as it was known back then) was ‘work’ – a pretty serious endeavour you couldn’t treat as child’s play.
I feel that in these days the very idea of erotic power play has swung far off in the opposite direction. For all the good a better kink culture has done, people tend to treat BDSM like just another opportunity to fill their free time with, on par with Netflix or dining out. The raw emotion seems to be mostly gone, so much so that I long damned myself over this lack of transcendence. Also, always blessed be the Internet, but online dynamics frequently play a big role in shooting the community in its own foot.
So, besides the fact that on the brink of my fiftieth birthday I am young – or I do feel like that at the least – the matter is, as always, a mixed bag of good and bad. I hope that this wild swing between too much self-importance and too much mindless post-50 Shades fad will eventually settle on a nice middle ground. I am kinda seeing the early signs of that process now.
Sex is so open. There are a myriad of different experiences, genders, identities, interactions. Many people tend to use labels as a form of identification and identity – what are your thoughts on such labels? Especially when it comes to BDSM, Kink and diverse forms of sexual expression, do you feel that we’re approaching/using labels in the right way?
I’d say that labels – or better: strictly defined roles or approaches to sexuality – can be a useful starting point for newcomers to get their bearings around the immense map of pleasure. Knowing, for example, that someone else has already elaborated an attraction to the owner/pet dynamics into something structured that many people agree upon calling ‘pet play’, with all of its rituals and specialised knowledge, allows you to avoid a series of basic traps and dead ends if you harbour a similar inclination.
The bad part of this compartimentalisation of kink comes when you unwittingly forget your individuality and play into becoming assimilated into a certain pre-packaged view. After all, every one is different and evolving, which is why I am so keen on the notion of “sexual explorers”.
Also, I have now seen a few times the rise of true fads initiated by literal labels. The latest was probably when Fetlife added ‘primal’ among the possible profile descriptors, and so many people jumped on the bandwagon without even having a clear idea of what the word actually meant. A few years earlier the same happened with ‘brat’, and earlier still with the whole ‘daddy/little girl’ subculture.
And don’t get me started on furries. I mean, trying new shoes on to see whether they fit you is fine and healthy; committing to a narrowly defined role just because all your online “friends” are doing that doesn’t sound too mature instead, does it? Oh, wait: I am playing into the role of the ancient wise curmudgeon…
With the diversity of sex, expressionism, and identity – what do you personally find to be the most fascinating in unusual sex?
This is easy. It’s the continuing quest for honesty and authenticity. Even just contemplating unusual sexualities opens your mind to boundless possibilities – and forces you in a nice way to deal with your own repressed facets, fears, desires and sense of identity. By hook or by crook, kink stimulates critical thinking and questioning yourself – which is a great path to growing up as a person.
Oh, and I also love how sex things are rarely about sex itself, so when you study them you end up learning lots of interesting facts about the world in general.
What’s something not many people know about you, that you’re willing to share with us today?
Er… that I am a collector of Japanese robot toys from the Eighties? That I am a member of Mensa? No, seriously: I can’t think of anything especially meaningful that you can’t read in my posts on ayzad.com already.
I live in Australia. With a smaller (and more centralised) population than what’s in the Americas, Europe and even Italy. It can be often difficult finding people with similar interests where you can get together for parties and events. You’re involved with Sadistique – what can you tell us about that?
Sadistique is a monthly BDSM party I have been organising in Milano since 2005, and the spiritual sequel of an earlier endeavour called Revolution. My kinky friends and I lamented the lack of kinky events in Italy. Since no one else took initiative, we did. It started small but grew into a beloved institution for Italian kinksters.
Besides a cool steampunk-ish play space, every month it features a different workshop on various aspects of BDSM; a kinky art exhibition and a professional photo set. In addition to that we occasionally host interesting performances, book presentations or showcases of kink artisans. You should come over and see, should you happen in Milan!
On that question – there’s a dizzying array of fetishes, sexual interests, erotic interests ranging from standard to the unusual and even bordering on absurd – when one is having trouble finding connections for their kinks – what do you recommend they do for their contentment and satisfaction?
My frequent suggestion is to stop searching and making yourself findable instead. Do you recall the Kennedy quote about “Ask not what your country can do for you…”? The kink community can offer support, but participation often involves giving back in a constructive manner.. Most enthusiasts act like demanding vampires, seeking satisfaction without giving back. Yet, contributing can improve the scene and attract partners.
You’re an Italian and you’ve travelled both physically and within your research. Do you think that the engagement of fetishes and fetishism depends on where we live? Does culture influence our carnal/erotic desires, or are we all just kinky and perverse beings?
I did detect a bit of geographic influence, but I believe it to be mostly a function of the different local cultures. An extreme example can be the Chinese interpretation of BDSM, but of course stereotypes and generalizations don’t help any serious analysis. The Internet is sorta flattening these differences, though.
One fun quirk remains true throughout the ages, though: whatever place and time you pick, you can be sure that locals were sure that in a different, faraway country, people were having so much more sex cultivating exotic, wonderful practices. Never underestimate the power of fulfilment fantasies!
What’s your go to comfort food?
As Italians, we contractually discuss food for six hours a day. Thank you for your question! Seriously, I’m a bit of a foodie when the opportunity arises, but I’m pretty forgiving about it. I could list countless answers, but I’ll stick with “anything made with true love.”
If you could change one thing about peoples engagement with sex – what would it be?
Oh. A tough one, indeed. We should promote sex as an opportunity for fun, pleasure, and growth, erasing the idea of it as a burden. That’s the principle beyond The Sexual Explorers Manifesto, isn’t it?
You do workshops, seminars and educational events. What’s one thing that comes up frequently that you wish didn’t, or what’s something that isn’t brought up often enough at these events?
Participants enter education opportunities with a beautiful, unusually open mindset. The worst that I have experienced there is a tad of judgement against whatever doesn’t fit with one’s personal view of sexuality, especially in more mainstream milieus. I strive to transmit the concept of «your kink is not my kink but it’s ok», as they say, but it is not always easy – don’t forget that Italy is still a province of the Vatican, in many ways.
In that capacity, most of the true problems I have experienced so far came even before the events themselves. I am sorry that you’d have to suffer through its occasionally atrocious Google Translate rendition, but you may want to have a look at the laughable year-long ordeal I had to go through when the media and a couple of politicians attacked me… for having accepted an invitation to speak at a major university. The level of political manipulation was astounding – but it also was an exception, not the rule.
The lack of awareness about the urgent need for comprehensive sexuality education in school curriculums bothers me. The decades-long case history of the Netherlands proves how such approach is extremely beneficial for the indviduals and society as a whole, and yet everyone seems to prefer #MeToo–like horrors to the (wholly imaginary) embarrassment of admitting that sexuality is part of life, and teaching the children about it. We must teach more than reproduction, focusing on respect, consent, diversity, and emotions surrounding sexuality.
You do personal coaching. What’s involved in that for you and the client?
My personal coaching focuses on identifying and overcoming issues related to unusual sexuality through strategic planning. Often, the key is information they lack, gathered from my three-decade exploration of kink, which I share with clients. This is primarily achieved through face-to-face or Skype sessions, devoid of any sauciness, if that’s what you meant. I would say personal coaching happens halfway between a talk between friends and a session with your therapist.
You’ve been doing this for over 15 years. What keeps you going and what’s the best part about the work that you do?
On the one hand I am fueled by my curiosity: I still keep learning new things every day, and this sort of intellectual stimulation is invaluable. I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit that this lifestyle comes with financial and social costs. Sometimes I consider a more traditional career. Those moments often precede messages thanking me for improving their lives, making every effort worthwhile.
Any final thoughts that you’d like to share?
I can only thank you for the opportunity to talk. This was fun and I hope your readers have enjoyed the interview too. You now know where to find me, so let’s keep in touch, shall we?
I can pore your brain all day long. Reading through your previous interviews, books, and extensive blog content on your website is absolutely fascinating. I appreciate your acknowledgment of my work, shedding light on what many find strange with humor, grace, and precision. It’s been an absolutely pleasure asking you these questions and i just can’t wait to see what’s next.
Thank you once more. Interacting with such a passionate fan is delightful. Regarding future plans, next up is a book on sexuality education. However, the writing process is slow due to the complexity of the subject, so it will take quite some time to complete.
Meet Rick, Adultsmart’s owner with 35+ years in the adult industry. A sex blogger, advocate for gender and sexuality equality, offering a diverse product range.
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