Welcome to the radical, vibrant world of sexual fetishists. In 21^st 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. Occasionally this desire spills into something more subversive. Second Skin offers a tour through the materials, objects and power dynamics commonly fetishized, unpacking their histories, their expressive potential, and the communities they give rise to. Drawing from her encounters with fellow fetishists and kinksters, it is alos the story of ex-fashion critic, Anastasiia Fedorova’s own journey of what it means to come to terms with one’s sexuality.

Do we have the courage to look at these desires and express them unapologetically?

Are we all fetishists, whether we covet a Birkin bag or a Bugatti, Fedorova illuminate the fetishes usually kept in the dark. “ Have we amassed enough courage to look at these allegedly deviant desires directly” Fedorova  explains with her clad in a catsuit in  a hotel room with a “play partner”. A fetish garment “transforms how you view and inhabit your body”, she clarifies.

The physical sensation of latex encasing her body creates a “slow and ambient, continuous high”. It is not just the material that forms a second skin, however, but he scenario played out while wearing it.

Fetish in its psychosexual meaning in the 19^th century, now constitutes an intricate dance between Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Thorstein Veblen and Jean Baudrillard, among other notable minds” Fedorova writes.

Fedorova interviews artists, artisans, and members of the kink community, including a dominatrix with a £10,000 a day rate.

Second Skin is a curate selection that provides a framework for the author to lead the reader to greater understanding.

Rubber latex originated in Britain with the mackintosh raincoat. 1980s rubber erotica, “as if fetish was merely an extension of Britons, love of the great outdoors and general ability to withstand that damp”.

Fetishists are not a homogenous community, as Fedorova considers tensions such as Pride marchers worried about family unfriendly display of fetish gear and racial stereotypes of Black masculinity seen in some homoerotic art.

Fetish have gone mainstream, from Madonna’s 1992 coffee-table book Sex to Kim Kardashian’s bespoke Balenciaga gimp suit, as Fedorova asks whether “the aesthetics and politics of kink, fetish, and queerness ever actually converge”. Second Skin is thought provoking treatise that articulates the uncharted experience of female fetishism.

Second Skin: Inside the Worlds of Fetish, Kink and Deviant Desire by Anastasiia Fedorova, Granta £16.99, 240 pages.