Often perceived by foreigners as a carefree land whose people enjoy life, arts and the fine weather without worrying about anything, Italy is in fact quite more complex than this. This also goes for kink, as real Italy is as schizoid as it gets when it comes to anything sex-related. Understanding the reasons requires a brief history lesson, and will greatly help you navigate your experience of the country and its people. There are three main factors to consider:

1 – Territoriality
No matter what the map says, Italy is not one nation. For centuries, the country has been divided into many feudal properties first, and into regions thereafter. While officially they only serve administrative purposes, history seeped into culture and to this day each region (sometimes even each province!) puts its linguistic, culinary and cultural heritage before its nationality. Italians – especially those over forty – grew up in this divisive spirit, and with it comes an involuntary yet pretty deep-seated distrust of “strangers”, even when it just means coming from the next region. This is extremely apparent in the Northerns vs. Southerns debate, in example.
Without dwelling on why this division is still encouraged by the State, the above translates into a subtle, lingering difficulty in actually relating to outsiders beyond common courtesy. Keeping this in mind will make sense of many apparently weird quirks – including the difficulty in finding English-speaking Italians.

2 – Vatican influence
Italians use to laugh about how that their country is a province of the Vatican State, but this is no joke. The Catholic church still holds a very strong influence on national politics and, as a consequence, on the Italian culture. Hardly any news escapes a comment from some bishop or another, and the media never fails to report them. Willing or not, Italians are therefore constantly exposed to the concept of having their behavior judged by priests. When it comes to sex, this obviously means that people are taught to view sexuality as fundamentally dirty, forbidden and sinful. Growing past Catholic guilt isn’t easy – especially when kink comes into play – so expect not to meet many kink-positive Italians. Again, appearances can be deceiving!

3 – The evil Mr. B
Yup, we are talking about tycoon, former PM and infamous criminal Silvio Berlusconi here. Unfortunately, no discussion about Italy can avoid mentioning him: beyond the personal obsessions of detractors and supporters alike, he is in fact the spiritual father of the current Italian mindset. For over a quarter of century now, about 90% of the Italian media has been monopolized by his empire, which is based on the ancient Roman motto of panem et circences (give the people just enough to eat, and brainwash them with silly shows to prevent uprising and better control them). In other words, Italy has probably the most sexualized media in the world: try googling ‘veline’ and prepare to be shocked by what many Italians were taught to consider a proper news program, in example. Yes, sexual imagery – of the heterosexual kind, at least – is everywhere, yet this has the surprising effect of desensitizing people and kill any sense of eroticism, not to mention of commodifying females. Also, since most imagery is ad-related, non-normative forms of sexuality are routinely ignored in order not to alienate the aging (Italy has the second elders population in the world after Japan) consumer public.

The combined effect of the above is that Italy is not a very kinky country, unless you get your kick from ogling women with low self-esteem – or a disproportionally and unwarranted one – with a questionable grasp of eroticism. This is however a generalization with many happy exceptions, of course, so let’s look at them.

Online BDSM
Since your first contact with Italian BDSM will probably happen online, you are better be warned that in Italy two very distinct Scenes exist side by side: the online one and the real world Scene. The former is pretty huge, with some interesting and very active communities… and practically never takes its digital hijinks to the physical world. Yup, online BDSM is commonly seen just as a form of escapism from reality, never to be actually realized. Statistically speaking, you can be rather sure that whether someone is active online, he or she won’t be pried off the PC if their lives depended on it, no matter how fancy the stories they weave on the Web.
Having said this, of course some communities are more grounded in reality than others, if only to occasionally meet for social dinners. These are the key URLs:

www.gabbia.com – The largest BDSM personals site in Italy, it is however rife with fake ads. Don’t bother with its incredibly self-referential forums, groups and other extra features

www.legami.org – The biggest online community. Serious discussion of kink is a mirage there, yet this is where you have an actual chance to meet people actually practicing what they preach – if you search very well

www.fetlife.com – Of course. Serious kinksters migrated there once – and they were promptly drowned by an ocean of posers and desperates looking for an easy lay. The very existence of several “official” groups for BDSM in Italy on Fetlife should suggest the extremely divisive nature of Italians and why there is no unified Scene at all, yet you can at least judge who the real players are by their profile pictures.

www.ayzad.com – Let me include my own website in this list: I write about all sorts of unusual sexualities, maintain a hearty resources list and an events calendar about the BDSM events I find interesting enough.

Facebook – No. Seriously: don’t even bother. That is the Clueless territory, with hundreds of self-styled prodommes who don’t know the first thing about BDSM, and thousands of slimy wannabe toesuckers who just cannot comprehend how erotic play can be noncommercial and not ending with a fuck.

Prodommes
Having just mentioned professional domination, here’s the gist of it. Prodomming is technically not illegal in Italy if performed by one person only (so no multi-mistresses studios are possible, at least officially), but there is no culture of commercial domination to speak of. In my 25+ years of BDSM exploration, I think I have known no more than five dominatrixes of the level which is considered basic in other countries. There are, however, lots of young and not-so-young women trying to make a buck out of foot fetishism (and little more); I am told the quality of their performances and outfits is less than abysmal, and from what I have seen that sounds very plausible.

Clubs
Italy has no permanent BDSM club, but it does feature swingers’ clubs hosting BDSM parties – some of them held regularly for over a decade now. At the moment of writing, the undisputed leader in this is the Nautilus club in Milano, which hosts my own www.sadistique.com monthly afternoon party, and the Ultimo Lunedì night party among other kinky events. The other proper BDSM party is www.lareginanera.it and it is held in Bologna once a month. You may also want to check out www.fetishnight.eu in Misano, on the Adriatic coast.
If I said ‘proper’, it’s because many Italian sex clubs host pseudo-kinky nights which generally consist of a small corner for “weirdos” among a regular swingers’ party, or of PVC-clad prostitutes half-heartedly looking for some schmuck to pay them for licking their boots. Please note that discos (yes, they still exists around here) frequently advertise “fetish”, “kinky” or “pervert” nights – but they only amount of fetish-y dressed gogo dancers, as law forbids “acts contrary to decency” in public places, which is what those places legally are. In other words, should you find yourself attending one of those events, remember not to do anything BDSM, sexual or expose yourself, as you risk undergoing very serious fines.
Finally, it is also important to know that Italians usually interpret the word ‘fetish’ as ‘foot fetishism’: make sure to ask the organizers before dressing head to toe in latex and finding yourself surrounded by actual partialists.

Munches and meetings
The munches scene is rather lively in Italy, or at least in Milano and Roma where many groups regularly gather for a drink and to chat. The events pop up, disappear and change very frequently, so you are advised to check out the mini-list constantly updated at fetlife.com/groups/3189/group_posts/2079778 and the “Eventi & Feste” section of www.legami.org. The usual munch social norms apply.

Other notes
Lastly, here are a few facts you may want to know about the Italian BDSM scene:

• Gays and hets don’t mix – Ever. No-one knows why, but the former find the lack of action of the others unsufferable, and heterosexual kinksters consider the (very small!) gay BDSM scene too much sex-oriented.
• Italians do it better – Better than most Europeans, at the least. Italy may not have many BDSM lifestylers, but those who actually play and participate to public events tend to know their kink pretty well and to play at very intense levels.
• There is no fetish scene to speak of – While of course there are Italians into latex and fetishwear, they have no regular parties, nor specialized shops – so real enthusiasts often prefer to attend foreign events.
• Kids are growing up – In the last couple of years Italy has seen a huge influx of very young people into BDSM, whose brighter, more social (and frequently more reckless) view of kink is changing the whole scene. They mostly tend to play in very unstructured ways, destroying part of the erotic mystique of the whole affair, but bringing lots of energy in.

Author Ayzad