Sylven meets Maxwell

He guys! SylvenV here with a special guest

And the winner is… this month I had a interview with Maxwell. The winner from Italian fetish man of the year ’23. I met him at Darklands fest ’23 and he is such an inspiration to me! So I had the honor to meet him for this talk about his fetish and kinks in daily life.

Tell me more about you!
You know that my fetish name is Maxwell, I am a 40th years old “young” Italian boy - or as our French diary friends by AGENDAQ have defined me: “Un charmant petit barbu, à l’allure et au regard pervers comme on aime” (trad.: “A charming little bearded man, with the look and perverse gaze as we like”) by AGENDAQ  n° 214 - May 2023.

I am originally an electronic engineer, but I have never practiced such work. I have become an industrial consultant over the years, and I mainly deal with industrial redesign with a focus on physical and production ergonomics. Principally I am working for reduce musculoskeletal work-related disorder in my client companies.

I am a hard worker: I love my work because is in a perfect match with my control attitude, because I have in my hands many information, and typically I have to find the beginning of the “red thread”. And every time you have to take a different path.

In my personal life I love to stay in my garden and take care of my plants; I love cooking for me and for my friends; I have written many poems in many years (many have been published and some have won prizes and awards in Italy), but typically I write when I need catharsis or when I have to metabolize more or less traumatic events – now I am not needing to write.

I practice yoga. All my tattoos are self-made drawn, but I am not a big artist – to support the artists, I collect works by street-artists by financing them as I can.

Right now in my life: I'm a single man, but maybe I'm building something with one person.

On what age did you discover your fetish?
My fetish and my kink don’t were born in a specifically moment, they grove with me in all my life.

When I was young, I fell in love with the first leather jacket by Dainese I saw, and I've always wanted one ever since (still my favorite jacket is by Dainese but made in Gora-Tex). The biker clothing itself is not my fetish.

I took years to understand that every time I see a man dressed to enhance the shapes that distinguish him: I melt myself. So, I did not have a specific attraction to a specific material, but I had an attraction to what it creates on that person.

But why?

Because when I was in university I didn't care about my body or my appearance: I only cultivated my mind. Around the age of 27 I was a 98 Kg man, and I had a serious health problem that made me the want to try to take control of my body and no longer accept that I don't feel good when I saw myself in the mirror. Over the years I have changed a thousand styles as well as losing a lot of weight (from 98 kg to 66 kg now).

But I enter in the fetish world from another way. My fetish life has developed over the years, but my fetish name was born one year ago.

In my vanilla-life I play sex like a Top, but slowly I grow with my myself and sometimes I switch like a Bottom. I don’t like so much to be a Bottom, but I love to see my partner enjoy with my body and with his body. I became very aware of the pleasure a Bottom feels, and over the years I began to be a Top who really seeks communication with their Bottoms, because I wanted them not to feel merely used: it had to be a sharing.

During the years I explore my kink, at fist with having only sex in cruising like parking or similar, and then in cruising bar. Speaking and knowing people, I entered in the BDSM world – at the begin like a dom and with the perfect match one years ago I take the switch with a guy.

I remember very well the moment.
We met at a pool bear-party in early June 2022 and we had sex several times within a few days; he lives several hours from my house but fortunately close enough to a company where I had to do a job. I arranged to be with Him from Friday evening to Monday, and then leave us and go do my job.

We had been making love for hours, but I was tired and I lay down next to him.

We had talked several times about what we like, we shared photos, but we had never opened the BDSM back-door together, always remaining on the borderline between vanilla-sex and a beginning of kinky-sex (pain control, nipples-play, bites, slaps, neck hold ...).

While I was lying down, he took out this backpack with a name written on it (I later discovered it was his puppy-name): he took out various collars and wristbands ... he blindfolded me ... I let him block my wrists and ankles … it was minutes, hours, I don't know: I just know that, that experience with him marked me deeply. By the end of the session, I was hyperventilating and started crying: He hugged me tightly until I calmed down, licked me and wiped my tears away. We took a shower and so we continued for another three days constantly exchanging, stopping only to eat and sleep a bit. All our wet was sharing, our smell, our piss and our cum.

In that moment I felt complete, alive and full of desire to explore a whole world that I had left enough to silence by barely touching it. Finally I was ready to accept to understand this part of my mind, stopping to blame myself because I felt these urges.

To baptize this new beginning of mine, I asked him to give me a name. He thought about it for days and called me Maxwell: I'm an electronic engineer, and Maxwell was the discoverer of the rules of electromagnetism (Maxwell's equations). The perfect match.

Sometime after my born, I had been asked to change my name to something “more Dom” to leave the "puppy-name", I even tried for a short time to come up with a new name and I even found it, but Maxwell was and is mine. And when I entered the contest, I had no doubts: I am Maxwell.

What was your inspiration to enter the competition?
Really difficult and personal question.
Jokingly, when people ask me why I did it, I always reply as Seth - a character I really liked from a Japanese opera by Sunao Yoshida – : "I'm just a pretty little girl who was passing by, by chance", and I really passed for case in this street. Sure: I voluntarily chose to walk it, but I was very lucky that someone showed it to me.

When I decided to enroll in the competition, I was in a moment of extreme positive energy: with my partner it was fine, with my Sub we grow, a photo of me had just been chosen for the poster of the Paris event of the TBM (Techno Body Music - the traveling Techno and fetish music festival throughout France), I really was having fun myself at the fetish nights around Italy, and Darklands was a whirlwind of positive and strong sensations.

So, I just thought it was the right moment to have this experience; because on the threshold of 40th years a lot around me made me feel embraced in something extraordinary that I felt I wanted to fully experience.

In the months before the competition, and at the competition itself, I met so many people. And the community that I felt around me gave me further energy which confirmed to me that I was certainly on a partly new journey, which scared me, but which made me feel alive in a different way.

So I would say that my inspiration was the community itself that welcomed me a year ago and made me feel protected. The community made me feel "right", made me feel "not wrong with myself", made me feel "alive".

My inspiration is being able to give back even a drop of the energy that was given to me.

What is your goal as Italian fetish man of the year ’23?
Survive this year of events across Europe? Ah ah ah, not only this.

I will participate in events organized by my club in Milan (Leather & Fetish Milano), I will participate in the events I already have planned (Evidance's birthday #7 in Nice, the Dutch Rubbermen Weekend in Utrecht, various gay prides in Italy – Padua, Rome and Milan – and in Europe – Cologne and Mas Palomas, I believe –, the Folsom, Darklands Festival ’24, etc. …) and add others to which if I will be invited as an IFOTY ' 23.

Participating at the events of the fetish community is important to give a signal that the community has a representative who lives and supports it. The community that in turn participates in the events makes you feel part of this whole vital process of growth of the community itself.

My goal is to help anyone who wants to approach themself for the first time in the Fetish-community: answer questions from anyone who wants to contact us, help those who want to enter this world to understand how they could decide how to approach it for the first time.

Our events are in protected environments, and as such they will remain: and I for one, I want to help to protect our environments and make the community grow.

I remember quite well how I felt on my first cruising, the anxiety I had, the questions I asked myself. I have learned many things in the field over the years, others by knowing privately people who have introduced me to it.

In any case, having a point of reference in the community is an honor and a burden that I want to cultivate together with the community itself.

What’s your fetish and kink?
I love to see my body sexy; sometimes I feel sexy with my leather outfit, sometimes with my rubber outfit, sometimes only with my leather harness.

I told you that seeing a body totally highlighted by clothing was my first effective recognition of the fact that I had a fetish; even if it wasn't yet for a specific outfit.

When I studied by myself the fetish-world, my first impact was the leather-man outfit: it was so rude, sexy, powerful. That kind of clothing gives to me feelings on me pride and power. And the leather outfit was one of my first; but I begin with the harness. My weight loss over the years has given me the desire to show off my body, even if it's not absolutely perfect: being partially covered by the leather harness made me feel extremely confident, despite everything. Then the smell of leather gave me an animal aura which charged me further.

Over time I have increased this side of my wardrobe, adding trousers and combat boots (because I really like laces - in fact my next pair of boots, I'm going to get the 20 hole ones).

I like being in my leather shirt: my first was a turquoise shirt by Mr. Riegillio - that color completely captivated me. Around me I almost always saw only men in full-black or sometimes in grey; and I wanted color in my life.

So I made the Hanky’s Code my own, choosing pieces that revolve around the practices I enjoy. In fact, when I wear my full leather outfit, I typically wear: my boots by Blauer with black laces and visible socks by Boxer Barcellona (yellow: pissing, blue: anal, or red: fisting), black leather pants, turquoise shirt by Mr. Riegillio (light blue is for the blowjob in the Hanky’s Code), black tie by Mr. Riegillio, yellow bandana on my left arm, black leather bracelets home made by an Italian artisan, black vest from the site of Mr. Riegillio, with or without one of my harness - it depends on the day.

Over the months, during a photo shoot, the photographer asked me to change my attire a little and they made me try on different pieces in rubber: finally I realized that I love to mix the materials; I understand the danger: products for rubber damage leather, and potentially vice versa. Being careful with the use of the shine, I love in the down side wearing leather (from the belt to the boots) and wearing rubber in the top side. Now I have different rubber shirt by different brand (Latex 101 - like in your internet site, Kink Project and Back Crystall). By Back Crystall I have a pair of rubber pants worked like a bleached skinhead pant and I was totally in love, because I find that pant when I was just looking for a skinhead jeans. To complete my outfit for have a pair of rubber shorts, I find in the internet site of Mr. Riegillio the perfect rubber shorts to use with my black and red rubber shirt.

I usually use sport-wear: Adidas Chile complete suit, with Nike TN or Vapormax shoes.

In summer I use only sport-wear: typically by Barcode Berline out-fits.

O yes: I love socks and underwear … I have really much pair of sock and underwear separating the ones for work (typically Armani and cK) and for fetish (many type of sock by Sk8erboy: I use them for several days to smell them well, and then use them in BDSM’s sessions, and different type of joke-straps – but when I use the leather pants I begin to wear nothing under the pants).

So I can answer that I choose the outfit for enhance the little that I see beautiful and sexy in my body, and I choose the materials that can do it best. The colors I use, are totally in accordance with the practices I like to do.

Are there fetish or kinks you want to explore more?
Not many weeks before Darklands Festival I been a bunny in a shibari session with a fantastic rigger from Lyon (@niko_kinbaku in Instagram); we met each other in Milan in January where we done my first experience of shibari, and we met another time in Darklands Festival where in the shop of “Spit it Out” we created a live performance using the leather ropes by Sirainer. It was magic.

Another fantastic shibari experience I had some days ago in Nice with another rigger.

Now I will buy the leather ropes (the red one and the black one) because I want to begin to learn shibari; at first to create a shibari by myself on my body, like a live harness over my total black leather out-fit. After: beginning to bind someone, after the correct training.

I want to increase my wardrobe with others leather shirt by MR. Riegillio: I want one in dark blue to create a police gear, and one black with red piping to use with my red tie by Mr. Riegillio and my red gloves by Mr. Riegillio (or use one red and one black that I have – I have to decide if use the red in the right or in the left hand: to respect the Hanky’s code, I am a Dom, so I have to put the red in the left hand I mean).

I want to increase my rubber wardrobe with something transparent: I mean transparent red or grey.

I really like the yellow tone of MR. Riegillio's PVC suit, and it could be another garment to hang in the future.

What is your favorite MR. Riegillio product?
The colored leather product of MR. Riegillio are the best for me. I love them so much: shirt, tie and gloves.

In fact my next purchase will be one or two MR. Riegillio shirt to complete my outfit. Probably another gear that I could look for: is the combination of a black leather shirt with white edges, with a white leather tie. I see it very elegant.

You are an example for new ones in the fetish, any tips for them?
Incredibly difficult question.
Similar to when someone contacts me and asks me "if I'm a master", I answer always that people around me decide what I am, but for me: I am only myself.

Being a fetish-man is a profound self-analysis: if you are not deeply anchored in what you are, you suffer in the external world and drown in the internal world.

I can tell anyone reading this long dissertation that fetish world and BDSM world can open many internal doors to ourselves, but if you are doing it in an artificial way or "for pretend" or "for joke" the community will discover it very quickly, and slowly they will let you go because they will understand that you are not really part of this community.

So my only tip is: be totally nude and sincere with yourself always in your life, live your experience – live your fetish life sincerity and grove and increase your kink to be every day the best part of yourself.

And if you are in trouble, or if you are scared or if you have doubts, ask to the community: I believe that the community will always reach out.


Thank you Maxwell for this chat about your life! I hope you will be an inspiration for lots of new kinksters.

Follow his instagram for more content and I will see you next month with a new talk about fetish and kink!
 

Xx SylvenV