MEMBER ARTICLE: Living Kinky in Moscow
from
Recon News
06 December 2019
By HornySub
Hi! My name is Andrew (OK, Андрей to be exact). I lost my virginity at the age of 15 - that was in 2008. It's hard to say if Russia used to be less or more homophobic back then… I really hope it's not just wishful thinking, but it seems to me that TV propaganda and people's minds are moving in the oppo-site directions. What I can say for sure, is that the gay community is catching up with the West rapidly.
My first BDSM action was with my third or the fourth lover - very short, very confident and bossy, about 12 years older than me. A descendant of Cossacks by his origin, a director of children's theatre by profession - sounds so typical for a kinky dominant, right? Just some bondage, moderate CBT and spanking, ice play… 5 years later I discovered the dark side of Berlin, so that all seems quite vanilla in comparison to my current coordinate scale… But you're never supposed to be too demanding with pioneers!
When we played, 11 years ago, finding strong poppers in Moscow was literally Mission: Impossible, and all the guys into fisting knew each other, whist for the rest of the community, it was something as extreme as scat play.
Dating apps and mass sex-tourism to Europe have changed the landscape dramatically. Now you have other things letting you down. Like struggling to find a house party on a Saturday night where guys are into more than just fisting - well, mostly because they're too high to maintain a hard-on.
We have several major on-line and off-line sex shops - I'd say, if you're looking for rubber, toys or fab-ric gear, the assortment will be poorer than in Berlin, but if you need something made of steel and leather, it'll be comparable and will cost you less.
Add the legendary inventiveness of the Russians - I once got fisted in a self-made sling, assembled from a coffee table and 4 1-meter-long metal chains purchased at construction goods supermarket.
The clubs and bars - no matter gay or mixed - are numerous and really not bad if compared to Madrid, Brussels or Stockholm, but, let's say… not really fetish oriented. Some of them even have established Lab.oratory-flavored sex-parties every 1-2 weeks. Vast majority of them still have no specific dress-code and gather around 200 guys at maximum. So, it all looks like a sluggish Naked Sex Thursday, in February, during a low tourist season, somewhere in Berlin.
Yet there are more and more parties where I meet guys in full latex, or collar chains and dog masks, or with wrestling singlets on - with some extremely sleazy turn-ons detected. One of such parties, for example, is called Popoff Kitchen - the closest analogue in Europe would be Pornceptual in Berlin.
Unfortunately, there's always a fly in the ointment. Be it BDSM or casual hookup, the top/bottom ratio is unbelievably low in Moscow. Barely any tops are bigger than 17cm, or any tops who visit a gym usu-ally turns out to be escorts.
Since recently, group chats in Telegram messenger have outrun Grindr and other dating apps in terms of popularity in Russia. Now, you can find plenty of messages there, like 'vers-top, 37' and 'vers, 28 looking for a TOP or a group of tops for tonight' - which means both of them are almost always bot-toms.
Even more distinctive problems - the outbreak of ALL STDs. This is due to the fact that we now love BB group fun as much as you do, without having the healthcare system that you have. No PrEP available for free. No awareness about the ways this-or-that infection is transmitted. No HEPs vaccination. No regular testing… very sad.
Another problem is that the government (or Putin himself?) are not nearly as homophobic as they are drugophobic. The only difference with some countries in South-East Asia is that we do not have the death penalty. But a 10-year sentence for several grams of something is an absolute routine. Tens of thousands of people got that. Almost a half of all the prisoners in Russia are being imprisoned through one single Penalty Code article.
Why chemsex is still so popular? Well, it's Russia. If you have spare several-thousands euros - or you're a friend or son of someone - you will NEVER go to jail.
I'm sure the percentage of kinky guys and the variety of kinks are equal in all the big European cities - and Moscow - which is the largest city in Europe except for London and Istanbul with 12 million inhab-itants - is no exception. This is our nature. What makes Berlin so special for me - and so different from, let's say, Vienna or Rome - is the culture.
That's why in Berlin, no one will ever say 'fuck, you are sick!' and never block you or judge you just because you say something like 'are you into scat?'. That's why at my hometown I can attract any BDSM lover, even if I'm not really his type, just by sending the pic of my gear. Which is, I think, more than modest by European standards.
If you'd like to share an account of your local fetish scene, send your ideas or a first draft to: social@recon.com
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