The History of Sex: Venice and Florence -- 'Fock is Fock' -- (Chap. IV, Pt. 12)

He leans forward for emphasis: 'This is important to know—Venice is no sex, no fetish, none of these things.'

'Venice is love—' Maria clasps her hands to her heart melodramatically—'Love, romantic love. Not sexual love.'

'Just for tourists, because there are too few people here.'

Barely 60,000 locals, at last count—roughly one-third its size in Aretino's time.

'And tourists that come here are looking for romance, not for sex. Not for fetish or transgressive or strange things, no. It's walking hand-in-hand, looking at the Grand Canal.'

'Venetians and tourists are narrow-minded. I don't know why, but it's so.'

'For fetish parties, you need open-minded people.'

Max and Maria's own mindset strikes me as somewhere in between.

A decade after their baptism into bondage, their view of Fetish seems quaintly outdated, akin to the idealists of the Sixties who realized belatedly (if ever) that they'd opened the gates to hucksters who would've turned the Garden of Eden into a peepshow.

Bondage in advertising: A Design Institute billboard...
across from Naples Cathedral

It's odd, for instance, that Max and Maria find it so shocking that parties promoting sexy dress might actually inspire some revelers to have sex.

'But then it's not a fetish party!' Maria exclaims, her accent getting stronger the more worked up she gets.

'A fetish party is a fetish party; a sex party is a sex party; a swingers' party is a swingers' party. I don't like that people use fetish or BDSM—'

'—just to fock.'

'Just to fock. No.'

'Fock is fock.'

'If you want to fock, you go to the parties in which you can fock,' Maria continues. 'But I go with normal clothes, not latex or PVC or high heels. No. I go, I fock. But I don't like there to be an excuse to fock.'