Alithia Maltese
Turin-based kinbaku teacher and educator on alternative sexuality who began studying Japanese bondage in 2015, opened Spazio Corde in December 2022 and has spoken about BDSM and consent in Italian media and at festivals since 2017.
Alithia Maltese is a kinbaku teacher in Turin who also presents herself as an educator on alternative sexuality. Her own site says she began studying Japanese rope bondage in 2015 and later chose to make it her profession, and that she has spoken publicly about her practice since that year in interviews, talks and meetups.
Approach
She describes rope as a means of getting to know one’s own body and of building a deep dialogue between people, both inside and outside sexual relationships. Interpersonal communication is the thread that runs through her work: she sees rope and BDSM as tools for developing it, and her workshops put consent and non-verbal communication at the center.
Teaching and Spazio Corde
In December 2022 she opened Spazio Corde in Turin, which she presents as both a bondage school and a meeting place where people can talk about their sexuality with peers without judgment. Once a month a guest professional speaks there about alternative sexuality or sexual and mental health. Its courses start with an introduction to Japanese bondage.
Her course page lists private lessons for individuals or couples, whose first session covers two basic ties, suitable rope, safety and anatomy, and weekend group courses for beginners on ties, communication, safety and the history and aesthetics of Japanese bondage, co-taught with Usagi Momo and available in other cities on request. She also offers a session for rope bottoms on anatomy, breathing, body awareness and pain, and a three-step workshop series called Body Language, which moves from partner exercises without rope to using rope as communication and then to building a rope scene. Her talks include one on consent in BDSM and an introduction that takes on common stereotypes and the relationship between BDSM and feminism.
Public work
Her site lists appearances going back to 2017, when she took part in an event on sexuality at CasArcobaleno, the Arcigay center in Turin. In January 2019 she spoke on consent in BDSM at the Fish & Chips Film Festival and gave a shibari performance at its closing party. In April 2023 she led a Body Language workshop and performed at Mind The Gap, an intersectional transfeminist festival, and she has since given live rope sessions at piano music events in Pratovecchio Stia (2024), Trieste (2024) and Corsico (2025). In 2021 she sat on the jury of an adult section of the Ce l’ho Corto film festival.
She has been interviewed about BDSM and bondage by Rolling Stone Italia and Vogue Italia in 2020, by Ansa in 2023 and by several smaller outlets, and has appeared on YouTube channels and live streams, including Arcigay broadcasts on consent and kink in 2020 and a 2022 talk on her experience of kinbaku on the channel Le Sex en Rose. She organizes meetings and workshops on consent and non-verbal communication across Italy.