At 14, Alexey Yagiv discovered he was drawn to BDSM and became convinced that something was wrong with him. Today, at 46, he sees that attraction as natural and has no intention of hiding it. Yagiv owns Fetish Deal, one of Israel’s largest sex shops, and at night produces Decadence, a line of provocative BDSM parties. In between, he is also a multidisciplinary artist who performs as his alter ego, Alexa Vanilla, a radical drag character whose songs tackle sex with deliberately little restraint.
Recently, Yagiv opened a new showroom spanning several hundred square meters, deliberately far removed from the stereotypical dim, hidden sex shop. Bright and expansive, the space holds thousands of products designed for individuals and couples, gay and lesbian customers, people with conventional tastes and those interested in BDSM. “I like making my own fantasies and other people’s fantasies come true,” he said. “My hobby became my profession.”
Yagiv was born in Makhachkala in the North Caucasus and immigrated to Israel in 1992. Long before his fantasies became his livelihood, they were a source of shame and guilt and left him convinced he was alone. “I was fantasizing about these things already at 14, but I thought I was messed up,” he said. “Only when the internet arrived, when I was 19, did I realize there were a lot more messed-up people like me. Once I understood that, I accepted myself much more and started listening to my own fantasies. I began discovering the BDSM world, meeting people from different communities and experimenting.”
Even after realizing there were others like him, he still had to face the question of his family and whether to reveal that part of himself. “It wasn’t simple, especially when you come from a Caucasian family,” he said. “I had doubts too: How would they accept me, and what would they accept? Then I told myself I’m not going to live this life twice. I’m going to do what I want, and whoever accepts me as I am, without secrets and without lies, is welcome.” Growing emotional, he then added: “Even the people who didn’t accept me, I kept loving them. But I’m not a Hanukkah doughnut. Not everybody has to like me.”
‘Why should we be ashamed that we like sex toys?’
In 2000, Yagiv began frequenting the Dungeon club in Jaffa and other venues in Israel’s emerging BDSM scene. For more than a decade, he was primarily a partygoer enjoying a world that had once seemed inaccessible to him. By 2010, he had begun turning that passion into a business, first producing parties and running a website, and later opening a small home-based shop that steadily expanded. “I was terrified that I would stop loving BDSM once I turned it into my profession, but that didn’t happen,” he said with a laugh. “I’m very happy that I still love what I do and still enjoy the world of domination, fetish parties and fulfilling my own fantasies.”
Fetish Deal itself grew out of a personal need. “I was looking for a good shop that had everything at reasonable prices,” Yagiv said. “There were only a few stores in Israel and the prices were relatively high, so I started by opening a website and a shop out of my home.” The move to the current premises was initially supposed to provide both retail and storage space, but the plan quickly changed. “At some point, we realized we had so much merchandise that if we wanted the store to feel spacious, there wouldn’t be room for a warehouse too,” he said. “So we knocked down walls and moved the warehouse somewhere else.”
The showroom’s bright lighting, almost reminiscent of a pharmacy, is intentional. Yagiv wants sexuality and kink taken out of the darkness and stripped of the shame that often surrounds them. “We want to be like a store I saw in the Netherlands, where it’s considered normal for a couple to come in, buy themselves a toy, go home and enjoy it.” The shelves are packed with hundreds of brands and products designed for pleasure, stimulation and BDSM. “Why should we be ashamed that we like sex accessories?” he said. “We like masturbating, we like using toys, and we use them to enjoy ourselves more.”
Yagiv's shop
(Photo: Asaf Kamer)
He also rejects the idea that sex toys are somehow a substitute for a partner. “These products are in addition to me, not instead of me, just like the whip on the wall is in addition to my hand,” he said. “They’re tools that are supposed to help me in life, not replace me.” That attitude is reflected in the way staff speak with customers. Products, bodies and sexual sensations are discussed openly, without embarrassment or judgment. “I choose our staff with a lot of heart,” Yagiv said. “They’re genuinely wonderful people. It matters to me to find people who want to help fulfill fantasies and improve people’s experiences. These aren’t people who come just to work and make money. They come from a place of wanting to make the world better.”
According to Yagiv, both his store and his parties draw customers from almost every part of Israeli society, including traditional and religious Jews, celebrities, television personalities and well-known politicians. He does not reveal names. “So what do the politicians buy?” I ask. “Masks, so nobody recognizes them,” he jokes.
“Everything here was chosen with love,” Yagiv said, adding that products are tested before the store decides whether to continue stocking them. “We test everything, although we’re not always the ones doing the testing. Sometimes we bring in a tester and say, ‘We got a new product and we want you to see what it does for you.’ Then we decide whether to keep selling it. Sometimes we drop something before we’ve sold even one.”
Among the more unusual sections is a collection of tails designed for sexual play. Yagiv explains the distinctions between them with the seriousness of someone fitting a customer for running shoes. “You want to be a cat? A dog? Some other animal? We have everything.” He explains that the tails are not attached to a costume but inserted and held in place by the body.
Elsewhere is a section devoted to oversized toys. Yagiv picks up an enormous black dildo roughly a meter long and affectionately calls it his “bomb-shelter dildo.” “The siren caught me in the middle of work and I accidentally walked into the protected area carrying it,” he said, laughing. “People asked me why I had come to the shelter with a giant dildo.” He says many of the penis-shaped toys sold at the store are modeled as circumcised. “I don’t know if it’s because people like us or because it simply looks more aesthetic, but you have to special-order one if you want it uncircumcised.”
Another section contains fantasy toys modeled after aliens, dragons and monsters. Yagiv links the popularity of tentacle-themed products partly to Japanese hentai. “I was genuinely surprised by how popular it is and how much Israelis like aliens and, really, everything they came up with in Japan,” he said. “Making love to a creature from outer space is a perfectly legitimate fantasy. That’s why we stock the whole collection.”
‘I’ll stay on the front line of liberalism’
Yagiv has no hesitation about where he stands in Israel’s debate over personal freedom, sexuality and LGBTQ rights. “I’ll continue to be on the front line of liberalism,” he said. “I hope this era of radical Smotrichism ends and we have much more freedom. Tel Aviv is still one of the freest, most open and safest cities in the world for LGBTQ people and people with kinks. There has been some decline in recent years, and I very much hope we go back to being a progressive city.”
Yagiv models an outfit sold at his store
(Photo: Asaf Kamer)
After touring the new showroom, we head to nearby Hilton Beach to cool off in the August heat. Yagiv swims, does his daily meditation and then leaves to prepare for that night’s BDSM party. “My alter ego is called Alexa Vanilla,” he said. “For her, I put on drag, do my makeup and make music. Sometimes I perform my songs, sometimes I do bachelorette parties, and sometimes I bring her into lectures about BDSM.”
The songs and music videos are intentionally provocative, but Yagiv insists that beneath the explicit language are political and educational messages about safer, consensual sex. One song, “I Want Anal,” deals with how to approach anal sex safely, including lubrication and preparation. Another, “Like a Slut,” makes the point that dressing provocatively never gives someone permission to harass you. His two most recent songs, “Sissy Boy” and “Who Squirts,” were created with musician Dan Zipori. The pair are now working on another track, while Yagiv’s bigger dream is to make it to Eurovision.
‘Half the crowd are my customers, the other half are my friends’
Long after midnight, a Tel Aviv club is filled with young partygoers in daring outfits who have come to celebrate their sexuality. When Yagiv takes the stage, he is almost unrecognizable. Dressed as Alexa Vanilla in a sheer black bodysuit, a barely-there thong and shiny patent shoes, he becomes the performer at the center of the world he once believed he had to keep secret. “When I arrive at a party, I know half the crowd are my customers and the other half are my friends,” he said.
It is difficult to imagine a more complete closing of the circle. Three decades ago, Yagiv was convinced he was the only person in the world who dreamed about these things. Now, as Alexa Vanilla, he stands in the middle of a packed club and looks around. The lonely teenager is surrounded by people just like him.