If you move in London’s alternative or kink circles for long enough, sooner or later, you will hear the name Cosmic.

For over two decades, he has been the driving force behind LAM, The London Alternative Market, one of the UK’s longest-running gatherings for the fetish and alternative community.

Part market, part social hub, part educational space, LAM brings together an unusually broad crowd: independent makers selling handcrafted gear, dominants and submissives, performers, riggers, artists, long-time scene members, and those just beginning to explore it.

Over the years, it has quietly become something of an institution.

When I sat down with Cosmic to talk about rope, dominance and community building, the conversation eventually drifted back to where it all started.

A school playground.

“I was always the one capturing people and tying them up,” he laughs, remembering games of cowboys and Indians on the climbing frame.

- I tell him I wish I’d met him at school.

The instincts, it seems, were there early.

Today, those instincts have evolved into something much larger. LAM has grown into a space where craft, kink, power exchange and community intersect, a place where people who might never meet in ordinary life find themselves sharing the same room.

The Man Behind LAM

David describes his role in surprisingly practical terms.

“I’m the founder and managing director of LAM,” he tells me. “My job is making sure everything comes together: the venue, bookings, insurance, all the boring parts. But also thinking about where the event goes next.”

In many ways, he says, LAM has become its own entity.

“It’s a company now. It has directors, an accountant, and all the normal structures. But it still needs someone to think on its behalf. Someone to keep it aligned with its aims.”

Those aims are unusually community-focused for an event built around kink.

But the idea for LAM didn’t begin as a grand vision.

It began with a complaint.

At the time, many fetish artisans and traders struggled to find places to sell their work. Existing events were expensive, restrictive, or treated handmade gear like novelty items.

“That always bothered me,” David says. “These aren’t casual toys. For the people making them, they’re extensions of themselves. Craft. Skill. Something worth investing in.”

LAM gave those makers somewhere to exist on their own terms.

The London Alternative Market began in 2006 and recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, with a simple idea: every person who walks through the door contributes a small amount towards supporting the wider community.

Over time, that small gesture added up.

“We’ve distributed about £38,000 back into the community,” David says.

Helping new clubs buy furniture. Supporting people who lost jobs after being “kink-shamed” (exposed or judged for their private interests). Paying mortgages. Funding retraining. Helping traders launch businesses.

The project has even reached into kink culture itself. When the cult BDSM film Preaching to the Perverted was digitally remastered through Kickstarter, LAM contributed and earned a credit as an executive producer.

Not bad for what began as a humble market.

Inside the Market

For newcomers, LAM can feel surprisingly structured.

During the day, there are stalls selling handmade toys and gear, alongside workshops ranging from technical rope skills to what David calls “Healthy Mental Practices”, discussions about the psychological side of kink.

Later, the event transforms.

“At six o’clock the market closes,” he explains. “Then at seven it reopens as a party.”

The environment is deliberately controlled. Fetish clothing is welcome. Play furniture is available. But nudity and sex are not permitted.

The goal is exploration without chaos.

“It’s a space where you can experiment with who you are,” he says. “But it’s also managed. People can enjoy themselves without worrying they’ll get carried away and regret something later.”

What often surprises first-time visitors isn’t the kink.

It’s the people.

“They expect a room full of sweaty bikers in leather,” David laughs.

Instead, they find something else entirely.

Normality.

Or at least a version of it.

“A huge cross-section of society,” he says. “Someone in a pristine 1950s suit talking to someone in a latex gimp suit. And they’re discussing politics, the weather, or what they had for dinner.”

Rope, Control, and Craft

Outside of LAM, David is also known as a suspension rigger.

But he insists his rope journey began badly.

“My rope skills were absolutely atrocious,” he admits. “I was basically tying shoelaces around people.”

(Which is oddly reassuring. Every expert seems to begin somewhere between enthusiasm and mild incompetence.)

Things changed after hosting an early rope event… It proved so popular that critics pointed out he was running rope nights without actually knowing how to tie properly.

“So I went to a workshop,” he says. “And suddenly everything clicked.”

From there, he developed his own style, one that deliberately breaks with tradition.

Most suspension artists favour natural fibre ropes like hemp or jute. David prefers bright red synthetic rope.

“It goes in the washing machine,” he shrugs. “I like practicality.”

But the real difference lies in philosophy.

Many riggers focus on symmetrical patterns. David approaches rope more like sculpture.

“I’m not following a template,” he says. “I’m looking at the person in front of me and creating something with them.”

For him, suspension isn’t the goal.

It’s the beginning.

One place this becomes particularly visible is something called a suspension cube.

For readers unfamiliar with rope suspension, a cube is exactly what it sounds like: a large steel frame with suspension points above.

Step inside it, and the outside world disappears.

“When I’m in there,” David explains, “it’s almost like the eye of a tornado.”

Everything else fades away.

“It’s just me and the person I’m tying.”

There may be a crowd watching, cameras flashing, and noise around the room.

But inside the cube, the focus narrows to something almost meditative.

“I’m aware we’re performing something,” he says. “But really, I’m focused on the person. It becomes a bubble of energy where I’m controlling what happens inside it.”

Comfort, he says, is one of the most misunderstood parts of rope.

Another misconception comes from photographs.

A still image of rope suspension can look almost superhuman, someone hanging impossibly from a single point.

But the reality is often very different.

“You might see a photo of someone hanging from the ceiling by their big toe,” he says. “What you don’t see is that fifteen people were supporting them moments earlier.”

The assistants step away.

The photo is taken.

Then they rush back in.

“It’s not always sustainable,” he says.

Images can create unrealistic expectations. Which leads to one of the most important lessons in kink:

Managing expectations.

On both sides.

Dominance Without the Shouting

When the conversation shifts to dominance, David’s definition is unexpectedly calm.

“Dominance,” he says, “is being in control enough of yourself to control the situation.”

Not the person.

The situation.

“If you control the situation, the individual naturally follows.”

He believes many aspiring dominants misunderstand this completely.

“People think louder means more powerful.”

It doesn’t.

“A whisper can be far more powerful than a shout.”

The real test of dominance, he believes, is self-knowledge.

Knowing your limits. Knowing your motivations.

And recognising that different people want different dynamics.

“There’s no single template,” he says.

“Some people are naturally dominant. Others grow into it.”

For David, that philosophy extends to relationships as well.

He never wanted what he calls “a traditional relationship with a bit of kink on the side.”

For him, kink was always part of the foundation. Never the accessory.

What the Scene Gets Wrong

Like many long-time participants, David believes kink culture has changed dramatically over the last two decades.

Part of that shift came from mainstream exposure.

“Fifty Shades opened the floodgates,” he says. “Suddenly huge numbers of people arrived having read three books and thinking they understood the scene.”

Social media accelerated the change.

“There are now kink educators online,” he says. “Ten years ago, that would have been laughed out of the building.”

The result, he believes, is a mixture of progress and dilution.

“Kink has become more accessible, which is good,” he says. “But sometimes the depth and seriousness behind it gets lost.”

What Keeps Him Here

After nearly thirty years in the scene, David’s motivation remains surprisingly simple.

He wants to give newcomers the support he once received.

“When I joined the scene, people would take you aside, teach you things, help you navigate it safely.”

LAM, he hopes, continues that tradition.

“I’ve seen couples meet in the newbie workshop and come back eighteen months later married,” he says.

“That’s when you know you’re doing something right.”

Advice for New Dominants

Before we finish, I ask David what advice he would give someone stepping into dominance for the first time.

He pauses.

Then offers three principles…

1. Due Diligence

“Never be in too much of a rush,” he says. “If someone claims experience, check.”

Fantasists are common in the scene, especially among newcomers.

“The more extreme the activity, the more you should verify it.”

2. Pre-Mortem Thinking

“Think about what could go wrong before you start.”

He calls this a pre-mortem, the opposite of a post-mortem, a concept he says he first heard from The Kink Shrink.

“If everything went wrong right now,” he says, “what would you do?”

Planning for failure, he argues, is part of responsible dominance.

3. Write Your Own Manual

This may be his most unusual advice.

“Write yourself a Haynes manual,” he says, referencing the classic car repair guides.

Write down:

• Who you are
• What you enjoy
• Your limits
• What you will and won’t do

“Be brutally honest with yourself,” he says. “Then update it as you grow.”

Because the most important thing a dominant can understand is themselves.

Miss O’s Take

Spending time with Cosmic, one thing becomes clear very quickly.

LAM has a heart.

Within the community, the extended group around the event is often affectionately referred to as the “Lamily.” Over the years, that ethos has quietly extended far beyond simply running a market.

Behind the scenes, there are stories most people never hear about: help with mortgages, support during crises, even paying for funerals.

The kind of quiet generosity that rarely makes headlines but quietly holds communities together.

Of course, building something visible also means attracting criticism.

Any long-running community space inevitably draws strong opinions, and Cosmic has had more than his share of those over the years. As he jokes, some critics are what he calls “Cockwombles.”

Running something like LAM requires a thick skin and a willingness to keep building even when not everyone agrees with the direction.

Cosmic seems to accept that as part of the territory.

In person, he is exactly what you might expect from someone capable of holding a room: tall, relaxed, quietly confident. A natural leader who holds attention without demanding it.

But the most interesting part of our conversation wasn’t rope or events.

It was self-knowledge.

At one point, he told me the real work of dominance is understanding yourself.

Doing the shadow work. (Which, as anyone who has attempted it will know, is far less glamorous than it sounds.)

Looking inward.

As a submissive, that resonated strongly with me, too.

Because the same work applies to both sides of the dynamic.

Audio Clip (Paid Subscriber Bonus)

For those who prefer hearing the conversation itself, I’ve included a short five-minute clip at the very bottom of this post.

In it, we somehow move from bondage safety scissors to bear spray, a conversation arc that feels slightly unnecessary given that I live in the UK, where the most dangerous creature I’ve encountered recently is a swan.

My thanks to Cosmic for speaking so openly about LAM, rope, and the philosophy behind dominance.

He has also invited me back for a rope suspension for Odalisque readers, so keep an eye out for that soon!

Casting Call: The kink world is full of unusual lives and untold stories. If you have one, I’d love to hear it. To be considered for an interview with Odalisque, get in touch: interviews@odalisque.co.uk

Interview Audio Clip Below

Read more

Welcome to Interviews

These interviews are about how people actually live, think, and navigate desire, power, intimacy, and identity in the real world.

Some guests run events, create spaces, or shape culture. Others don’t. What they share is experience: not theory, not performance, and not labels for the sake of it.

These are the real stories of people living outside the usual scripts, moments, choices, and insights that rarely make it beyond the scene.

Casting Call

The kink world is full of people quietly living unusual lives.

Rope artists, dominants, polycules navigating complex relationships, performers, educators, therapists working with kink communities, and those building spaces behind the scenes.

Many of the most interesting stories in this world rarely make it beyond the scene itself.

If you have a perspective worth sharing, a day in the life of a professional dominatrix, a working poly dynamic, a 24/7 relationship, or any experience that offers insight into alternative ways of living, I’d love to hear from you.

Because sometimes the most fascinating stories come from spaces most people never see.

If you’d like to be considered for an interview at Odalisque, please get in touch: interviews@odalisque.co.uk