MaxFisch.com has been down for 4 weeks.

The maxfisch.com domain is paid up until

2025-07-25T23:00:00Z

Interestingly, the host is listed as "Alchemy Communications", but the organization is HitDirector.

HitDirector used to the host. They had a page where you could fill out tickets. I've done that a few times over the years when maxfisc.com went down. The ticket creation page eventually disappeared and now the site for HitDirector has too.

Loud silence. If this was done deliberately it was definitely mishandled. Notice should have been given since many people mught have had things to save or get away.

I know Troy Orleans posted on Twitter that she had heard from various sources for a while that the shutdown was coming.

Some suggested that it was somehow connected with Eros and their recent decision to ban BDSM content. Some connection in ownership?

That could be true.

On the other hand I can't tell you how many rumors I've heard about Max and the site over the decades that turned out to be nothing.

I've heard the same scuttlebutt. I discussed the subject with well known east-coast scene people, who were active in the 90s.

How it benefits Eros to remove Dommes from their guide, is the hard part to understand.

I have it on good authority that Eros bought MF years ago. When Domina.ms and MF were owned by the same person. The idea was, Mistresses could use Domina.ms to build "mini-sites" that could/would be listed on MF.

Remember this all happened in the late 90s and early 2000s when Dommes were still using print media to advertise. Being listed on MF was a very big deal.

After Eros bought MF they allowed Dommes to use an Eros ad to get listed. They didn't need Domina.ms, and it was sold to a third party.

The running theory is, without the Domme section Eros has no need for MF.

I don't what the situation is with MaxFisch.com.

I remember back in the day I was on a web board owned by a cookbook author. The web board had been up for a long time. There was a community there ( which the cookbook author regularly participated in ) where people knew each other for many years.

The author never posted a date when the web board would be gone, just that it would go in the near future.

I own web sites. I know what the end dates are for when I have through. It would be easy to have a date to post for when the money for a site would run out or when an author would decide to take a site down.

I never understood why she didn't tell people that date.

That is pretty much my understanding of it too. It would have been nice to have been given notice. But, as it is, I'm in the spirit of supporting this site and building up DomSpeak.com. It needs a little more prettying up but is functional. Funny, when I shut it down about 4 years ago and redirected traffic here, the site had 92 registered posters. So much changes in a few years. Most of the names I haven't seen posting here or on MF for a long time.

I'm not certain about this but seem to recall that at the time eros removed the bdsm, fetish and fantasy sections there was pressure on payment providers around sites promoting or seen to be associated with bdsm.

Obviousley wishtender seems to have faced similar problems in the past few weeks.

My gut feel is that somebody in the group would have looked at the risk / reward of continuing max Fisch and probably realised any advertising revenue was minimal and that the only real activity that took place on the site was largely unmoderated bdsm based discussions

I suspect the risk outweighed the reward and somebody pulled the plug to be in line with the content on their other sites

Speculation of course but equally if one was to take an occams razor approach I think it likley points to the same rational.

It's a shame if it's gone as much for the archive of the old sites and the conversations back when it was a largely collaborative and vibrant board (I guess early to mid 2000's was its hay day... sometime before rapture vision all blew up)

I will always miss the brutal Gemini board as it was just such an unfiltered version of her it was so refreshing. Made some friends through the board I'm still close with which is its ultimate legacy to me and whilst it's a shame I think in a world of social media and other external factors it was somewhat
inevitable.

Rip max... long live the buzz

Yes it’s a shame all that history is lost. It was a vibrant place for quite a few years. Being able to search the Reviews board would still be helpful. I sessioned with some great Dommes as a result of their posts on Max. Imo a few assholes ruined it and the Dommes dropped away and the site withered.

I was lucky to be able to see Brutal Gemini twice. Great sessions. She was truly for real. Probably about 4 -5 years ago she surfaced with a post on Vinyl Queens board just saying that just for laughs she was checking if her login still worked. I didn’t see that post until a few months later and then sent her a PM. Sadly she never replied. I still think about her and wonder what happened to her. She was such a fantastic Domme and a fun person I hope she’s doing well.

Are you philball from Max by chance?

Oh well, there's always maxfisch.net
All the Cool kids are "hanging" out there

Agreed. There were some fascinating old threads and reviews on Max.

I remember a poster named -h- who was a regular with Amanda Wildefyre posting about extended (60+ hours) heavy bondage CNC sessions with her......amazing!

I also got a very nice PM from a then retired Domme I had played with years earlier after after I had mentioned her in a thread about "some past greats you have played with"

Max was far from all bad despite the experiences of some on here. My experience of exchanges with Dommes and subs were overwhelmingly respectful, on topic and interesting. I can only recall one or two instances that were otherwise and fortunately it was just a matter of ignoring their posts and moving on to other topics.

I'm not going to beat this dead horse to death. But you weren't a young struggling (to pay the rent) Dominatrix-student. I was!

How would you like a site (relating to your vocation) where vicious, passive-aggressive, "subs" and jealous, old bariatric, Dommes could rip you apart!

Men-subs on these boards are anonymous! To quote the bard, "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."

I’ll use the same terminology here as Miss Rose Woods. Beating a dead horse to death. MF is gone and doesn’t look like it’s coming back. I think a separate and important issue is how to deal with trolls on a board like this. Imo ideally no one responds to the troll and they get frustrated and eventually give up. If someone is being attacked a posters can respond around a troll in support. But in reality it’s not that simple. Someone is going to respond and that’s what these assholes want and it just spirals down and some of these people have nothing better to do than sit at their computer and register under multiple names and carry on talking shit. Thus Max withered and I’ve beaten the dead horse some more. I could keep going in circles but I’ll stop.

The amazing thing is not that it died, but that it lived so long.

Guess I'm here now.

Glad to have you... We actually have walking, talking, Dommes, on board

I'm sad about Max going down for good. It's true that most of the dommes had departed (for good reason) and it was a forgone conclusion that one day it would go down and not come back up. Many times when it did, I wondered if that would be it. In later years, I derived the most value from speaking with other subs. I made some very good friends on Max, guys who I am still friends with today. In fact, I just spoke with one of them this morning. It's true there were some bad apples on MF, but there were also some really nice guys on that site. Many of them seem to have moved over here, so perhaps we've found a new home.

... and some of the less than nice people haven't come here. Hopefully there is no "yet" involved. :-)

Yep. I absolutely and emphatically concur!

I don't think we will be seeing the vast majority of the mf "shit slingers." Hell, most of the really bad ones were senior citizens back in late 90s! It's hard to be a libelist when your "Depends" need emptying.

Seriously, how old is the "witch queen" these days?

It would be nice to see an increase in activity/participation here......Assuming it is mostly positive and the mods can take care of anything that's not.

I'm sure we can handle a massive influx of posts. Give it another month and all the mf crowd will be here. I believe some are still awaiting the second coming.

LOL! True enough, Ms. Woods. I'm no spring chicken myself, but some of the the MF denizens have been around so long they could provide valuable historical information on the NYC BDSM scene going all the way back to the seventies. That said, some of the trolls on that board could be very obnoxious, especially to dommes. That's why most of them left and the board turned into a giant sausage fest. I got in trouble with certain folks for saying I thought some of the posters on MF were misogynists, but I really thought they were. Not sure it had anything to do with age though. Perhaps the pro scene just drives certain guys nuts. They simply can't handle it. Sorry one of them gave you a hard time. There were also some really great guys on MF though. As I was just telling Soapy, I made some lifelong friends there, folks I'm still in regular touch with today. I remember a few occasions where MF denizens got together and hung out socially; dommes and subs alike. On one occasion, a bunch of us got together at a bar in Manhattan called "Max Fisch," which has since closed down. There was a also a very memorable get together at Paddles which included some public play I will never forget! Those were the days. That said, I'm hoping this site will be much better moderated so we can keep out the trolls! Nice chatting with you.

MF was a rollercoaster.

I met many beloved subs and even enslaved a few that read reviews about me through MF and came to session with me because of what they had read on MF. On the other hand, as Ms.Rose said, many Dommes were harassed by faceless men hiding behind a computer screen playing games with our safety.

Sometimes you have to enjoy the good memories that come with the end of an era and make room for the new.

____________________________
GiaPeccato.com

Actually, I am here so I do not miss a MF unlikely resurrection.
The hang had a lively Political section.

No further comment....

C123