PassionAndSoul

Lee Harrington is an internationally known spiritual and erotic educator, gender explorer, eclectic artist and award-winning author and editor on human sexuality and sacred experience. He is a nice guy with a disarmingly down to earth approach to the fact that we are each beautifully complex ecosystems, and we deserve to examine the human experience from that lens. He’s been traveling the globe (from Seattle to Sydney, Berlin to Boston), teaching and talking about sexuality, psychology, faith, desire and more, and has no intention to stop any time soon. He has been an academic and an adult film performer, a world class sexual adventurer, an outspoken philosopher, is a kink/bondage expert, and has been blogging about sex and spirituality since 1998. Read more about Lee at PassionAndSoul.com.

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About Lee Harrington

Lee Harrington is an internationally known spiritual and erotic educator, gender explorer, eclectic artist and award-winning author and editor on human sexuality and sacred experience. He is a nice guy with a disarmingly down to earth approach to the fact that we are each beautifully complex ecosystems, and we deserve to examine the human experience from that lens.

Lee, in Melbourne, Australia in December 2009

He began his career in alternative sexuality education as a peer safer sex educator in high school, and taught occasional kinky and polyamorous classes throughout the late nineties and through 2003, when he transitioned from his day career into working full time as an adult film performer, sexuality educator, and photographer. His online journal about his sexual, sacred and personal exploits (founded in 1998) took on new twists and turns as he began writing for sexually themed magazines, modeling (under the name “Bridgett Harrington,” before his gender transition), providing professional domination services, and in general having tons of adventures along the way.

Since then, Lee has had the opportunity to teach in person within the BDSM, Swinger, Fetish and other alternate sexuality communities across the United States (35 states and counting), Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia.  He has taught well over 450 classes to date (with more being set all the time) ranging in topics from effective speaking skills to erotic authenticity, rope bondage to safer magical sex, gender paradigms to Dominant/submissive power exchange.

In addition to teaching in club settings and sexuality conferences, Lee has been an educator on these subjects at the university level (as also shown on his VITA), and has launched a series of intensive educational events in the space where adult sexuality, personal integrity and spiritual exploration come together. He has also had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker at Transcending Boundaries 2010. As a public educator, he has developed both a cult following and a private clientele base of individuals seeking a sexuality life coach as well as a spirit worker (dedicated to the Goddess/Totem Bear), helping them find and explore the path that is right for them.

This calling to educating about sexuality and more in an accessible manner has led to his work as a prolific writer on the topics of sexuality, kink, gender identity, polyamory, paganism, and sacred sex. His first book, “Shibari You Can Use: Japanese Rope Bondage and Erotic Macramé,” won the Geoff Mains award in 2008 for Non-Fiction Sexuality Writing, and has become one of the top books on the topic.  The book “The Toybag Guide to Ageplay,” which explores erotic roleplaying that touches on infantilism, schoolgirl, Santa Clause, and other age-based concepts, was the first written in English, opening up the opportunity for that topic to be explored from behind a previously held wall of shame. Lee’s third book, “Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond,” has become a keystone for the topic of the intersection of alternative sexual practice and spiritual exploration.

Lee giving the Keynote Speech at Transcending Boundaries Conference 2010

His collaborative work as an author/editor has been a calling as well.  His latest book, “Playing Well With Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring and Navigating the Kink, Leather and BDSM Communities,” was co-written with the amazingly talented Mollena Williams, and is the first book to be written not about how to be a sexual adventurer, but also how to navigate the populations who delight in such things as well. As an editor, he has put together and crafted two well-respected anthologies- “Rope, Bondage and Power,” and “Spirit of Desire: Personal Explorations of Sacred Kink.”

As an essayist and anthology contributor, you can find some of his kink work in “The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge” (writing on animal role-playing) edited by Tristan Taormino, Equus Eroticus Magazine (pony role-playing), Kink-E Magazine (erotic asphyxiation), Wet Set Magazine (piss play). His crossover work between kink and sacred sex are to be found in the pages of  “Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and The Ordeal Path” and “Sacred Power, Holy Surrender: Living a Spiritual Power Dynamic” (both edited by Raven Kaldera, with one of the second book’s entries co-written by Aiden Fyre). Transgender topics can be found discussed in “Trans People in Love,” edited by Tracie O’Keefe and Katrina Fox, and “Double Edge: The Intersection of Transgender and BDSM.” Pagan-themed writing by Lee Harrington can be found in the pages of “Into The Great Below: A Devotional for Inanna and Ereshkigal,” edited by Galina Krassakova, “A Gift of Maggots: A Devotional for Baphomet,” compiled by Ruth Addams, and more. As an erotic photographer, he has appeared in the pages of Slit Magazine, shot the covers of “Dark Moon Rising” (and all interior art for the book), “Sacred Power, Holy Surrender,” and been published in “Fetish Photo Anthology Volume 5,” edited by Jurgen Boedt.  His fiction appears in “Like Tooth and Claw: Shape Shifter Erotica,” edited by Joi Crelin and the forthcoming book “Leather Ever After,” edited by Sassafras Lowrey. For a complete list of his book appearances visit his Author page, and for interviews, video education, essays and more, visit his Podcasting page.

Speaker, Author, Artist, Shaman

Podcasting? Video Education? Why yes! His monthly (or more often) podcast on Erotic Awakening has been running since January 2011, covering topics on the intersection of sacred sex, kink, and life exploration as a multifaceted soul. Lee has been an invited guest on numerous other podcasts and radio shows as well, and loves reaching a variety of folks through this fantastic media. As a video educator, he is a regular contributor to KinkAcademy.com and has his own YouTube channel. He has also done Skype classes for universities who are unable to fly him out to their location, for topics on transgender issues, the sexual identity, and the adult industry.

When not teaching, touring, blogging, writing, taking photographs, podcasting, or appearing on video, Lee is also a performance artist, shamanic practitioner, and sacred sex ritualist.  He has performed on stage at L’Erotica (Sydney), Femina Potens (San Francisco), New Zealand Fetish Ball (Christchurch), Torture Garden (London), ShibariCon (Chicago), Darkside Club (Berlin), and more. As a spirit worker, shamanic practitioner and sacred sex ritualist, he has offered private exploration intensives, done individual rites (such as weddings and collaring ceremonies), created unique experiences, and offered professional domination work.

Lee, during his time modeling as Bridgett Harrington

Lee was not planning to end up living the life he is today. He was thinking he would become a photographer (he did and is), or a poet (he did and is), or perhaps become a special events coordinator for nonprofit groups (he used to do that too). Maybe he would continue his early career as a database administrator. He was not expecting to find himself here- but life is full of miraculous twists and turns. Beautiful gifts, he finds, are often wrapped in unexpected packages.

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For those interested in a list of more concise biographies for publication, references, etc, click here, and for media-ready images, please visit this link.

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And for those that want to smile, know that Lee collects sacred doodads, toy cameras and good friends in his spare time between bouts of changing the world.  And know what? You can change the world too.

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A Note on Sliding Scales and Supporting Artists

I am an artist, and have spent many years learning my skills. I continue to study and train, improving myself under a number of teachers and through living life fully in an attempt to follow my path. This path is not an easy one, and the work and training can be very expensive and time consuming. Please support artists as much as you can. This is why I believe in sliding scales. If you are well off and believe that what an artist is doing is something that deserves support, pay on the highest end of a scale. If you yourself are a struggling artist, I understand, and thus have established lower rates on the sliding scale.  However, the minimums are not negotiable, so please respect an artist’s need to make a living.  Once in a blue moon I will be called to do pro-bono or barter projects (travel and lodging plus basic costs covered, unique personal service, custom artwork, etc), but this is the exception rather than the rule.