Remember 2008?

It’s ok if you don’t. There was a lot going on. That’s the year of Barack Obama, of Sarah Palin. Twitter was only two years old and many critics were still wondering if it would amount to anything. “Cyber-security” and “E-business” were just afterthoughts for college curriculum’s. Cell phones hadn’t gotten 3G yet, but that’s ok because the whole industry was just starting to be overwhelmed by this crazy “iPhone” thing.

Nobody had heard of Fifty Shades of anything.

And a young entrepreneur named Princess Kali launched a dream that had driven her since 2005: KinkAcademy.com launched.

It was a revolutionary and even controversial idea. The BDSM community had a long tradition of both secrecy and in-person education; there could be severe consequences if someone were “outed”, and safety in a lot of disciplines (such as rope bondage) was not well understood, much less followed.

But Kali had been kinky most of her life, and was a well-respected presenter in her own right. She was frustrated with the fact that the few really great teachers out there could only reach the relatively small classes at kink conferences. What about the people who couldn’t risk exposure? What about the people who couldn’t afford travel, hotel, or the cost of a convention? Why shouldn’t they have access to this kind of knowledge – not just for the sake of safety, but just so they could fuck better?

When Kink Academy first launched it had videos from the top presenters in the field – including Jay Wiseman, who literally wrote the seminal book on erotic bondage. In the following eight year to come the roster of the Kink Academy “faculty” began to look like a “who’s who” of the Kinkerati, with people like:

• Lee Harrington
• Mollena Williams
• Maggie and Ned Mayhem
• Thrash/Antonia
• Stefano LaForgia
• Panther Prowls
• Sarah Sloane
• Kelly Shibari
• Sara Vibes
• Danarama
• Resa Amnesia

When I presented for them, I liked the concept so much I asked to become part of the team. Princess Kali led her crew to film the best presenters in their homes, at conventions, even on the beach at Kink in the Caribbean. The way she shot video was edgy – explicit instruction, nothing held back, but designed to educate, not titillate. This wasn’t porn, it was information – but provided by actual kinksters, not actors. This meant that the Kink Academy members saw people like them doing the things they really enjoyed, talking about the real issues of relationships, consent, safer sex,  dominance and submission and cigar play and leather and…the list is as long as it is sexy. It’s hot not because it is pornographic; it’s hot because it is real.

Princess Kali and her team have created what is still the largest curriculum of kink and sex education online. She did something else that was, at the time, revolutionary in the kink community: she paid the presenters. She paid her crew. She took the entrepreneurial ethos that helped the U.S. climb out of the Great Recession (another thing that happened in 2008) and she did it by lifting up the people and the quality of education around her.

Eight years in, Kink Academy is still going strong. Along the way sister sites like PassionateU.com (explicit adult sex-ed) and FearlessPress.com (essays and articles on sexuality) were launched with their own unique flavors. But Kink Academy was the start of it all, and we’re celebrating our eight-year anniversary with a special offer:

For the month of September you can get three months of full access
to all Kink Academy content, 24/7, on any laptop or mobile device,
for only $49.95.

The goal of Kink Academy is to make quality BDSM content accessible, and that includes the prices – in fact, many videos are free. A month of Kink Academy is only $24.99, unless you choose the “recurring” subscription of $19.99. This three-month offer makes it even easier to level up your own personal kink skills with the hundreds of videos available. Best of all you can go back to it again and again to refresh your knowledge from the privacy of – well, wherever you want to be. It also makes an awesome kinky gift!

Happy Anniversary, Kink Academy!

Sincerely,
Graydancer, writing from the Bondage Capital of the World, Madison, WI.

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