Richard Sprott received his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from UC Berkeley in 1994. He currently is Executive Director of CARAS – Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities. CARAS is dedicated to the support and promotion of excellence in the study of alternative sexualities, and the dissemination of research results to members of alternative sexuality and research communities and to the general public. Being a community-based research organization, the focus of CARAS depends on partnerships and the involvement of different alt-sex communities, with an emphasis on alt-sex communities that are currently ignored or understudied, such as BDSM and polyamory.