The BDSM teacher’s books and workshops focus on connection, community, and making dreams come true.
Source:Â WWW.wweek.com
USA – Everyone has a different story about how they first heard about sex. When you discuss the specifics of kink, the answers are even more varied. If you ask Lee Harrington—who has taught over a thousand classes on human sexuality in all 50 states—how he first encountered BDSM, he’ll say: It started at home.
He remembers finding his parents’ porn collection, and although he didn’t understand much of the content, there was one story in particular that stood out to him. In it, a woman celebrates her 21st birthday by fulfilling a spicy fantasy. Afterward, she talks about how excited she was, how amazing it was, and how valuable it felt to have a boyfriend who made her dreams come true.
“What struck me, after reading all that erotic material,” Harrington tells  WW  , “was that this was the only story that was unapologetically happy. There was no guilt, there was no shame. It was just a woman sharing that she was happy.”
What stuck with him most wasn’t the erotic aspect of the story. “I didn’t understand those activities, and I wasn’t interested,” he recalls. But he never gave up the idea that “I could grow up, have friends, and live out my dreams, whether or not they involved adult content.” As a young adult, Harrington got involved in the BDSM community and discovered that while the story he’d read as a teenager was merely a fantasy, the idea behind it—that people came together to fulfill each other’s desires—did exist in the real world.
Harrington moved to Portland in the late 1990s after completing his university studies in England. He worked for a Christian faith-based organization and also became involved in the porn industry. This subsequently led him to teach workshops on fetishism.
“Someone from the local kink community said to me, ‘Hey, we’ve seen some of your stuff at parties and in porn. Would you mind teaching us how to do it?'” Harrington recalls. “I said, ‘Sure, if you pay for my trip to Corvallis.'”
Harrington is now a popular and sought-after instructor in erotic education and BDSM, having given workshops in all 50 states and seven countries. But that community-based approach to education, Harrington explains, remains his preferred teaching method.
From there, Harrington began teaching classes in his local community and at conferences, and soon began working on books. “When I was living in Beaverton, I started a book called  Shibari You Can Use: Japanese Rope Bondage and Erotic Macramé  . I was working with a publisher, but they bailed on me, and I was left with this half-finished book,” he says. A friend from the neighborhood suggested Harrington self-publish the book. “I started reaching out to friends in Portland and saying, ‘Hey, would you be interested in being in the picture?'”
Portland is known as a place where creative minds can easily connect, and Harrington experienced this firsthand. During the creation of  “Shibari You Can Use,”  people from diverse communities—including professional dominatrices, friends of Burning Man, and members of Portland’s gaming community—came together to create the photos.
“It was so quintessentially Portland,” Harrington recalls with a laugh, noting that everything about the project—from the publication to the photography—seemed uniquely possible thanks to the kink-friendly art community Portland is known for. Harrington currently lives in Denver but still feels a strong connection to the Rose City and its kink community.
After nearly 30 years in the BDSM world, what keeps Harrington excited and engaged is the same thing that drew him to it in the first place. “For me, my passion continues to burn because of the deep friendships that create those magical moments,” he says. “It took a while to get here, but I’m so grateful to have it.”
