Lee Harrington (born 28 November 1979 in Lowell, Massachusetts) is a sexuality and spirituality educator, author, and artist now based in Denver, Colorado. In rope and leather communities he is known for hands-on shibari teaching, sacred-kink theology, and practical field guides that help people enter BDSM scenes without swallowing pure mythology or pure clinic-speak. He is a trans man and uses he/they pronouns.
Author and Educator
Harrington’s essays and poetry have appeared across magazines, anthologies, and books on rope bondage, ageplay, spirituality, transgender rights, paganism, and erotica. His teaching style tends to braid technique with meaning: why a tie feels intimate, how power exchange can be ritual, and how community navigation works for newcomers who are not already fluent in leather protocol.
National Leather Association International has repeatedly recognized the work. Shibari You Can Use: Japanese Rope Bondage and Erotic Macramé took the Geoff Mains Book Award in 2008. Playing Well With Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring and Navigating the Kink, Leather and BDSM Communities (with Mollena Williams) won the Geoff Mains Non-fiction award in 2013. More Shibari You Can Use: Passionate Rope Bondage & Intimate Connection won the same non-fiction award in 2016. Those titles remain common recommendations for people who want Japanese-inspired rope that prioritizes connection over pure performance geometry.
Model, Performer, and Photographer
From 1999 to 2006 Harrington worked as an adult film actor, pornographer, and sex blogger. He placed in the 2005 SIGNY Award for Best Bondage Model and appeared on more than seventy adult websites—including Kink.com—plus television such as Playboy’s Sexcetera and multiple feature-length adult films. That on-camera era still informs how he talks about embodiment, negotiation, and the gap between fantasy imagery and lived practice.
Selected Books Authored
- Become Your Own Beloved: A Guide to Delighting in Self-Connection (2023)
- Traversing Gender: Understanding Transgender Realities (2016)
- On Starry Thighs: Sacred and Sensual Poetry (2015)
- More Shibari You Can Use: Passionate Rope Bondage & Intimate Connection (2015)
- Playing Well With Others with Mollena Williams (2012)
- Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Path of BDSM and Beyond (2010)
- Shed Skins: Journeying in Self-Portraits (2010)
- The Toybag Guide to Age Play (2007)
- Shibari You Can Use: Japanese Rope Bondage and Erotic Macramé (2006)
Books Edited
- Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries (2018)
- Spirit of Desire: Personal Explorations of Sacred Kink (2011)
- Rope, Bondage, and Power (2009)
For rope bottoms, tops, and educators, Harrington’s catalog sits at the intersection of Japanese bondage craft, American leather community literacy, and sacred-kink language that treats SM as more than technique. The NLA awards mark peer recognition; the bibliography shows a career-long insistence that bondage, gender, and spirituality can share one bookshelf without apology.
