The Sak.red Reading List: Books and Podcasts by Experience Level

The canon of kink literature is relatively small and surprisingly coherent. Most of the foundational texts come from a handful of publishers, principally Greenery Press (founded 1991) and Cleis Press (founded 1980), who between them are responsible for almost every serious English-language reference work on BDSM, bondage, and power exchange.

Greenery Press was founded by author Janet W. Hardy, merged with Jay Wiseman Books in 1995, and built up over 50 titles before closing their new books program in 2019. Their back catalog remains in print and widely available. Cleis Press, the largest independent sexuality publisher in the US, is now distributed by Simon & Schuster and publishes around 40 new titles a year.

The texts that have endured are the ones written by practitioners rather than observers. The Easton/Hardy voice, warm, funny, ethically rigorous, and candid about real complexity, runs through several of the most-recommended books and is the closest thing the field has to a house style. Books that have aged well tend to be ones that treat kink as a human practice involving real psychology, rather than instruction manuals for techniques.

The New Topping Book and The New Bottoming Book by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy (Greenery Press) are the standard ethical and emotional guides for tops and bottoms in BDSM, updated from the original 1994 editions. They are not technique manuals, they are books about the psychology and emotional experience of each role, and they remain the most human-feeling entry points into kink literature. Most experienced practitioners have read both regardless of their role.

SM 101: A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman (Greenery Press) is the comprehensive beginner's reference that covers safety, technique, and scene mechanics with the thoroughness of someone who had been practicing and teaching for decades. It is more encyclopedic than the Easton/Hardy books and more technique-focused. Together, SM 101 and the Topping/Bottoming books cover most of what a newcomer needs before their first scenes.

Different Loving by Gloria Brame, Jon Jacobs, and William Brame is a broader sociological overview of BDSM and kink, based on over 250 interviews. First published in 1993, it provides cultural and historical context that the more practical books skip, and it remains one of the most thorough surveys of how people actually experience different aspects of kink.

Playing Well With Others by Lee Harrington and Mollena Williams (Greenery Press) is the authoritative guide to community, events, and navigating the social side of kink. It is essential reading before your first munch or play party, covering how to present yourself, how to negotiate, and how to avoid the most common social mistakes.

Jay Wiseman's Erotic Bondage Handbook (Greenery Press) is the foundational technical text on bondage, comprehensive on safety, positioning, circulation, materials, and scene structure. Wiseman writes with the specificity of someone who spent considerable effort thinking through what can go wrong, and the book reflects that.

The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage by Midori (Greenery Press, 2001) was the first English-language instruction book on shibari, written by the educator who arguably did more than anyone else to bring Japanese rope bondage into Western kink culture. It covers harnesses, hogties, standing poses, and more with full-color photographs and step-by-step text. The production values are exceptional for a kink book of its era, and it remains the most accessible print entry point to the Japanese tradition.

For online rope education, Shibari Study (shibaristudy.com) is the largest subscription platform, with lessons from dozens of internationally respected instructors including Hajime Kinoko, Gorgone, Gestalta, and Fred Hatt and Anna Bones of London's Anatomie Studio. A free 7-day trial gives a genuine sense of the platform. Shibari Academy (shibariacademy.com) takes a different approach, one-time course purchases with lifetime access, built around structured progression. Their free Shibari 101 is worth taking regardless. ESINEM Shibari Classes (shibariclasses.com), run by Bruce Esinem and Nina Russ with 20+ years of teaching experience, uses an ingredients-based method that develops genuine understanding of technique rather than memorisation of individual ties.

The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy (Greenery Press) is the foundational text of modern polyamory, having sold over 50,000 copies in its first decade. While primarily about non-monogamy rather than BDSM specifically, it is essential reading for anyone in the kink community because it addresses the ethical and psychological architecture of non-standard relationship structures with genuine sophistication.

Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns by Philip Miller and Molly Devon is a comprehensive how-to covering emotional, psychological, and physical aspects of BDSM relationships. It is denser than the Easton/Hardy books and more explicit about technique, and covers the dominant/submissive dynamic with particular care.

The Loving Dominant by John Warren was one of the first books to treat the dominant role with psychological seriousness, as something that requires skill, ethics, and sustained attention, not just authority. It has dated in some respects but remains useful for people thinking seriously about the responsibilities of dominance.

For the deeper psychology, Dark Eros by Thomas Moore approaches BDSM through a Jungian lens, power, darkness, and the shadow as psychological rather than purely erotic forces. It is a more demanding read than the practitioner guides and not a how-to, but it offers a framework that many experienced practitioners find genuinely useful for thinking about what draws them to power exchange.

Tongue Tied: Untangling Communication in Sex, Kink, and Relationships by Stella Harris (Cleis Press) is the most thorough modern guide to negotiation and consent, more current than older books and more psychologically sophisticated about how communication actually works in practice.

Erotic Awakening with Dan and dawn is one of the longest-running kink podcasts, covering a wide range of topics from beginner basics to advanced practice with warmth and without condescension. The archive is extensive.

Why Are People Into That? hosted by Tina Horn approaches kink with curiosity and cultural depth rather than instruction. Episodes interview practitioners, researchers, and writers about specific kinks and dynamics, and the show is comfortable with complexity. Better for the psychological and cultural side of kink than for technique.

The Perverted Negress by mollena williams-haas brings a Black submissive woman's perspective to kink in a space where that voice is underrepresented. Both her podcast and her writing are essential for anyone who wants to understand kink across race, power, and identity.

For video education, Kink Academy (kinkacademy.com) has over 2,000 videos by 140+ educators covering BDSM technique, communication, identity, and relationship structures. The platform is freemium. OhYesPlease (ohyesplease.org) offers topic-focused courses with one-time purchase and lifetime access, no ongoing subscription to manage.

For community, FetLife remains the largest social network for the kink community and is the primary place to find local munches, events, and groups. The NCSF (National Coalition for Sexual Freedom) at ncsfreedom.org is the main civil liberties organisation for the kink community and maintains a directory of therapists, lawyers, and medical providers who work without pathologising kink.

Carrie's Story by Molly Weatherfield (Cleis Press) is widely cited as one of the best literary BDSM novels, Playboy included it in their 25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written list. Its sequel Safe Word is equally well-regarded. Both take the psychological reality of a D/s relationship seriously in a way that most BDSM fiction does not.

The Story of O by Pauline Réage is the canonical French BDSM novel, first published in 1954. It is disturbing, psychologically acute, and has been analysed as everything from a feminist text to an anti-feminist one. Whatever one makes of its politics, it remains the most formally ambitious work of BDSM fiction, and its influence on the literature is pervasive.

The Ultimate Guide to Kink edited by Tristan Taormino (Cleis Press) is not fiction but deserves mention here as the most comprehensive single-volume BDSM guide of its generation, structured as a series of chapters by different specialist educators, giving multiple voices and perspectives on flogging, bondage, role play, and more. It is a different approach from the Wiseman and Easton/Hardy books, more contemporary and broader in scope.

Cleis Press publishes a deep range of edited erotica anthologies. The collections edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and Alison Tyler are particularly well-regarded for including writers who know their subject from the inside. The Best Women's Erotica and Best Lesbian Erotica series have published high-quality literary erotica consistently for decades.