SINCLAIR SEXSMITH (they/them) is a writer, speaker, and performer specializing in queer sexualities, genders, and relationships. Since 1996, they have been building queer and feminist online communities through writing and expressive arts. Their experience with queer culture, sexual politics, gender and identity, and embodied sexuality makes Sinclair a skilled presenter, facilitator, and speaker, and they have traveled all around North America, presenting at universities, conferences, community organizations, and retreats. Their topics include relationships, gender, writing, sexual skills, BDSM, and personal liberation.
They have produced the award-winning website Sugarbutch: Queer Sex, Kink, Gender, and Relationships at www.sugarbutch.net since 2006.
Contributing to more than twenty anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica, Persistence: Still Butch and Femme, and Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, Mx. Sexsmith is the guest editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 2012 and editor of Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, both from Cleis Press. Their full-length collection Sweet & Rough: Sixteen Stories of Queer Smut was released in 2014 from Maverick Press. Since 2019, they have been the editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series, including Volume 4 (2020), Volume 5 (2021), and the forthcoming Volume 6 (2022).
They have been recognized in Go Magazine’s 100 Women We Love list (2010), DapperQ’s 100 Most Stylish (2013), Kinkly’s Sex Blog Superheroes, Top 100 Sex Bloggers, and more.
Sinclair holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Gender, Women, and Sexuality studies and Creative Writing from the University of Washington, Seattle, graduating in 2005. Their thesis was on the psychological identity development process and its correspondence to the evolution of the lesbian novel in the 20th century, which is available on academia.edu.
In 2019, Sinclair and their boy rife ran for and won the Northwest Master/slave title, and went on to compete and win the International Master/slave title in 2020. While they no longer use the words “master” and “slave” to define their dynamic, they still live in a 24/7 authority exchange dynamic that is rooted in the lineage of leather queers.
Sinclair grew up in the temperate rainforest of southeast Alaska, and have lived in Seattle, Brooklyn, and Oakland, and calls the Pacific Northwest home.