Black BDSM History

Ignacio G Rivera

All too often in the BDSM communities, we adhere to many of the roles, stereotypes and prejudices of our vanilla upbringing and it makes it difficult to accept roles and identities that aren't exactly "mainstream" even for the so-called "rebels" in the kink community. In order to transcend this we need to be educated as to the full spectrum of our experience. One person among us who takes this education seriously is Ignacio G Rivera. Ignacio G Rivera is a Two-Spirit, Black-Boricua Taíno, queer performance artist, activist, filmmaker, lecturer and sex educator who prefers the gender neutral pronoun “they.” As a lecturer/trainer, Ignacio has spoken at home and abroad on such topics of racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, transgender issues, sexual liberation, anti-oppression, anti-violence, multi-issue organizing and more. Ignacio has consultant with various organizations in New York City conducting professional development training for NYC high school staff. Ignacio has crafted performance pieces, created film, featured written work and done interviews in the New York Times and other prominent media outlets, on gender and sexuality; specifically on queer, trans, kink and sexual liberation issues within a race/class dynamic. Ignacio continues to work hard as an educator, lecturer and advocate, proud of their culture, heritage and person.