Jay Wiseman

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Jay Wiseman (born 1949) is a prominent American BDSM writer, speaker and practitioner, best-known for the popular book, SM 101: A Realistic Introduction, which is considered to be one of the best introductory books on the subject. He is based in San Francisco, California.

Early years

Wiseman was born on June 16, 1949 in New Albany, Indiana. He moved around a great deal and attended several different schools, obtaining his high school degree from the school he was at for that one semester, Anderson High School, in 1969. He also attended Culver Military Academy, in Culver, Indiana.

Hippie and EMT

After high school, Wiseman traveled to California, where he became part of the free-wheeling Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, California drug culture in the late 1960s. In 1970, he traveled with many other hippies from California to Washington DC for the inauguration of President Richard Nixon, and while there, Wiseman acted as a volunteer EMT, treating some of the miscellaneous medical emergencies. Around this time he also began writing "Altitude Hestatic", about an LSD acid trip.

He eventually decided to obtain more formal medical training, and from 1972 to 1975 he attended Santa Rosa Junior College, occasionally working part time as an EMT, and then transferred to California State University, Hayward, where he published his first article, about how to take someone's medical history. It was published in an EMT magazine, and Wiseman made $100. He also began public speaking, such as giving talks on CPR, Bondage, and some subjects related to Tae Kwon Do, in which he held a black belt. From 1974-1976 he ran a small ambulance company, Pioneer Ambulance Service, which was the primary provider in Cotati, California.

He received his Bachelor's degree in 1981, and was also awarded a "Red Cross Certificate of Merit", signed by Ronald Reagan. From 1982 to 1985, Wiseman attended the School of Medicine at Spartan Health Sciences University, School of Medicine in St. Lucia. However, personal issues (a car accident and the breakup of a major relationship) changed his plans, so he gradually changed his course of study from medicine to writing, and began attending writing workshops and publishing other small pieces in local magazines and newsletters.

BDSM writer

Wiseman's first involvement with the public BDSM community began in the mid-1970s, when he began attending functions at the "BackDrop Club" and "Janus" groups in the Bay Area. He started a male-dominant organization called the Gemini Society in 1978.

In 1988, Wiseman began teaching workshops about techniques to write good personal ads. This led to his first book in 1989, Personal AD-ventures, published by Gentle Persuasion Press. Over the next two years, he sold several hundred copies, and interest in the book led to an increased schedule of public speaking, as Wiseman was invited to speak at various singles events around the San Francisco Bay Area. This led to his next book, The Bay Area Singles Guidebook, which he self-published, and then in 1991 The Bay Area Sexuality Resources Guidebook, which became a hit and sold thousands of copies.

Also in 1988, Wiseman had taken advantage of the newly available personal computers and word processing software, to start writing a book which he entitled SM 101, with basic explanations and safety tips about BDSM practices. He self-published it in a spiral-bound format in 1992, and it became one of the best-known titles in the genre. In 1996 it was re-published in a more commercial "bound" format, by Greenery Press, and it began showing in more mainstream bookstores. It is one of the most recommended titles to newcomers in the BDSM scene, along with Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns by Phillip Miller and Molly Devon.

In 1991, Wiseman started the Greenery Press publishing house with his partner Lady Green, author of The Sexually Dominant Woman. The publishing house grew to the point of publishing several titles a year, and they hired on two other employees.

In 1992, Wiseman published Tricks -- More than 125 Ways to Make Good Sex Better. This caused readers to send him even more tricks in email, and in 1993, Wiseman published Tricks 2 -- Another 125 Ways to Make Good Sex Better, followed by the 1995 Sex Toy Tricks: 125 Ways to Accessorize and the 1996 Supermarket Tricks -- More than 125 Ways to Improvise Good Sex.

In 1996, Wiseman started his own book distribution company. In 1998, he also began serving as an expert witness on BDSM at various trials, specifically about issues related to breath control and BDSM negotiations.

In 1998, Wiseman published The Erotic Bondage Handbook, which tripled his number of speaking engagements.

Law School

Perhaps inspired by his jobs as an expert witness, Wiseman began taking paralegal classes. In 2002, at the age of 53, he was accepted at the New College of California School of Law, from which he graduated in 2005.

Wiseman passed the California Bar Examination in November 2006.

Wiseman currently lives in San Franciso. He has two grown sons and a daughter, and one grand-daughter.

Works

As of 2006, Wiseman has written 11 books and dozens of articles in magazines from Playboy to Redbook. A selected list includes:

"An Essay about 'The Old Days'"
"Emergency Training For SM Practitioners"
Personal AD-ventures: How to Meet People Through Personal Ads
Bay Area Sexuality Resources Guidebook
SM 101: A Realistic Introduction, (1st ed, 1992), 2nd ed - Greenery Press, 2000. < ISBN:0963976389 Buy it from Amazon.com >
Tricks -- More than 125 Ways to Make Good Sex Better, 1992
''Tricks 2 -- Another 125 Ways to Make Good Sex Better, 1993
"Jay Wiseman on Safety", 1994
Sex Toy Tricks: 125 Ways to Accessorize, 1995
Supermarket Tricks -- More than 125 Ways to Improvise Good Sex, 1996
Jay Wiseman's Erotic Bondage Handbook, Greenery Press, 2000. < ISBN:1890159131 Buy it from Amazon.com >
Dungeon Emergencies and Supplies
Tricks to Please a Man