Gloria Brame

Gloria Glickstein Brame (born August 20, 1955) is an American sexologist, writer, and sex therapist based in Athens, Georgia. She is a board-certified clinical sexologist whose sex therapy practice specializes in BDSM, fetishism, sexual health, and sexual dysfunctions. Her practice is adults-only. Dr. Brame is an author, educator, and advocate for safe, sane, and consensual relationships.

Brame was born on August 20, 1955, at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City to Jewish Holocaust survivors. She was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where she was an award-winning student from elementary school through college, earning numerous academic prizes and scholarships. She graduated from Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn in 1972. She earned a B.A. in English with honors, summa cum laude, from York College, City University of New York in 1977, and an M.A. in English Literature from Columbia University in 1978.

After completing her M.A., Brame worked as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley from 1983 to 1986. She then transitioned to academia, serving as an adjunct professor of English at New York University, guest lecturer in creative writing at York College (CUNY), and associate professor of poetry and creative writing at Hofstra University from 1987 to 1991.

In 1991, Brame began research for Different Loving, her landmark study of BDSM and human sexuality, published in 1993. She subsequently enrolled at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, earning her PhD in Human Sexuality in 2000. She joined the IASHS faculty as a long-distance lecturer in 2002, making occasional visits to the San Francisco campus through 2015.

She is a Professional Emerita of AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists). She holds certification as a sexologist from the American Board of Sexology (Certificate No. 25727) and has been awarded the ABS Diplomate distinction in recognition of her decades of practice, prolific scholarship, and contributions to the field of sexual freedom.

In 2025, Brame launched the Pleasure Literacy Emporium, a digital platform offering evidence-based adult sex education resources and ebooks.

Brame testified against then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in Nitke v. Ashcroft, a major case challenging the Communications Decency Act before the Southern District of New York. In addition to her testimony in Nitke v. Ashcroft, Brame has provided expert depositions on consent and consensual sexual behavior for attorneys on both sides of criminal and civil cases.

In 1987, Brame founded what is described as the world’s first online BDSM/fetish support group, “Variations II,” in the Human Sexuality Forum of CompuServe. She later founded AOL’s first BDSM/fetish chat on THRIVE/Time Warner (1996–2000) and established gloriabrame.com as a BDSM community resource in 1996. In 2018, Brame founded BED: Brame’s BDSM Educators Directory, a professional directory for leaders in kink/fetish education.

• Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (Villard/Random House, 1993)
• Different Loving Too: Real People, Real Lives, Real BDSM (Moons Grove Press, 2015)
• Where the Boys Are: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding Mr. Right (Hearst Books, 1997)
• Come Hither: A Commonsense Guide to Kinky Sex (Fireside, 2000)
• The Truth About Sex, Vol. I: Sex and the Self (CCB Publications, 2011)
• The Truth About Sex, Vol. II: Sex for Grown-Ups (CCB Publications, 2013)
• Erotic Awakening: Gloria’s Master Sessions (Moons Grove Press, 2018)

• Naked Memory: Confessions of a Sexual Revolutionary (Moons Grove Press, 2014)
• A Fetish for Men: A Memoir (Moons Grove Press, 2015)

• Champions of Pleasure (Moons Grove Press, 2018)
• Amazon Hammer (Moons Grove Press, 2021)
• Kink So Real: Mistress Amazon Reinvented and Other Stories (Moons Grove Press, 2024)

• BEAT ED+: A Complete Guide to Overcoming Erectile Dysfunction (Pleasure Literacy Emporium, 2025)
• Become a Sex Genius: An 8-Point Plan to Grow Your Sexual Intelligence (Pleasure Literacy Emporium, 2026)

• Consensual Sadomasochism: How to Talk About It and How to Do It Safely (2000)
• Sex Positive Now (2018)
• Doctors Are Not Murderers (BluOne Ink, 2025)
• “Marquis de Sade, Donatien Alphonse François (1740–1814),” The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality (2015)

• Chair, Board of Directors, BED: Brame’s BDSM Educators Directory, 2018–present (directory dormant)
• Member, Board of Governors, The BDSM Leather Hall of Fame, 2012–2022
• Member, Board of Directors, Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, 2012–2014

Brame has given numerous radio and television interviews with BBC, CBS, NBC, CNBC, FOX, PBS, and foreign media. She has been cited in numerous magazines and newspapers, including a 2004 profile in The Washington Post. She is a regular expert commentator for YourTango.

• Pauline Reage Literary Award, National Leather Association (2022)
• National Leather Association International Cynthia Slater Non-Fiction Article Award (2010) for “Transformation and Transcendence in BDSM”
• Named “Hero of the Sexual Revolution,” Exodus Trust (2004)
• One of the “10 Best Sex and Dating Experts,” DatingAdvice.com
• Tennessee Williams Writing Fellowship, Sewanee Writers' Conference (2003)

• Official website
• Gloria Brame at IMDb