whisk lesley away to san francisco (for academic reasons!)

My name is Lesley and I am a PhD student at Birmingham City University. My research concerns the history and development of the BDSM* community in Birmingham and the wider West Midlands. I am really passionate about this research, and am making great progress in the early stages!

*BDSM = Bondage & Discipline / Domination & Submission / Sadism & Masochism, colloquially known as 'Kink' :D

Lesley's story

I am raising money to pay for my airfare to San Francisco. I will be presenting a paper on my research at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in March 2016.

Not only is this an amazing opportunity for me to connect with the great and good in my research field, but there will also be a 'field trip' to the headquarters of www.kink.com at the Armoury. In addition to this I will be making arrangements to attend events run by the Society of Janus to network and see how BDSM social events in San Francisco are organised and managed. I will also be visiting the LGBT Museum, known as "San Francisco's queer Smithsonian" for further information and inspiration. 

This is an amazing opportunity for me to be able to visit the community and the locations I've read so much about, and it will give my studies a huge boost as I will be able to compare the Birmingham and San Francisco scenes. 

Where will the money go? 

I am raising money to pay for my air fare to San Francisco - any money I raise will be put towards this aim. If I am lucky enough to raise more than my target amount this will go towards paying for my hotel cost (I'll be staying at a wonderfully boho 2-star hotel). 

Rewards

Apart from my unending gratitude, there will also be a number of rewards available to those folks who support my project. There will also be a number of updates throughout the course of the project, as well as interesting info from related media at my PhD Twitter account @muckybooksblog

Tell the world!

You don't need to give money to help me to succeed! Please share this project with everyone you know as the more people who know about it, the more likely it is to succeed! Thank you so much!