Cynthia Slater

Cynthia Slater (August 7, 1945 – October 26, 1989) was an American sex educator, HIV/AIDS activist, and dominatrix. She was the co-founder of the second BDSM organization founded in the United States (after The Eulenspiegel Society), a San Francisco, California based BDSM education and support group known as the Society of Janus, which she founded with Larry Olsen in August 1974.

Work Slater's activism for women to be accepted within the gay leather scene in San Francisco during the late 1970s brought her to more mainstream attention. Slater persuaded the management of San Francisco's S/M leather club the Catacombs, the most famous fisting club in the world, to open up to lesbians; it was originally a gay men's club.

According to the Leather Hall of Fame biography of Slater, she said of the Society of Janus,

"There were three basic reasons why we chose Janus. First of all, Janus has two faces, which we interpreted as the duality of SM (one’s dominant and submissive sides). Second, he’s the Roman god of portals, and more importantly, of beginnings and endings. To us, it represents the beginning of one’s acceptance of self, the beginning of freedom from guilt, and the eventual ending of self-loathing and fear over one’s SM desires. And third, Janus is the Roman god of war—the war we fight against stereotypes commonly held against us." As well, in 1981 Slater and David Lourea "presented safer-sex education workshops in bathhouses and BDSM clubs in San Francisco." In 1985, Slater, who was HIV-positive, organized the first Women's HIV/AIDS Information Switchboard. She also contributed to "developing and disseminating kink friendly safer sex technologies". She was a professional dominatrix; She is among those commemorated in the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Awards and honors In 1989, she received the National Leather Association International’s Jan Lyon Award for Regional or Local Work.

In 2003, she received the Forebear Award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards.

In 2007, the National Leather Association International inaugurated awards for excellence in SM/fetish/leather writing. The categories include the Cynthia Slater award for non-fiction article.

In 2014, Slater was inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame.

She is an inductee of the Society of Janus Hall of Fame.