About Us
KNOTbound Ltd is a charity registered with the ACNC for the following purposes:
- Advancing Health
- Advancing Education
- Advancing Culture
Our Mission Statement:
To provide support services and promote respect, tolerance and social inclusion for people who identify within the BDSM lifestyle and sexuality so they can participate fully in all aspects of life in Australia without fear of discrimination.
This is furthered by working with organisations outside of BDSM communities such as community health organisations, law enforcement, legal aid, local councils and other public service organisations to educate and partner in providing support and services.
The organisation seeks to fulfil this mission through the following work:
- advancing education within BDSM communities by providing free and low cost educational services through classes, workshops, libraries and mentoring to all people who identify with the BDSM lifestyle. These services are intended to increase the health, safety and welfare of people practicing BDSM.
- providing specialised support to BDSM community members by providing resource centres, outreach services and targeted social events, particularly to rural communities and people who are otherwise isolated through fear of discrimination and reprisal for their involvement in the BDSM lifestyle.
- helping to maintain a cohesive identity that BDSM people can connect to by securing Australian BDSM cultural history through the archive project and providing access to BDSM culture and history to all Australians. The archives collect, preserve and protect personal histories, publications and artefacts that are of historical value to the BDSM community.
- promoting the ideal that everyone should be supported in their right to live, work and play with dignity. KNOTbound has no preferred gender, sexual orientation or relationship identity models but works to eradicate discrimination that has no valid basis except an inability to accept human diversity. We embrace the diversity of our bisexual, gay, lesbian, hetero, asexual, queer, intersex, trans or simply flexible people. We support our people whether this is by birth or by choice. Our mission is to ensure that everyone is free to live as themselves with out fear of harrassment, bullying, job discrimination, loss of family, friendship or human rights. This includes partners, children, parents and other people in close relationships of whatever variety in our communities
- recognising that family units may be equally diverse and we do not discriminate on the basis of family unit make up. Whether people are single, single parents, couples or multipartnered, we provide the same respectful environment of inclusivity, education and support.
KNOTbound seeks to provide the above as people within the culture of BDSM have specialised needs in these areas and specialised services to meet these needs do not currently exist in Australia.
KNOTbound Ltd rests on four guiding principles
On these strong foundations rest the following four streams of service:
Education
Cultural & Historical Preservation
Community Services & Rural Outreach
Social Protection & Integration
In addition to local initiatives, KNOTbound Ltd is committed to a number of what we call “UNITY” initiatives. These are projects that impact and/or include people from all over Australia. The Australian BDSM Archives Project is one of our UNITY projects. Our UNITY symbol indicates those projects that are unity projects.
