Esme James

Writer, creative and sex historian Esmé Louise James is best known as the creator of Kinky History. With over 3.3 million social media followers, the brand has delivered education with a side of frivolity to the masses — spawning a globally bestselling book, a chart-topping podcast series, and soon a live show experience.

Dr Esme (University of Melbourne) is at the forefront of the Australian academic and creative industries. Her thesis traces an aesthetic of the erotic across eighteenth-century literature. She has produced non-fiction articles for The Age, the ABC and the Conversation, created content for Netflix, Amazon and Wicked The Musical, and contributed short stories and poetry to Hardie Grant, Press and Archer.

A TEDx speaker (Writing Kinky Sex Back Into The History Pages), she appears on the Top 30 Emerging Writers list (SBS), is the winner of the Rising Star Alumni Award (University of Melbourne) and a recipient of Screen Australia's Every Voice initiative. Her short-form series Sextistics, brought to you by Screen Australia, sees Esme and her mum Dr Susan James dive into the statistics of sex to create a snapshot of the past and present.

In 2024 Esme created Let's Get Explicit — an initiative inspired by Calendar Girls, featuring some of the country's most prominent voices speaking out about the growing epidemic of violence against women. Culture-obsessed and endlessly curious, Esme is a unique and engaging talent trailblazing a future of female-led edutainment.