My Bio

I live downtown in Vancouver, Canada, yet my apartment also borders the forest and trails of Stanley Park, where I walk or bike almost every day. The photo shows the view from my window.

A year-long trip to Asia in my mid-twenties introduced me to yoga and meditation. I was one of the first Western students to study with BKS Iyengar at his Institute in Pune, India. A few months later at a Buddhist Temple in Sri Lanka I did my first multi-week vipassana meditation retreat. Both practices have had a big impact on my life and are still a regular part of my daily routine.

Traveling, especially hiking, biking or paddling, through scenic natural areas, has also been a major preoccupation since my twenties. The photo shows me thirty years ago as proud kayak fisherman -- with hair!

I’ve hiked the deserts of Arizona, California, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Israel, wandered the trail systems of England and Europe, trekked the jungles of Hawaii and various islands in the Caribbean, scrambled up mountains in the Rockies, the BC Coast Range, the Cascades, Sierra Nevada, and Alps, paddled the west coast of Canada and the rivers of Europe, and pedaled bikes in cities and rural areas all over the world. Now almost every month, I do what I call neo-nomad trips.

Sex! Ever since a powerful first sexual experience as a teenager, I’ve been really interested in sex. Not just doing it, but thinking and talking about it. Perhaps that is why I became a sex-positive activist and sex educator. As a lawyer I’ve represented clients fighting sex-negative laws and social conventions. I’ve worked with erotic artists, sex workers, polyamorists, nudists and others. I also established the world’s first registered sex-positive political party, The Sex Party, and ran as a candidate with other members of the Party in two general elections in British Columbia.

I love bonded relationships. I’ve had nine major multi-year romances, including five live-ins. I built one partner a post and beam house on a beautiful forest ridge, where we lived with her two young sons. I’ve experimented with monogamy and polyamory. At 59 I was single for four years and really got to know myself. Then I hit the relational jackpot, finding my current partner Ravit.

I also enjoy the companionship of men. I’m been a member of two men’s groups, one for eighteen years, the other for seven. I’ve launched several men’s groups and mixed-gender Joy teams. The Support Teams section of the website describes my experiences with small, bonded groups.

Writing is another great pleasure for me. I wrote my first book (Environmental Law) while in law school in 1977 and would go on to pen one book in each of the next four decades, including guides to sea kayaking and buying rural property.

The challenge of setting up and running small businesses appeals to me. My first venture was in law school, doing legal research for lawyers. A few years later I set up a retail travel agency specializing in eco-tourism. Then I began practicing law which continued for ten years until I moved to Canada’s Mediterranean, the Gulf Islands in the rain shadow of southwest British Columbia. There I sold rural and recreational real estate for several years, and after that devoted myself full-time to research and writing for almost five years, ultimately producing The Politics of Lust. That led to a couple years running an erotic arts school which in turn prompted me to open The Art of Loving a retail store specializing in pleasure products and sexual education, still going strong after almost 20 years. Now I am about to launch a new cannabis education business.

Now in my sixties my focus could be described as outreach: to introduce as many people as I can to the idea that we all share a common primal heart and show how tuning in to it through meditation, cannabis, sex, wilderness travel and other ways, can guide us to great personal happiness and even help solve many of the problems plaguing our planet.

Welcome. My name is John Ince. I’m the author of seven books, a lawyer, entrepreneur, cannabis educator, meditator, wilderness traveler, and sex-positive activist. While I live most of the year in Vancouver, Canada, I spend a good deal of my time as a neo-nomad wandering the world, especially its pristine natural areas.