Jacques attended
St. Joseph's College, Birkfield, Ipswich, a school run by the
De La Salle brothers, from 1967 to 1974. He earned his degree in
Physics from the
Imperial College of Science and Technology in 1978, thereby becoming an associate of the
Royal College of Science (A.R.C.S.) and graduate the
Institute of Physics (GradInstP.). From 1979, he worked for Seismograph Service Ltd. as a field seismologist off the coast of the
French Congo and
Gabon and in England, for two and a half years, before designing the acceptance test specifications and procedure for the missile management system of a European aircraft for Computing Devices Company, in
Hastings, East Sussex. In 1981, he emigrated to Toronto to work at
Spar Aerospace for nine years on an infrared surveillance system for the Canadian and U.S. navies. Subsequently, he moved to SmartStar and Orapro (database companies) in Toronto, as head of technical support and then director of consulting. He was CIO at
Stott Pilates (now Merrithew Health and Fitness) for three years (1998–2001), and continues to provide IT consulting to the company.
Later He co-founded Toronto's Safer SM Education seminar series in 1991, along with co-authors of
On The Safe Edge, Dr. Dale McCarthy (1937–2007, co-founder of the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT)), Michael Hamilton, and Sniffer (the latter being a dentist and teacher at the
University of Toronto), and both organised and presented the seminars for thirteen years (1991–2004). The seminars led to both the publication of
On The Safe Edge and updated versions of
Safer SM (a BDSM safer sex pamphlet published by the AIDS Committee of Toronto). Jacques edited and published
Gay Guide Canada and ''Canada's Gay Guide'', 1998 and 1999. He also sponsored the production and printing Toronto's
Pride Guide in 1996, 1997, and 1998 on behalf of
Pride Toronto. In 2001 and 2002, he edited and published the souvenir guide for the Mr. Leatherman Toronto Competition. Jacques has contributed articles, interviews, and expert advice to dozens of magazines, newspapers, and radio and television stations in North America and Europe. Jacques served as an expert witness in the 1998 "
Bondage Bungalow" case in north Toronto.
On The Safe Edge was cited in the submissions by the BDSM community in London, England to the
Law Commission as it prepared its report "Consent in the Criminal Law" (consultation paper 139), as a result of the
Spanner case. In 2009, Jacques was featured in the fourth Canadian edition of the sexuality textbook
Understanding Human Sexuality. Jacques's most recent publication is
BDSM: Safer Kinky Sex, in both English and French, for the AIDS Committee of Toronto. It is the third major revision of a safer sex education pamphlet created and edited by the Toronto BDSM community, this time large enough to take the form of a booklet. He also edited the two variants of the previous version (see References). Jacques was invited by ACT to launch the French version in Montréal, in May 2011. ==Awards and recognition==