Champions of Sexual Literacy '07 

People from around the country gathered in San Francisco last month to celebrate sexuality. However, unlike other sex positive events held in this city of liberal politics and progressive ideas, here there were no parades, Viagra booths, or scantily clad “spokesmodels”, and everyone (thankfully) came fully clothed.

Not an unbridled bash, for sure. But a party nonetheless—with activists, politicians, educators, students, business people, and artists easily mingling and toasting each others’ contributions toward improving sexual literacy.

“This is good work and it is often risky work; and it is also often thankless work,” said Bishop Yvette Flunder, speaking at the Bank of America Building’s Carnelian Room to the seventy guests. “It is good for us to get together and pat each other on the back and appreciate each other for the work in helping to bring more light around the issues of this God-given gift of human sexuality.”

Presented by San Francisco State University and the National Sexuality Resource Center—and sponsored, in part, by AARP and the Ford Foundation—the Champions of Sexual Literacy Awards Celebration honored five outstanding individuals.

Luis Ubiñas, who is set to become the first Latino president of the Ford Foundation in January, presented Kevin Jennings with the Education and Public Awareness Award. Jennings spoke about his friendship with Ubiñas, whom he met at Harvard College. Ubiñas was from the South Bronx; he hailed from Lewisville, a small town in North Carolina. Despite their different backgrounds they shared a similar passion for social justice.

Jennings went onto create the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network and write Mama’s Boy; Preacher’s Son, a memoir chronicling his journey from the rural South to the Ivy Tower and beyond. He told the crowd that his coming out opened the door for his mother to examine her own, often unfulfilling, sex life. Sexual literacy can empower not just LGBT communities, but people from all walks of life, he stressed.

Joy O’Donnell, NSRC’s Director of Outreach and Partnership, introduced the Equality and Policy Award to California Assemblyman Mark Leno. Leno has authored not one but two historic legislative attempts to legalize same sex marriages in the state. O’Donnell said she knew first hand of Leno’s commitment to equality, recalling the tears that welled up in the assemblyman’s eyes as he officiated her own marriage to her partner in 2004. "Even though the State of California eventually declared all four thousand of our marriages void, I will never forget the respect and dignity Mark Leno provided me and thousands of other couples. He is an incredible Champion of Sexual Literacy because he saw how much it meant for us—as well as our children, parents, friends, and family—and he has not stopped fighting for us since."

An expert on midlife and senior sexuality, as well as a regular Oprah guest, Pepper Schwartz congratulated Heather Corrina, a poet, photographer, and sex educator, with the Award for Grassroots Activism. Corrina’s sex education website for youth, Scarleteen.com, has been hailed for its humor, honesty, and progressive take on sexuality in an era of virgin pledges and abstinence education. She finds that oftentimes, young men have the most to learn. “Rather of saying, ‘Of course, absolutely everybody needs sex education,’ in some respects I think boys need it a little bit more,” she said. “They get a lot more discussion about pleasure aspects of sex but not so much about the interpersonal, certainly not so much about sexual health issues, reproductive health issues, birth control issues.”

Deborah Tolman, founder of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality, presented Samhita Mukhopadhyay, editor of Feministing.com, with the Next Generation Activism Award. Her early experiences with racism as the only South Asian girl in a working class neighborhood continue to drive her passion for activism, Mukhopadhyay said. Not one to shy away from controversy, she recalled posting her opinions on the legal difficulties of proving rape—and getting hate responses in return, including one that read, "In a fair world Samhita would be put in one of Saddam’s rape rooms". “It was the only time I considered quitting blogging,” she said.

Gilbert Herdt, the director of San Francisco State University’s Department of Sexuality Studies and director of the NSRC, handed out the last award of the night, the Founder’s Award, to Deborah Tolman, a leading expert on the sexuality of teenage girls. Tolman, who has been featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times and Nightline, has yet another accolade under her belt: At the dinner, Alex Randolph, the community liaison for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, announced that the city had proclaimed the day, October 11, 2007, Deborah Tolman Day.

The good cheer seemed to bring out the best in everyone. Hugs were contagious and generosity flowed. James Daniels, the vice president of marketing for Trojan condoms, announced his company would create the Trojan Evolve College Journalism Award in partnership with the NSRC and San Francisco State University. And businessman and NSRC National Advisory Council member Bobby Hernriech donated $200,000 to create a scholarship program for the university’s department of sexuaiity studies.

Such generosity, said Bishop Flunder, would help all champions of sexual literacy “to do what it is that we are not only called to do, but chosen to do, obligated to do, and held accountable to do. . .

“The world is watching us, sisters and brothers, we are not only on a turning page, we are the page turners.”