Hi all! We've crammed a lot of exciting news about the 2nd annual
Sex-Positive Journalism Awards into one update, so as to keep from
cluttering up your inboxes. But the most important thing is that the
deadline is coming up (March 31), so send in those nominations now
<http://www.sexies.org/submit.html>! Enjoy!

(1) 2009 Sexies Judge Panel Announced <#1>
(2) New Board Members Join Awards <#2>
(3) Sexies on Facebook: Become a Fan
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sex-Positive-Journalism-Awards/51506096441>!
(4) Donate to the Sexies, Win Original Artwork by Julio Aguilera . . .
and other prizes. <#4>
(5) 2008 Winners Included in Best Sex Writing 2009 <#5>
(6) *Deadline Approaching* Send in your nominations <#6>
(7) A note about sex-positive coverage of negative news <#7>

(1) *We're pleased to welcome these new judges to the 2009 judge's panel: *

* award-winning journalist and 2008 first-place Sexies winner
*Debbie Nathan*
* *Debby Herbenick*, PhD, MPH, associate director for the Center for
Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, a sex columnist,
and sex educator for The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex,
Gender and Reproduction
* journalist and 2008 first-place Sexies winner *Amanda Robb *
* *Rachel Kramer Bussel,* writer, senior editor at Penthouse
Variations, former columnist for The Village Voice and
TheFrisky.com, and editor of Best Sex Writing 2008 and 2009 (and
2010).
* journalist *Kai Wright*, author of Drifting Toward Love: Black,
Brown, Gay and Coming of Age on the Streets of New York

We are also thrilled to welcome back Dan Savage, Carol Queen, Doug
Henwood, and Liza Featherstone. For bios on all of our judges, visit
www.sexies.org/judges.html.

(2) *New Board Members*
The Sexies Advisory board has also grown this year, with the addition of
journalist Doug Henwood and The Coalition for Positive Sexuality as an
organizational sponsor. CPS is a non-profit organization that believes
young adults deserve accurate and complete sexual health and sexual
behavior related information. Their website <http://www.positive.org> is
devoted to supporting teens in their decisions about sex and dedicated
to providing them with up-to-date, honest, non-biased (extremely female,
LGBT friendly) and useful information about sex and sexuality. CPS is
being represented on the Sexies board by Dr. Karen Beardslee Kwasy, a
PhD in American literature and folklore with specializations in
multicultural literature and family, community, and sexual folklore.

(3) *Facebook*
The Sexies are on Facebook! Spread the word to your friends and
networks, and get up-to-the-minute updates by becoming a fan
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sex-Positive-Journalism-Awards/51506096441>.

(4) *Donate to the Sexies, Win Great Art*
Would you like an original painting by Julio Aguilera
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Aguilera>? According to the art
critic Ed McCormack, Managing Editor of Gallery & Studio Magazine, "more
than any other artist in the Hispanic Diaspora, Aguilera has brought new
blood, so to speak, to that still vital tradition, which came to
encompass not only the spirit of Spain but all the antique cultural
booty that the canny old pirate, Picasso, looted from France Italy and
the North." Not only that, but he's a fan of the Sexies, and he's
donated an original painting (see it here
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/miriamjoyce/2925061143/in/set-72157607868247737/>)\
.
The first 15 people to donate $75 or more to the Sexies will have a
chance to win this painting (now that's some incredibly good odds),
along with other thank you gifts. Donate today
<http://www.sexies.org/support.html> and help us keep the Sexies going!

(5) *Best Sex Writing 2009*
The Sex-Positive Journalism Awards got a shoutout in the introduction to
Cleis Press’s Best Sex Writing 2009, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (a
Sexies judge for the 2009 awards), and three Sexies winners show up in
its pages. The anthology includes pieces from “blogs, magazines,
newspapers and books” and with its blend of news, opinion, and essay is
meant to stimulate “your biggest sex organ, your brain” rather than
arouse (Cleis has other books for that!). The Sexies runner up article
"War Games” by Tom Johansmeyer is included the collection, as are pieces
by Sexies first-place winners Debbie Nathan and Amanda Robb. In fact,
Bussel says she discovered Robb through the Sexies! Read the
introduction and the table of contents here
<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=49731946167&h=0b9929bb2e0ed86\
c4110bb9a2ebff560&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsexwriting2009.wordpress.com%2Fabout%2F>.

(6) *Deadline approaching!!!
*Send in your nominations now! Scan back through the articles you
e-mailed to people, posted online, or saw go by on your listservs, and
send <http://www.sexies.org/submit.php> us the cream of the crop—and
also the ones that made your blood boil for the "Unsexy" award.

(7) *Sex-Positive Coverage of Negative Sex News*

As you're thinking about what to submit to the 2009 Sexies, I wanted to
make a specific call for well-done news stories about "negative sex news."

What do I mean? In short, when people hear "sex-positive journalism,"
they tend to think of things like sympathetic profiles of sexual
subcultures, coverage of good news about legal defense of our sexual
freedom, or myth-dispelling coverage of good sex research.

All of these things are awesome and we want to see more of them.

But there's another place where we need better reporting about sex: when
things do go wrong. We can't pretend that sex is always good or that
news about it is always cheery. And when it's not, it gets in the news.
Think about these scenarios:

* A beloved priest is accused of child abuse and those accusing him keep
talking about "these gay priests."
* A sexual relationship ends up in court and one person is saying it was
consensual kink and the other is saying it was abuse.
* Neighbors are complaining that people going to a private swingers
party at a local inn are disruptive and loud—and immoral.

In each of these situations—and countless others—a sex-savvy and
responsible journalist can provide a service for readers by giving them
the tools to sort out tangled issues and by pointing out when the actors
in a story are mixing up different issues due to their own biases.
Journalists can explain that being gay does not correlate with abusing
children, describe the hallmarks of a consensual BDSM arrangement so
actual abuse can be identified, and write in such a way that sorts out
true nuisance problems from conceptual discomfort.

This is hard work to do, often thankless, done on short news deadlines
rather than fun feature schedules, and yet it is crucial. We strongly
encourage writers and readers to notice and submit stories on topics
such as these that are accurate and fair and increase understanding in
their readers rather than hysteria.

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--
Miriam Axel-Lute
Writer & Editor
518-431-8392
www.mjoy.org

Need Copyediting? www.mjoy.org/editing

Read me here: www.babble.com/CS/members/MiriamJoyce.aspx