Grown Up Feisty and Amazing (Role Models, Part 1)

So. I’m at the tail end of six days in San Francisco, most of which have been spent working. My work is in that delicious and amazing place where I’m not sure when I’m working and when I’m not (well, sometimes its obvious) – but there’s been a lot of synapse firing in the past bunch of days. More than the brain energies, though, I’ve been experiencing a lot of moments of intense personal and professional synergy (maybe this is the San Francisco woo-woo magicks). And that’s why this is the first in a series of posts about Role Models.

When I chose-slash-tumbled-into this life/work of sexuality, I started to have lots of moments in which I thought: “fuck, I don’t know how this is done, what this looks like, how I can live the way I imagine – who the fuck is a good example of this?” and I came up empty-handed in the moments I felt loneliest. The reality to that is that there are role models out there for me and for other people fucking around on the road less traveled. Actually – when I started writing this post, I thought maybe I’d make a list of these people with links to their online awesomeness, but then I realized that the list is long and I’d probably leave someone out. That is fucking amazing. There are lots of role models nowadays for sex positive awesomeness. Pick one, or a few – then embarrass them by thanking them for being awesome, or do it bloggy style and say in public what you may be too chicken to say to them privately. Ahem. Hence this post.

So. This weekend at Sex::Tech I had these great moments with the above bunch of people, plus others whose name-dropping will make you jealous so I will refrain.

My role models, my heroes, are now my peers. And we all have grown into ourselves, channeled our voices in powerful ways. Still sometimes no one listens, but we keep talking and forging forward.

At the meal preceding the above picture, we were talking about all kinds of stuff, but I was so struck by this moment of us talking about advocacy, policy change, funding, community, and capacity building – these folks, who were and are outsiders, rabble rousers, and loud mouths, have evolved into something incredible, individually and collectively. We’re all grown up, and fucking shit up. That’s some role model action right there.

(More posts about role models on the way, I swear. They might be a little less fan girly though. It’s late, I’ve had to get up at 6 a.m. for six days in row, and also I’m swooning a bit about the awesomeness.)