Director's message - 2005 

Welcome to the National Sexuality Resource Center.

In a time of media hype and uncertainty about sexuality, with claims and exaggerations about sex and gender common, NSRC provides accurate, balanced, evidence-based information—a steady voice for academics, advocates, and the public.

As director of the NSRC and an anthropologist, I am honored to work with colleagues from the Program in Human Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University, our home base, as well as other academic centers nationwide. We seek to transform research and community needs into the pages of our electronic magazine, American Sexuality, and our peer-reviewed Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of NSRC. We strive to keep our voice free and independent of bias and accessible to a diverse public. We also work with key partners in Africa, Asia, and South America as part of the Ford Foundation-funded network of sexuality resource centers to address the critical challenges to sexual health and well-being in our time.

During this past year the government and media espoused rhetoric of fear. Along with the fear of terrorism, fear of sexuality was tossed into the mix and became highly visible—notably, fear of the right to marry (“gay marriage”) and fear of expanded reproductive rights. Sexuality has repeatedly been depicted as dangerous and powerful, a “threat” to “moral values.”

Such use of “fear” is effective in shutting off dialogue in a democracy—a danger to free-thinking people. Alas, in this case the claims are nonsense! Sexuality is part of human development and will always be part of human nature. The voice of wisdom cautions against passive acceptance of these negative emotions and fear-loaded representations of sexuality.

NSRC remains concerned about the continuing exaggeration of sexuality and we will consistently analyze representations of sexuality during the coming year. Whatever threatens to undermine open and free debate and discussion profoundly concerns us.

Our work on sexual literacy addresses these concerns. This year NSRC is proud to launch a long-term project—an online national sexual literacy campaign to increase sexual wellness in the United States. It aims to increase understanding and thus counter negative representations and distortions of sexuality. The face of this campaign will be found in new and expanded sections of NSRC’s website. You will find exciting and significant venues, such as a quiz, new articles, selected stories and tools to advance sexual wellness.

American Sexuality magazine will provide significant coverage of sexual wellness, sexuality in the media, and the role of religion in sexuality. Sexuality Research and Social Policy will provide original new articles on sexuality and adolescence, HIV and sexuality research, sexuality and mental health, marriage equality, and abstinence-only sex education.

In addition, our training program will offer enhanced opportunities for sexual literacy in the coming year—a major international conference in June, and our annual NSRC Summer Institute on Sexuality, Society and Health in June-July.

The international conference is the 5th bi-annual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society on sexual rights and moral panics. What is a moral panic? In 2004 newspapers blared front-page stories on abortion rights, marriage equality, and abstinence-only sex education, not to mention the now infamous episode on national television in which a female celebrity’s breast was revealed on primetime! Each of these controversies might be called a moral panic, defined by sociologist Stanley Cohen as “a condition, episode, person or group of persons (that) emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.”

The conference will bring internationally prominent speakers and experts to San Francisco to probe such issues as sexual and reproductive rights, HIV and the African American community, religious fundamentalism and sexuality, marriage equality, and sexuality education and moral panics.

We also invite you to sign up for our annual Summer Institute that immediately follows the conference. The Summer Institute is open to one and all interested in issues of sexual theory and research methodology, sexual health and well-being, and sexuality and moral panics. For one month you will be treated to a feast of lectures, workshops, and in-depth courses. You will participate in conversations with world-class scholars and hear debates about the timely needs of communities and national controversies of the day.

“May you live in exciting times,” the ancient proverb goes, and this coming year is shaping up to be a banner for NSRC. Please join our growing intellectual community and contribute your voice to the effort to increase sexual literacy in the United States and around the world!

-Gilbert Herdt