The winners of the inaugural Sexies, the sex positive journalism award, were announced last week. Awards were given out by format with categories including "features" "opinion" and "columns" as well as an award specifically for articles in sex themed publications. Some of the names on the list of winners will be familiar to people who seek out news and opinion about sexuality, but many won't; and I think this highlights one of the most important roles the awards can play.

Take for example the work of Jenna Bromberg and Alysha Rooks who write columns for their college newspapers (The Cornell Daily Sun and The University of Michigan Law School, respectively). With dozens (maybe hundreds?) of sex columns at colleges across the country how many of us have the time or patience to wade through them to find the gems? After reading their winning entries I now plan to follow what I hope will be a long career for both of them of dealing with sexuality in whatever they end up doing next as writers (or maybe in Alysha's case as a lawyer).

It would be nice if the Sexies organization was a little less insular (including one of their sponsors on the panel of judges doesn’t help with credibility) and I definitely don't agree with all the awards (for example giving first place in the "Features" category to Daniel Engber's well intentioned but condescending and convoluted piece about sex in nursing homes) but this year looks like a great start, and anyway, what's an awards event without debate?

Along with the other great source for sex positive writing, Cleis Press’Best Sex Writing series going into its fourth year, I’d say that things are looking up both for journalists who take the time to write well informed content and for those of us readers who crave it.

Read more – Sex Positive Journalism Award Winners Announced