BYEUAN BEAR

an Bems, once the co-

owner of Industrial Ink &

Steel, a tattoo shop, was
recognized with an honorable

_ mention award at the United

Way’s “Hometown Hero” awards
in September. Bems earned the
award for his work on the Sex
with Dan program through
Outright Vermont. Bems’ recog-
nition garnered $1,000 for the
agency.

I Bems said he was sur-
prised by the nomination and
amazed that he won something.
That the something meant extra
money for Outright was “the
best.”

The once-a-month _pro-
gram has Bems talking frankly
with sexually active youth about

how to reduce their risk of infec-
tion with the I-HV virus and pre-
vention and harm reduction with
regard to other risky behaviors
and sexually transmitted diseases.
Bems, who is open about his
own HIV-positive status, said he
thinks it is that and his experi-
ence that the youth are open to.
“It’s all about communication,”
he said. “Without communica-
tion, you don’t have a positive
relationship.” He linked
increased communication and the
development of responsibility.
Lluvia Mulvaney- ,
Stanak, co-director of Outright
Vermont, heard about the United
Way’s program and “we decided
to take a stab at nominating
Dan,” even though Outright is
not funded through the agency.
“We just wanted to do everything
we could to acknowledge him on

 

    Hometown H
United Wy Rcognizes ‘ex ith Da’ Volunteer 3 a

0 behalf of all the youth he’s had

an impact on in the now almost
two years of the program. We
used the name of the program,-
‘Sex with Dan,’ extensively
throughout the nomination
papers,” Mulvaney-Stanak said.
“There were 50-60 nom-
inations and awards in five cate-
gories. Because there were so
many great nominations, they
decided to open up two honor-
able mentions,” Mulvaney-
Stanak explained. “It was sweet
to hear the person from the i
United Way read out in ‘front of
400 people who work with
United Way the honorable men-
tions and say ‘Sex with Dan.’”
Mulvaney-Stanak

declared that it would be hard to
overstate “what Dan has done for
Outright and the youth here. He
breaks down the stigmas attached

to being queer, being sexual
however they do that. He’s giv,-
ing the youth a kind of positive
sex ed that they get nowhere else.
There’s nowhere that youth can
experience positive regard for
being queer or learn how to be
positive about sex, self-affnming
and self-advoC,ating.”,

And while critics may
blanch at the name of the pro-
gram, “it’s the title that gets the
youth here,” Mulvaney-Stanak
insisted.

Bems recalled a time
when he and his partner were at a
performance at the Flynn Center
and he was approached by a
woman. ‘“You don’t know me,’
she said, ‘but we talked about
flowers at City Market this, after-
noon. My son is a different per-
son because of your program.
You have changed his life for the

 

   

 

better. You don’t know the

impact you have on these kids.’’’ .

The shaven-headed,
bearded, tattooed man lit up
inside as he spoke of helping
kids figure out how to talk about
safer sex. “It was amazing how
much these kids knew, and how
much they thought they knew.
Sometimes they taught me some-
thing, figured out how to make
an activity safer, something that
was new to me.” The number of
.youth at any given discussion
ranged from a low of four to a
high of 40, averaging 10-25.

When Bems was hospi-
talized for several months last
winter, the Outright youth sent
him a huge construction-paper
heart with a rainbow of condoms
taped to it. Inside, surrounded by
signatures, was the message, “We
miss having ‘SEX’ with you!” V