“You do know your governor’s gay, don’t you?” Dan Savage said.

Two-hundred-and-something listening students reacted, some shifting in their seats, some nodding in agreement, most chuckling at the savage brashness of the question.

“I think most people in Florida are unaware or in denial,” Savage said about Crist’s homosexuality in a post-show interview in the Student Union Ballroom. Adding, “As [Crist] becomes more prominent, the secret will not be kept.”

Whether the audience came out to support the columnist or to listen to comedic outlooks on sex, they had opinion afterward.

“It wasn’t funny, it was just truthful with an air of hilarity,” UNF senior elementary education major Katie Meehan said.

A sex advice columnist for going on 18 years, Savage makes frequent appearances on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and has several published books on love and sex. He said he is openly homosexual and Catholic.

“It was a breath of fresh air to hear from a perspective different from the far Christian right that is typically represented in so many campus events,” Tony Rossodivito, a UNF senior history major, said.

Lessons about “Savage Love” were taught to UNF Sept. 24, during a Q & A with Savage and students. Jacksonville was the last stop on his tour, and questions ranged from gay marriage and Obama to finding your soul mate, as Savage conveyed his so-called “big, gay, butt-sex agenda.”

Answering a posed question about how to find one’s soul mate, Savage responded, “First of all, tell yourself there is no such thing. There is someone who you think is the one, and who you treat as the one … Every relationship in your life is going to fail – until one doesn’t.”

After the first anal sex question popped up, Savage mentioned he was impressed because his audience at USF was too sheepish to bring the topic up. He attributed USF avoiding the topic and UNF only bringing it up once to the fact that Floridians must already know everything about anal sex from having a gay governor, he said.

Savage and Terry, his boyfriend of 15 years, decided to adopt a son. In an excerpt from his book “The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family,” Savage opened up about the adoption process with his child’s homeless mother.

“You know what a broken heart looks like? Like a sobbing teenager handing over a two-day-old infant she can’t take care of to a couple she hopes can.”

Savage pointed out unjust laws in Florida, revealing that same-sex couples can foster a child, but they cannot provide the child security through adoption. This law leaves many capable homes childless and many parent-less children left to wander from foster home to home.

Savage said his upcoming HBO pilot based on his syndicated column “Savage Love” is currently being edited. An airing date has not yet been set.

The enlightening comedic advice session was sponsored by club PRIDE, a positive social network for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender and supportive heterosexual students, according to its mission statement.

So where is our sexual culture trending within the next 200 years? Simple.

“We are becoming more European and less Puritan,” Savage said.

Q&A

Q: What are your thoughts on ex-gays?

A: I hope there’s a question in here about unicorns … If being ex-gay means you’re not having gay sex, then I’ve been ex-gay the whole time I’ve been on this stage.

Q: Why are all the gay hot spots on the ghetto, project side of Jacksonville?

A: Zoning?

Q: What secrets can you tell your partner?

A: Don’t always tell the truth in relationships. Faking it long enough turns you into a better person. Some people don’t want to know everything. However, this isn’t a license for infidelity or putting your partner at risk.

Q: How do I come out to my [extremely religious] family?

A: Have a place to go, have friends to support you. Come out to them in a letter, over the phone. Sic your gay friends parents on them. Give them a year. If they don’t come around, have nothing to do with them.