Sex Workers’ Art Show Comes to Mason

By Connect Mason Reporter Rachael Dickson
Photo courtesy of SexWorkersArtShow.com

Despite funding cuts and controversy, The Feminist Ninjas will bring the Sex Workers’ Art Show to George Mason University’s Fairfax campus this Tuesday.

Annie Oakley has directed the show since its inception 11 years ago in Olympia, Washington, where it grew out of her own frustration towards the responses she received from her friends upon telling them of her job in the sex industry. This is the show’s 6th annual tour.

“To put it generally, the show is to demystify sex workers,” Oakley said. “The sex industry is a really huge industry with millions of people in the US working in it but we’re mostly not allowed a voice in mainstream industry. Sex workers are considered inhuman or nymphomaniacs or drug addicts or too stupid to do anything else. The goal is to show sex workers as multi-faceted, in an effort to humanize us.”

The show is set up in cabaret format, with a number of short acts performed in different mediums. Oakley said that these acts all have different moods and perspectives, with writers doing straight-up readings of their work, burlesque performers performing political burlesque, monologues, musical theater pieces and multimedia performances.

As to the content of the show itself, Oakley says that the show can be altered according to its venue.

“We have had to censor the shows according to the needs of each school. There are acts where people have been topless, with or without pasties. There is never a straight-out strip tease,” Oakley said. “There’s not really anything that you couldn’t fucking see in a PG-13 movie.”

Oakley said she did not know if nudity would be allowed in the George Mason show or not.

“I got contacted by the show the second week of January,” Feminist Ninja member Whitney Gecker said. “Right away, that cut my options for student funding.”

Gecker went to a few of the campus offices for help. The Women’s Studies Research & Resource Center and Student Health Services were originally planning on helping sponsor the Mason event, but had to change their plans this past week when they heard word of potential consequences that might occur if a campus office helped financially support the event. According to an e-mail sent out by Gecker, this consequence could be the potential cutting of funding from the state to Mason.

“It’s hard to figure out how we support the students who want to do it, without incurring perhaps broad-reaching, unintended on our part, consequences,” Dr. Nancy Hanrahan, the Director of the Women's Studies program said. “The best thing to do is what other universities have done. The event has gone through as a student event.”

The Women’s Center is only providing emotional support at this point, without any funding or backing for the event.
“We have been legally advised, and I think I have to honor that, that this should be a student event,” Hanrahan said. “The message came across to us pretty clearly that this might have consequences far beyond what we might intend. And we needed to be mindful of that.”

With the funding cut from the show, the only funding now will come from the sale of $5 admission tickets. Gecker said that even if all the seats in the JC Cinema were filled, only $1500 of the $2800 fee the show normally charges could be raised. The show has agreed to take on a financial loss to come to Mason, according to Gecker.

According to Oakley, the controversy surrounding the show’s appearance at universities had not occurred elsewhere.

“Virginia is the only state where this is happening,” Oakley said. “What’s been happening here is incredibly disgusting and unprecedented in 6 years of touring and after touring this show on over a hundred college campuses.”

The show also recently caused controversy at other schools in the state. College president Gene Nichol tried to encourage students to hold the event at an off-campus venue, but ultimately allowed it to stay on campus due to first amendment rights.

"My views and the views of others in the community about the worth or offensiveness of the program can provide no basis for censoring it," Nichol said in an InRich.com article. "Censorship has no place at a great university."

“The shows have been [at William and Mary] two years in the past without any incidents of obscenity- the sky didn’t fall,” Oakley said. “For some reason, the right wing in Virginia has taken the show on as a personal crusade. You can read a lot of things on the Internet about us and the show calling us immoral and perverts and deviants, saying that our show causes people to rape each other.”

Oakley also says that she has not been contacted by many of the media outlets covering the show.

“For all of the hundreds and hundreds of blog posts and articles in various newspapers and TV spots, I’ve been contacted by maybe five or six Virginia news organizations,” Oakley said. “The legislature has never contacted me to find out what’s in the show. A college administration has never spoken directly to me. It seems both intellectually irresponsible and irresponsible for what their jobs are.”

According to the Virginia Gazette, Del. Brenda Pogge (R-96th) sent a letter to Nichol on Friday asking him to stop Monday’s show at William and Mary and has also asked that city police attend the show to determine if the show violates a state obscenity statue.

According to the article, Pogge wrote in the letter, “I have received more calls and e-mails regarding this performance than any other in my brief tenure as delegate. They have been universally opposed to this performance. I believe that a show of this nature definitely violates the standard of decency that the citizens of this area uphold and wish to maintain.”

“It’s disgusting,” Oakley called the reaction to the show. “It’s beyond me. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

In addition, the tour will not be stopping at VCU, despite previous plans. According to the same Virginia Gazette article, VCU’s associate vice provost and dean of Student Affairs Reuben Rodriguez, said the cancellation was because the tour failed to contact officials in a timely manner.

The Sex Worker’s Art Show will take place Tuesday Feb. 5, at 5 p.m. in the J.C. Cinema. Tickets will cost $5.