Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday Novemeber 20, 2002
The 2002 Sex Worker Arts Festival has generated a lot more attention, both positive and negative, than was likely intended. From articles in the Arizona Daily Star to the lead story of last Thursday's "The O'Reilly Factor," the so-called sex fair, which began Thursday and continued through the weekend, has been accused of being in bad taste and lacking morality. In addition, the fair was supported in part by a $2,700 grant from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council, a publicly-funded organization.
Was the sex fair appropriate ÷ and if so, was it right to use tax dollars for it?
Government subsidies for the arts not out of line
It seems the Sex Worker Arts Festival in Tucson has drawn criticism from followers of the Christian right and taxpayer watchdog groups not only in Arizona, but across the country. While I do not support prostitution, I believe this festival should not be censored because it provides a much-needed forum for sexual entertainment and prostitution to be discussed openly.
But Arizona House Speaker Jim Weirs (R-Phoenix) is outraged that the UA would allow any part of this festival on its campus, and Lori Klein of the Taxpayer Protection Alliance claimed it was in bad taste for the Pima Arts Council to provide financial assistance because of the billion dollar budget deficit our state is facing. Public funding for the arts, although controversial, is not government gone wild. In fact, the United States spends by far the least per capita on the arts of all the world's developed nations.
Klein may not like this festival, but she quickly forgets that Van Gogh and Picasso were not wildly popular when they started out. If she needs to be outraged, why not complain about our state government's subsidy of dating services rather than this festival? Then, she should ask Weirs why he continues to spend billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing urban sprawl while he complains about a paltry $2,700 used to sponsor this event.
Kendrick Wilson is a political science sophomore. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
Working the state like a whore
It's really hard for liberals to understand why conservatives don't love and appreciate crack whores. So it's no surprise that they don't understand why many of the conservative persuasion weren't too thrilled with the recent Sex Festival here in Tucson.
Crack whores, liberals argue, are a truly loveable bunch. They're usually fashionably thin, don't eat much and don't really say much (except when they need more crack). It's also been said that those who prefer meth to crack are very clean. In fact, they'll clean your house all day long · over and over and over again, until it's so clean that you just want to throw up all over the place to make it dirty.
Perhaps the conservative message just isn't getting through. It is, after all, quite boring. The sex festival featured the author of a book "I Was a Teenage Dominatrix." If there was a Conservative Thinkers Festival, it might feature the author of a book titled "I Was a Responsible, Hard-Working, Family-Oriented Teenage College Student." Which book would attract more attention?
We now celebrate the absurd in our communities, with taxpayers' dollars. Oh, did they forget to tell you that part? It seems these sex workers found that working our government was more profitable than working the street corner.
Jason Winsky is a political science junior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
Reexamine assumptions about art
Premise: It is certainly the right, if not the duty, of a university to provide a forum for all types of discussion, whether or not they are academic, and especially if they are controversial.
Premise: Such a university does not need to seek permission from anyone to hold a controversial event on its campus, provided that no one is forced to participate against their will and, in the case of a public university, that the event isn't sponsored by the university.
Premise: Good art is often controversial.
Premise: Artwork, film and poetry about sex are controversial art.
Premise: The role of a city council on the arts is to encourage the recognition of art and artists, and to provoke debate in the community by funding art that may be taken as good, controversial, or both.
Conclusion: It was appropriate for the UA to allow the sex fair to hold two of its events on campus, especially since those two events were aimed at educating people about the sex industry in a very un-erotic way. Furthermore, it was appropriate for the city to fund the small portion of the fair it did ÷ an exhibition of serious art and poetry by sex workers aimed at showing that they are also artists.
The decisions of the UA and the city, while possibly counterintuitive, are, on closer inspection, downright logical.
Caitlin Hall is a biochemistry and philosophy sophomore. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
University not in business of censoring sex education
The Sex Fair was not sponsored by the UA ÷ instead, they utilized property on the campus grounds. This is the same opportunity that many other organizations are given, too. Sharon Kha, UA spokeswoman, said that the university does not censor what people say on campus. Like she said, it is a matter of free speech.
Acknowledgement of the sex industry is very different from promotion or denial. As a society, we are in denial because we all know it happens; it's just that no one wants to talk about it.
This kind of secrecy only continues to create fear about this subject instead of the truth about it.
The "Sex Slaves and the Truth about Trafficking" presentation at the Modern Languages building was done by two Ph.D. professionals discussing immigration and sex work in the last 30 years. This is more education for awareness than gratification for sexual pleasure.
The other workshop was a little more open-ended, discussing sexual spirituality in therapeutic practice. But on the issues of free speech, the university does not censor sex ÷ no matter how many eyebrows were raised when former pornography star Porshe Lynn lectured at Steward Observatory.
Mariam Durrani is a systems engineering senior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
A deserving outlet for tax dollars
There's always some sort of carping when people come out of their bedrooms and/or bondage dens to proclaim that, "Yes, I have sex, and I have sex however I damn well please or am forced by my mistress!" Usually, it's the Puritanical types who either still giggle at terms like "cloister" ÷ which is not a dirty word, but sounds pretty filthy, as in, "Everything was fine until they started to cloister, which spooked the goats" ÷ or feel guilt after they inadvertently enjoy something.
But this time, the anti-tax groups are hammering this, not because it's funded by taxes (note to anti-taxers: Go after the war! It's costing a lot more!), but because it's art that they don't fly with, and thus, it is an easy target. We have to pay taxes if we agree where they go or not. Hell, I'd pay next to nothing if I got to fund only what I agree with.
So, let people be people. The "monsoon" sculpture defiling the parking garage behind the Student Union cost $79,000, and it's at least as likely to make people nauseous as watching some guy have a high heel jabbed into his tender, whip-scored buttocks.
Anyway, this could save lives. Who knows the dangers of knobbed instruments when used in some horrifically delightful act of deviancy? Learn the safe way from experts.
Tylor Brand is a philosophy sophomore. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
Americans should choose sex over bombs
Make love, not war. Seriously.
There are two main arguments that can be raised over last weekend's sex fair. First, was it appropriate for the artistic and expressive festival to hold events on the UA campus? Second, and less importantly, should a small amount of tax dollars be used to fund the public event?
Too bad if fisting and lace make you uncomfortable. Any arts student will testify that there is a fine line between art and non-art. What do you want, some sort of art police? If learning more about the sex industry and innovative techniques does not ring your bell, then don't go. Simple as that.
Now as far as the tax dollar debate, it is ludicrous to bitch that a teeny-tiny fraction of your tax dollars were used to help put on this event. Bill O'Reilly could use his TV reign to constructively criticize where billions, not thousands, of our tax dollars go. Personally, I think that local Tucsonans should be up in arms that billions of hard-earned dollars go into perverse events such as bombing innocent Afghans and Iraqis, protecting corporate oil pipelines in Colombia, or sending U.S. weapons to Israel to crush Palestinians.
I would rather support the sex industry than the killing industry.
Jessica Lee is an environmental science senior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
