UCSD and Art

From the UCSD Literature department comes this email (tip of the hat to Bob C., one of my readers, who forwarded this email to me):

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:40:53 -0800 ( PST)

From: “UCSD Literature Dept.” <ucsd-flyers-relay@ucsd.edu>

To: “UCSD Flyers” <ucsd-flyers-dist@ucsd.edu>

Subject: Dept. of Lit - Sex Workers' Art Show This Thursday

Errors-To: ucsd-flyers-errors@ucsd.edu

Sender: ucsd-flyers-relay@ucsd.edu

Department of Literature and the T.M.I. Queer and Feminist

Performance Show

Sex Workers' Art Show

Thursday, February 16, 2006

7:30 PM

UCSD Price Center Theater

admission: $7 - $25, sliding scale

(no one turned away for lack of funds)

The Sex Workers' Art Show Tour is coming to San Diego!!! The show is an eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people who work in the sex industry to dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses!

The wildly successful cabaret-style show is hitting the road again, bringing audiences a blend of spoken word, music, burlesque, and multimedia performance art; as well as a visual art display that travels with the show. The artwork and performances offer a wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitution and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry.

This year’s incredible lineup of performers includes acclaimed Whitney Biennial artist and burlesque performer Julie Atlas Muz; iconic queer writer and author of The Chelsea Whistle Michelle Tea; hip-hop poet Juba Kalamka; foremother of the prostitutes' rights movement Scarlot Harlot; artistic director of the only existing Black burlesque troupe Harlem Shake, Simone de la Getto; filmmaker and performance artist Bridget Irish; writer and feminist smut purveyor Tralala Farsi Sentiamo; and tour founder and ringmaster Annie Oakley. Visual artists include infamous camgirl and artist Ana Voog and activist and filmmaker Teresa Dulce.

The show includes people from all areas of the sex industry: strippers, prostitutes, dommes, film stars, phone sex operators, internet models, etc. It smashes traditional stereotypes and moves beyond positive and negative into a fuller articulation of the complicated ways sex workers experience their jobs and their lives. The Sex Workers' Art Show entertains, arouses, and amazes while simultaneously offering scathing and insightful commentary on notions of class, gender, labor, and sexuality!

For more information or to schedule interviews, please visit www.sexworkersartshow.com, or email Annie Oakley at annie@sexworkersartshow.com.

Sponsored by T.M.I. Queer and Feminist Performance Show and UCSD Dept of Literature

Annie Oakley doesn’t need a gun. She’s armed with fierce creativity, political passion, big brains and exquisite sexiness. As the Sex Workers' Art Show’s director, Oakley leads a brilliant crew who serves up whore culture at its most delicious and satisfying.

-Annie Sprinkle, Phd

The Sex Workers' Art Show is not simply a display of those in the sex industry… but an active force in articulating, shaping, and contesting the meaning of the identity sex worker in the public sphere.

-Theatre Journal

What in the world is the University of California, San Diego (USCD) thinking? With all the serious subjects in the world that they could address, they choose this?

One could easily question the taste or propriety of this event, but never mind those. What frosts me is the notion that taxpayer dollars are being used to promote (and subsidize, I’d wager) this show, in the name of studying “literature”. Do you believe our tax dollars should be used to educate students on a “…wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitution and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry."? Do you believe our students need such an education — our would they be more likely to educate their teachers?

Lest you think this is a hoax, you can read all about this on UCSD’s web site. And you can also read all about the show itself on their web site.

I’ll just add this to the (long) list of reasons to worry about this country’s educational system. While our students study the finer points of the physics of tassle-twirling, other students will be studying mathematics, non-tassle-twirling physics, and perhaps even Steinbeck or Hemingway. That would be the students in those countries who will compete with us for economic leadership in the future. Who knows — maybe the U.S. can take over leadership in the sex industry? Come to think of it, that might be a significant economic sector!