Posted on 11/14/2002 7:59:28 AM PST by H8DEMS
(CNSNews.com) - In Arizona, a public university and a state-funded arts council are co-sponsoring a "Sex Workers Arts Festival," which celebrates the cultural heritage of America's "erotic pioneers."
Beginning on Thursday, Nov. 14, the festival will provide University of Arizona students and faculty with the opportunity to attend an educational workshop co-hosted by Porsche Lynn, a professional dominatrix and former porn star. The workshop -- entitled "The Sacred Prostitute" -- will explore "spiritual sexuality in therapeutic practice." The workshop is taking place in the university's Steward Observatory Auditorium.
Across campus, a panel will discuss the topic "Sex Slaves and the Truth about Trafficking" in the university's modern languages building.
That event will be led by former prostitute Carol Leigh, who currently teaches "Prostitution 101" at San Francisco's Harvey Milk Institute, and Dr. Penelope Saunders, a former prostitute-turned-research-fellow at Columbia University's School of Public Health.
While university-hosted festival events are limited to panel discussions and lectures, off-campus events will include live demonstrations at various locations throughout the city of Tucson.
Las Sinfronteras, a community-based feminist arts organization, will host Tucson's "first ever" fisting workshop. Sex educator Merryl Sloane hopes her free seminar on "pleasuring your partner with your hands" will promote safe sex awareness to all who attend.
Sloane will also present an "educational" BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) workshop where those attending will receive basic instruction on the concepts and terms of "less-traditional sexualities." The event, which is open to those willing to buy a $20 ticket, will also feature live demonstrations of "rope bondage and flogging, paddling, and other kinds of controlled pain."
Wanda Poindexter, a spokesperson for the Tucson-Pima Arts Council, told CNSNews.com she didn't know anything about the Sex Workers Arts Festival, which her organization is co-sponsoring. However, she admitted that organizers of the festival could have applied to the state-funded arts council for event funding.
According to a report prepared by GuideStar, an online research tool that analyzes non-profit groups' finances, the Tucson-Pima Arts Council's stated mission is to "procure funding from local governmental agencies for promoting and fostering art and cultural activities in the City of Tucson and Pima County."
The report shows that TPAC received $1,167,471 in government grants for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2001.
"We're a conduit for money from the City of Tucson and Pima County," Poindexter said. But she emphasized that TPAC is not a direct sponsor of the event. "We're not putting it on," she said.
Juliana Piccillo, co-director of the Sex Worker Arts Festival, confirmed that TPAC provided "a couple thousand dollars" in funding for the event, but she refused to reveal the exact amount.
Piccillo said TPAC approved funding for the festival because the arts organization's grant writers recognize that the event is primarily focused on "art." Further, she said, the artwork on display is unique because it was created by sex workers who are mothers, students and artists.
"They do sex work as a way to finance staying at home with their children most of the time, getting an education or doing art," Piccillo said.
When CNSNews.com asked Piccillo to explain the cultural and artistic value that fisting and BDSM workshops hold for local taxpayers, she denied that those events are an official attraction of the Sex Worker Arts Festival and said they would not receive any of the TCAP funding.
However, she said the workshops would offer an important message to festival attendees. "It's a way of coming out of the closet and owning up to what we practice in private and taking some of the stigma away from it and the shame away from it," Piccillo said.
Regarding the Sex Worker Arts Festival's ties to the University of Arizona, Piccillo said an assistant professor of a graduate-level anthropology class reserved the space for the two panel discussions. That assistant professor - Ana Ortiz - also is a member of the university's Executive Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.
Piccillo expressed concern that CNSNews.com's coverage of this story "is just what some people would like to see, to use as ammunition to de-fund very important programs at the university."
"People at the university in women's studies and working with women's issues are under fire enough in the current budget situation here in Arizona," she said. "I don't want to see myself to be a part of that," she added. "I would sooner not have my event at the university than put anybody at risk there for doing the good scholarship that they're doing."
The University of Arizona apparently supports the "good scholarship" that Piccillo mentioned. University spokesperson Sharon Kha told CNSNews.com she sees no reason why the Sex Worker Arts Festival should be prevented from hosting events on campus.
"This country in general, and public universities in general, don't make advance judgments on what ideas it's okay to discuss," said Kha. "So, when that happens, you might find that you're exposed to a lot of ideas that make you uncomfortable or which are downright contrary to your own beliefs."
She said freedom of speech and freedom of expression at public universities across America are protected by law and not by any individual's personal beliefs; not by any rules or regulations of the university; and not by any policies of the board of regents.
Peter Likins, the president of the University of Arizona, says on the school's website that the university "strives for the highest degree of excellence possible in the discovery of new knowledge and new forms of expression, while providing its students and its wider communities with the best possible access to the fruits of those discoveries in ways that invigorate, empower, and inspire all its participants towards life-long learning."
I hear that Hillary,Donna Shalala and Madeline Notright will be the demonstrators for this workshop.
When I was in college, we didn't need a workshop like this. Everyone just seemed to get the hang of it....
Criminy sakes...
I've never been to San Francisco...
and this is just one more reason to avoid it like the plague.
Unfortunately, it's your tax dollars at work.
Separate state and education.
Then those who want to put on fisting conferences can look for the obviously widespread financial support for their perversion.
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