Comments on Quick Takes: Revised and Delayed GRE to Debut, New Version of Scholars' Pell Plan, Sex Show at William & Mary, UConn Won't Go to Dubai, Change at Blue Ridge CC, Ideas for Next President, American Fund Raisers in UK

• AAAARG!!!
• Posted by kgotthardt on February 21, 2007 at 8:35am EST

• Come on, William and Mary. I didn't think you were being unfair about the cross thing, but "art by sex workers"???? Let's give that some thought now, shall we? Endorsing sex and the degradation of (mostly) women as a viable, money making industry and then calling it art? And paying for it with student fees?? Nudes are art. Dildos used in "the profession" are not.

  If students want to see sex toys, get in the car and take a little trip to the local porn shop. But don't put it on my tax-paying tab! And please, refrain from calling it "art."

• this seems quite political
• Posted by Larry on February 21, 2007 at 9:56am EST

• kgotthardt, For better or worse this show does tour around and is usually treated as art. Secondly W&M appears to have deliberated about the value that this show would bring to the school. Nudity, dildos, and the like are all art depending on the context. In fact, this show is usually trying to make a political point (which isn’t necessarily endorsing sex work), so it is probably even more artistic than a simple pin-up. Indeed, the more political it is, the more protected it is by the first amendment.

  Also, I wonder if an exhibit about auto mechanics that illegally modify cars, in which their “tools” (e.g. socket wrenches) are displayed would make you just as angry.

  Finally, I am curious as to how you distinguish between paying a model to pose nude (which you say is not exploitation) and “degrading” women. Maybe the difference is in the context. Maybe your beef is not so much with the show itself, but with the arguments presented. In which case, perhaps you should set up your own show. If you get a major university to host it, I will attend.

• Why not "Art"?
• Posted by bp on February 21, 2007 at 9:57am EST

• Clearly, the use of a dildo in art does not relegate something to a bleach-soaked back room. Lots of very good art plays with and exceeds boundaries of sexual propriety, and that someone is a "sex worker" doesn't make her a second-class citizen with nothing to say or express. Why would it?

  Most importantly, the exhibit was paid for mostly by student fees. Never fear: your tax dollars are safely supporting "faith based initiatives" and wars of aggression. (would that I could mark a box on my tax return donating a portion of my measly refund to sex-worker art).

• What my alma mater's up to now...
• Posted by Proud alum of W&M on February 21, 2007 at 10:17am EST

• They're called "Student Activity Fees," NOT "Fees to Support Only Activities That You Agree With Or Suit Your Comfort Zone." I'll bet dollars to donuts that the list of events promoting conservative, "moral" causes & speakers paid for by SA Fees is far longer... those events just tend to get less hype on a largely conservative campus.

  If this show had come to campus when I was a student, I probably would have been too busy studying to have gone, but I fully support the College's decision to bring this show to campus. It's a liberal arts college -- presenting students with new and not necessarily comfortable experiences is exactly what it's supposed to be doing. And now I'm off to send an email of support to President Nichol, who can probably expect another petition from outraged alumni...

• W & M
• Posted by Douglas Lewis on February 21, 2007 at 11:06am EST

• From the Gazette article:
  'President Gene Nichol issued a statement Tuesday afternoon, perhaps hoping to preempt inevitable criticism tied to the Wren cross.
  "I don't like this kind of show and I don't like having it here," he said. "But it's not the practice and province of universities to censor or cancel performances because they are controversial."'
  The university does not canel the show because it's controversial; the university does remove the cross because t's controversial. Double standard.

• Posted by K.T. on February 21, 2007 at 11:06am EST

• Proud alum... I think much of the criticism comes from President Nichols assertion that the cross was removed from Wren Chapel to (in his words) "make the chapel welcoming to every member of [the] community." [As far as I know, he has not made a constitutional argument on the presence, or lack thereof, of the cross. His letter to the community makes no reference to such a Constitutional concern.]

  Yet, to hear silence on his and/or the administration's part on an event that is clearly offensive to many people demonstrates a fairly unitary perspective on what can/may be deemed offensive. It's the double standard that I am sure irks many, including myself.

  I am in 100% agreement that student activities fees (SAF) should fund all speech... we here at U.Va. had a Supreme Court case (Rosenberger) that sided with students using SAF to fund a Christian publication. If students are offended by any use of the SAF, they may receive a partial refund. I am offended by something most every day I walk around Grounds here (nevermind that I have no "right" not to be offended). But, President Nichols seems to only care about those things that offend his own sensibilities. There seems to be a lack of equity in his concern for creating a "welcoming" environment -- an end I am not even sure is appropriate to an intellectual community where the free exchange of ideas is always bound to offend someone.

• Yes, I am still ranting.
• Posted by kgotthardt on February 21, 2007 at 1:10pm EST

• Well, I knew I would take some heat for my heated comments, but yes, Larry, this particular topic DOES strike a nerve with me as a woman and as an appreciator of art. A woman carrying a gun-shaped dildo (or a dildo on a gun) says to me that women are and/or should be marginalized in the military, that they should be seen as sexual objects, that women themselves buy into the "cuteness" of a woman in uniform. Maybe this was not the message intended, but the "artists" should consider the audience at least a little bit. No doubt there are those in the audience who came to laugh, and to me, it's not a joke.

  My perception of women in the military is just the opposite: I see them as brave patriots, fighting external wars as well as gender based wars. I think images such as those described in the Gazette article reduce women in the military and indeed, all women, to the lowest sexual denominator. (Never mind that a dildo reduces a MAN to HIS lowest denominator.)

  As someone who loves art, I have written here before how I think there is a fine line between art that provokes thought and the "stuff" called art that is just called so because of its shock value. I would put this performance in the second category. Do I think paying to model nude is demeaning? As you point out, Larry, that depends on the context. If the person is not being devalued by posing, then to me, there's no issue. Nudity is natural. So is sex. Dildo guns are not.

  Finally, Larry, I don't think illegal forms of the wrench belittle or degrade mechanics, so no, I would not have such an issue with that kind of art. On the other hand, dildo-shaped wrenches or wrench-shaped dildos might be amusing, but I wouldn't call that art, either.

  BP, this has nothing to do with propriety. I'm not anti-dildo or anti-sex. I AM against women being degraded, however, and my personal opinion is that this kind of show does little to make a strong political statement, and lots to just use shock value to the detriment of women on the whole. It may be the show has good political intentions, but from the descriptions, I can't understand how it would not fail in living up to those intentions.

  I don't see this an an issue about free speech, either. If you want to mix metaphors of sex and war, sex and violence, that's your business. I, however, am against such a mix and have good reason to be, and I wouldn't endorse it. And, I resent paying for it, just as I would resent paying taxes to support politically-endorsed porn. What you do in your personal life is your business, but please, leave it there.

  From the Gazette article: "Jo Weldon shared her story of how a stripper job helped pay her way through college and graduate school." Oh, that sends a wonderful message to women. Not only are we marginalized in higher education and in industry, we should sell our bodies to pay for college. That's supposed to be art? How many people do you know would support slavery being marketed as art?

  If I were the college president, I would be asking the women's groups on campus to give this point of view some serious consideration and think about how they are really impacting their fellow women and how a show like this might affect the plight of women in the military, in academia, and in life. But that's just me.

• The Dildo and the Cross
• Posted by Robert Hollander , Prof. in Eurpean Lit., Emeritus at Princeton University on February 21, 2007 at 1:15pm EST

• Am I glad I tuned in today! This is hilarious stuff. I cannot think of a contemporary novelist daring and sharp enough (most seem only one or the other) to build this conflict into a fiction. I remember, when Princeton began playing William & Mary at football some years ago, how I would complain, when they beat us (as I recall, they did at least once), "No fair, we only had Princeton, but they showed up with both William and Mary." And now we have the spectacle of sex aids on display in use as part of the human experience and crosses hidden away as offensive. Welcome to the twenty-first century. Go William, go Mary! (But which is which?)

• W&M Controversy
• Posted by Jim Jones , W&M, '82, '86 on February 26, 2007 at 4:02pm EST

• The whole point of the issue is not the sex workers show and whether it is art or it isn't, and whether it is welcome at W&M. The entire debate began over the cross controversy; without the cross controversy, there would be no controversy over the sex show. The point is the hypocrisy of removing a cross from the oldest college chapel in America because it is "offensive" and unwelcoming, while doing nothing about a sex workers show and saying "it is not our place to censor something because it is controversial." That is the whole problem. Remove the cross on the basis of what appears to be a single complaint, but do nothing in the other case, thus upsetting over ten thousand people in order to please one potential applicant to the school. The problem should be obvious.