Show wasn't in her district

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Show wasn’t in her district				February 9, 2008

I guess I should have seen it coming.

After a fairly quiescent beginning to her first term in the House of Delegates, Brenda Pogge (R-96^th) came down with a heavy dose of the vapors when she learned that the Sex Workers’ Art Show would parade its wares (or unwears) last Monday at William & Mary.

So incensed was the Pogger that she fired off a red hot chili pepper letter to college president Gene Nichol, demanding that he halt the show. Short of that, she threatened to marshal the local gendarmes, send them to the show and order them to peek-a-boo around the stage to make sure that no obscene body parts were being flopped out to an audience of sexually innocent, totally chaste college kids who knew nothing of Internet porn.

What Pogge hoped to gain by all this is anyone’s guess. I suppose she was frustrated to some degree by her lowly position in the House and bored to a greater degree by all that sloggy talk of budget shortfalls, abusive driver fees, mental health, payday loans, gun control, transportation and education.

Like manna from heaven, the sex workers descended upon her, and her political career was launched. Claiming that she was inundated by complaints from constituents opposed to the sex show, the Pogger embraced these blue nosed purveyors of profligate piety and made her move.

If that weren’t bad enough, another bunch of Shakespearean House wizards began stirring up a cauldron of promiscuous prudery and, declaring logic and common sense kaput, summoned prospective members of the college’s Board of Visitors up to Richmond for an inquisition about the sex show and other shameless activities of their irascibly satanic bete noire, Gene Nichol.

It is worth noting here that Williamsburg is not in Pogge’s district and that Bill Barlow, whose district does include the city, has had the good sense to leave this First Amendment issue up to the students and president of the college.

Furthermore, unable to penetrate the Poggeic logic was the fact that the state obscenity code upon which she based her opposition does not apply to universities. And with good reason.

As Nichol correctly pointed out, colleges and universities must be vigilant guardians of the assurances granted in the First Amendment.

Hence it was that, despite opposition from a restive community, the college fought for the right of former theatre and speech professor Howard Scammon to put on one of the racier plays of the Greek comedian Aristophanes. His “Lysistrata,” which is replete with blatant phallic symbols and earthy language, played to full houses, and the Williamsburg police did not intervene.

Somewhat later came a production of Peter Shaffer’s “Equus,” which features several nude scenes. Once again, there were no police wandering the aisles or fulminations from overly prudish politicians.

In Article 5 of the state code, obscenity is defined as “a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, excretory functions or sadomasochistic abuse that goes substantially beyond the customary limits of candor in description or representations of such matters, and which, taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

While the Sex Workers’ Art Show is not what you would consider high drama, it, like the sexually explicit plays of Aristophanes, is certainly not representative of a “shameful or morbid interest” in abusive perversions.

It is rather a frank portrayal and discussion of the fact that there always have been and always will be those, like prostitutes or strippers, who, for whatever reason, make a living in what is called the sex industry. Whether you approve of what they do or not, the fact is that the industry is booming.

Why it’s booming has been the subject of many a sociological study, but it’s safe to say that much of its success is related to an unhealthy suppression of and repugnance for anything that smacks of sex or sexual relations in what is the residue of a puritanical society. As we know from Genesis, the forbidden fruit is always that which is most enticing.

I have no idea whether the Sex Workers’ Art Show has artistic value. I suspect that the majority of college students who attended the show were just looking to have a good time. As an educational addendum, they may also have come away from the show with the realization that sex workers are not freaks out to make filthy lucre via the route of vile seduction.

As for the Pogger, her foray into censorship was unbecoming, if not an embarrassment to her constituents. While I understand that moving up the political ladder is difficult and time-consuming, the injection of her apparent prudery into an issue that should have been of no concern to her was pusillanimous and incredibly sophomoric.

In a speech delivered to the House earlier this week, Fairfax Republican Tim Hugo declared that William & Mary “is becoming a joke.” Given the unconscionably inane and puerile response of some House members to the sex show, one can conclude only that the joke is on them.