The Chronicle

February 12th, 2008

Sex Workers’ Art Show sparks controversy

At Duke, the disapproval of last week’s appearance of the Sex Workers’ Art Show didn’t seem to be a sentiment commonly shared within the student body—most undergraduates weren’t even aware any drama had occurred.

Annie Oakley, the founder of the show, said a miniscule faction of the students fueled much of the storm, naming senior Ken Larrey as one of the main instigators. Larrey, the founder of Duke Students for an Ethical Duke, gained the support of Jay Schalin from the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, according to Ruth Sheehan’s Feb. 6 opinion column in The (Raleigh) News & Observer, “Duke shows it’s clueless.”
“[Larrey is] out to cause controversy and went to the show with the intention of being offended,” Oakley said. “As far as I’m aware, there’s no one else who went and was offended except for those two.”

Junior Martha Brucato, a member of the Healthy Devil peer educators group Duke Educational Leaders in Sexual Health and the primary student coordinator for the event, said she was frustrated with the recent media fallout.

“I’m very disappointed about the outside media coming in and judging our campus without going any deeper,” Brucato said. “The tour has existed for half a decade and there’s only media controversy about it now because it came to Duke and because people are so interested in the juxtaposition between the lacrosse case and this show happening on campus.”

When he spoke to The Chronicle regarding this issue, Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, called the controversy “exaggerated” and asked whether any students had been overheard talking about the show on buses, at dinner or around campus in general.

Is this true, or are Duke students simply being overlooked?

“I hadn’t even heard about any controversy,” freshman Katherine Zhukovsky said. “I talked about [the show] a little bit afterwards and some people had heard of it, but most people had no idea what it was at all.”
-Tina Mao

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