Holly Madison is not a ‘sex worker’ in ‘Peep Show’

My column in this morning's Review-Journal was probably read by tens of thousands of readers, if not hundreds of thousands of readers -- a guess I'm making based on the newspaper's adult readership statistics. And of all those readers, today, only one of them wrote me an extreme email about, of course, Holly Madison. I thought you might be interested to read her email below, and my response below that, because, well, why not?

Her email:

I am disgusted and angry enough to cancel my subscription over your infatuation and constant promotion of sex trade worker Holly Madison (yes,women who take off their clothes for money are sex trade workers);to wit "I saw Holly's naked boobs again this week,..." I have always read my daily newspaper cover to cover and this is the first place I have ever lived where I am considering dropping the newspaper in favor of online news.Believe it or not,there are still classy women out there who object to the constant barrage of shoving whores in our face as someone to be admired and aspired to: is that what you want for your daughter or wife? Please, take a cold shower and try to elevate your writing above the gutter.It is a constant struggle in this town to avoid the sex industry and it's attempts at elevation of it's porno stars to positions of respectability,ie "walk the red carpet" etc.Give me a break!

My email back to her:

I'm sorry you feel the way you do. The sentence you're objecting to was not meant to be taken wholly at face value. It was meant to reiterate exactly that Holly Madison is a star in no small measure because of her drive to disrobe publicly for commercial art, an objective but figurative comment on the economic and social culture of Las Vegas and the performers who take part in that culture. If you failed to read it that way, well maybe I partly failed to write more literally so every reader could get that point immediately. None of us is perfect in expressing himself or herself all the time, and that includes me.

I do disagree with the implication that all disrobing performers are sex workers, per se. Holly is a contemporary professional engaged in a long-exercised freedom of artistic expression by homo sapiens on planet Earth. I don't think she's a sex worker any more than the statues of David and Lady Justice are works of pornography. Of course, David is for the ages, and Holly may not be. But Holly's freedom to show herself publicly and safely on a stage in a city that expects it of her is and ought to be just as protected legally and ethically, as an expression of commercial art. It's not like she's performing copulation on stage, by any stretch of the imagination. To equate any sexually charged performance such as her's as sex work is to negate the very existence of human nature. Humans and animals are instilled with sexuality for good reasons, to populate and share a bond that fortifies us and, thus, the human race. To say then this involuntary trait should be shunned from public exposition is to deny for artist and financial expression the most basic physiological function -- an expression that carries back to the Greeks, the Romans, Shakespeare and untold numbers of master artists before and since. (By the way, there are also displays of violence and murder on stages in Las Vegas, at "Ka" and other productions. Would you call the performers in those shows violence workers?)

I ask you to consider:

- Was Lady Godiva a self-employed sex worker?

- Are the actors in a nude production of Shakespeare (which has happened) sex workers?

- Are nude actors in "Hair" sex workers?

- Are the mostly unclothed acrobats and aerial artists of "Zumanity" sex workers?

- Were the actors in Antonioni's 1966 film, "Blowup," sex workers?

- Were Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot sex workers in the 1950s and 1960s?

I would say no to all those questions. But that's me, exercising my own freedom to think for myself and speak out loud.

I can only imagine if you're opposed to the freedoms of Las Vegas, the freedoms exercised via skin for financial viability, you must be having a tough time here in a town that gleefully and famously refers to itself as "Sin City," partly as a means to appeal to people who are drawn to its freer and omnipresent commercial artistic and economic values, and partly as a warning to people such as yourself who are opposed to that brand of cultural and economic libertarianism. But I hope I'm wrong and you're enjoying the city for its warm, friendly locals and fine entertainment.

Above all, thank you for expressing yourself to me. I hope you're having a very happy Sunday.

-Doug