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Lady Mekaella received a humanities certificates from both Harvard & The Smithsonian Institute, while topless with a bottle of wine and a cat in her lap. She's a traveling showgirl known as Florida's Naked Nerd.  She's now working on her second certification class for historians from Harvard via online classes during Covid19 shutdowns.

"What, Like It's Hard?" - Elle Woods

Fosta: modern raids in era of internet censorship

1/1/2021

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In July of 2018, two bills changed the internet, specifically Social Media on the internet, forever. Both bills,  the House bill known as FOSTA, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and the Senate bill, SESTA, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. Both FOSTA and SESTA where meant as advocacy steps for victims of Sex trafficking, a valid cause. But FOSTA specifically was problematic and targeted Sex Workers, entertainers, cosplayers and more. It is a modern Vice squad patrolling the internet, flagging content left and right. The bills meant website publishers, the platform owners,  would be responsible if third parties are found to be posting ads for prostitution, iincluding consensual sex work, on their platforms. Because of the sweeping language in the problematic bills, numerous online platforms took action to censor or ban parts and installed algorithms to flag content on their platforms in response, Not just to cover their bottom lines, but because it was easier and less expensive than to be better moderators. This included shadowbanning: Shadowbanning is an obfuscated, internal process that prevents certain accounts from showing up in a feed, or prevents their handle, hashtag or phrases from being searchable, and is routinely used against female listed user accounts more aggressively than male user accounts. 
Many sex workers have argued that, in practice, the impact of anti-trafficking laws is opposite to their stated intent. This is noted in Erased: The Impact of FOSTA-SESTA, a 53-page study penned by sex workers’ rights tech collective Hacking//Hustling. The study features physical sex workers and internet based sex workers. Many platforms prior to FOSTA were resources, one of the many benefits of this is the ability to negotiate with clients, and use safety practices regarding clients. Resources pre FOSTA helped market services, set boundaries and vet potential clients. This is common from dominatrixes meeting their new clients, to cosplayers booking a photoshoot with a local photographer. With FOSTA shutting down and shadowbanning these resources and tools, all have fewer advanced safety precautions in place, no ability to effectively pre-screen clients, and no way to ensure that they work in safe, secure locations. This essentially how women and trans people get killed. According to the Erased study 33.8% of the sex workers interviewed reported an increase in violent client experiences after FOSTA/SESTA. For sex workers specifically,online platforms can allow them to advertise independently, screen clients more thoroughly, and build community with other sex workers. A whisper network of bad clients who were abusive, or a list of unsafe spaces to shoot content at, now unavailable. Several studies can be found about Sex workers experiences from Backpage shut downs in 2017 due tot he lawsuit that lead to the dawning of FOSTA era. I highly encourage you to read those when you finish this.
But for specifically Strippers, Burlesque showgirls and entertaining artists that use Social media and other platforms for content based income or advertising, if we focus the camera lens, we see it’s the modern day minsky raid in the virtual world. Shadowbanning and auto algorithms that flag content are the latest addition to plague artists online. A prime example is when Patreon, a subscription service where content creators can monetize from their following, decided to be family friendly only, and installed algorithms that scanned public, not private, set content for “sexual content or suggestive content.” Which resulted in erotic novel authors, sex educator podcasts, models and cosplayers all getting flagged, their accounts frozen, and income put on hold, or content removed without notice.  Myself and other performers tested this within the weeks it was particularly pesky. We posted images and content with keywords around female entertainment, and only the female accounts were affected. A male presenting body posing shirtless in a swimsuit was not flagged or shadowbanned. A Swimsuit based cosplay photo was flagged as inappropriate & sexual before any fans or followers had the chance to even see it. The auto algorithm seems to scan images and the first 15 seconds of video content for defined femme presenting forms and skin. Which meant swimwear, lingerie, and even artistic nudes where a no go. A similar algorith is used on tiktok where plus size or larger breasted femme presenting users where getting their content removed and flagged before receiving any confirmed views, because it particularly tarkets flesh coloured patterns of the female form. Which disproportionately targets people of size, which silences their art, while thinner counterparts make content less likely to get flagged with the same exact content and quality level.  In facebook and instagram a photo of a a fat femme presenting body in a self celebratory post about feeling confident in a new dress or outfit, is more likely to get reported or flagged if the body is clearly defined, than the likelihood of the slutshaming, body shaming or sexual harassment comments.
So from popular hashtags on instagram, to images and video content being flagged and removed, SW artists everywhere where being silenced and frozen out. Some paypal accounts were frozen for “Suspicious Sexual Activity” for artists selling digital content. Some burlesque artists where being placed into “Facebook Jail” a virtual time out, for being in images of them tassel twirling online, thus losing valuable marketing time for upcoming productions. Pole dancers and Strippers were being locked out of instagram, unable to share with their clients and fans where to see them live next, because they posted a video of them in tight workout clothes while warming up on the pole. Sex educators where being blocked out of their gmail because their google drive had documents used for their research. This had been foreseen, the muggles had been warned, but no one listened to us. No one heard our cries until comic book artists, popular cosplayers, fan fiction writers, and the more “acceptable artists” were finally being effected long after millions of dollars for Strippers, burlesque showgirls, dominatrixes, and other SW had already been lost. Taxed dollars of independent contractors internationally. Platforms used by mainstream audiences, like Reddit, Kofi, Patreon, Twitter, & Craigslist,  deleted content before the law had even been signed.Thankfully new platforms sprung up where there was need like Switter, Just.ForFans & Only Fans. These platforms where built up under the guise of being by sex workers for sex workers, but also welcomed tamer arts and content creators as well. Despite this the Erased survey reported that still  72.5% of online respondents are facing increased economic instability after April 2018, when both bills went into full fledged effect. 99% of the Erased online respondents reported that this law does not make them feel safer. But are we surprised? No, why would rich, white men in suits deciding laws based on antiquated ideals of “christain morals” surprise the very sex workers excluded from the conversation about them? They never do.

I posted online a research survey of my own to see how others where experiencing this beyond my social circle of dominatrixes, strippers, burlesque & cosplayers & sex educators, mostly queer & cis women. I left the survey open to the public and let it travel as far as it could go on social media platforms as well as a link on my blog. I gave surveyors the option to be anonymous or credited. I got back quite the response and I wasn't expecting it, frankly. 
The glory of the internet for research and gathering data is that with one simple link and access to social media you can release a survey into the world and it will accumulate and swell with information without much monitoring. One can issue it into the world, get up and go make a cup of coffee, read a that book you keep putting aside, binge watch a streaming series, write chapters on other parts of your unsung slut manifesto, order new lingerie while steeping tea, and then return to the still incoming data and watch it rise like a loaf of pandemic bread in the oven. The simplicity was lovely, but the true beauty of it was hearing voices of fellow sex workers & performers I had never even met before, or that I have even worked with but opened up about their own struggles in the questionnaire part of my survey. Voices pouring in from all over the country. The staggering numbers & words of frustrations echoing in the soft blue light of my laptop screen in the darkness of my small apartment.

     The safety of the anonymity option of the survey had granted me access to the most silenced among us. The fact that I knew when it was shared and spread via social media there was a comfort in knowing “This is from one of our own, not just random psychology student looking to profit a grade off their thesis that shames us, this is safe” after a glimpse at my profile and the caption to the link. I wanted the survey to be a safe space. And with those two things came raw honesty that rang with annoyance, frustration, dismay & even exhaustion, at how FOSTA/SESTA & systemic misogyny in online policies had hindered lives. 
Women & Femme Presenting bodies are policed online now more than ever before, where even male content creators are taking note. “There is a huge double standard when it comes to what Femme presenting performers face compared to Masculine ones. As a cis-male, I can literally post nudes (not full frontal) online with no consequences where one of my femme colleagues will instantly be banned.” Said Matt Finish, Burlesque artists, model & content creator online. Matt Finish has art and content on multiple platforms, like facebook & Instagram, as well as the 2015 winner of Mr Exotic World for the Burlesque Hall of Fame & a routinely applauded performer in the Burlesque Top 50 by 21st Century Burlesque Magazine. He regularly notices and hears the frustrations of his femme colleagues in his industries as they struggle to market shows, post flyers, sell merch, and all the roadblocks faced, that he does not experience as they do. The internet is different for different bodies, and the survey solidified that even more.
53.8% of those surveyed were thirty to forty years old, with 19.2% in their sixties or older. 26.9% were between the ages of twenty five and thirty. 53.8% Identified as Women, 26.9% Identified as Men, and 19.1% Identified as Non Binary & other options written in. Many had overlapping careers in multiple categories, 80.8% were performing artists of some kind, from Burlesque to Drag. 61.5% were in the sex work industry from web work to in person. 3.8% where sex educators and even writers in the sex industry. 53.8% were visual artists from painters, seamstresses, to cosplayers & even cosplay photographers.
All of them used social media and internet platforms for their careers. Never before in research had I seen an eclectic group of diverse people have a pure 100% in an answer result. 57.7% of surveyors answered yes when asked “Is this your main source of Income?” When inquired about their most used platforms the results varied from Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pornhub, Ko-FI, Reddit, Instagram, Craigslist, Discord, to Adam4adam, fetlife, whatsapp, kik, behance, onlyfans, patreon & slasher. Some even listed their use of Backpage & Tumblr before massive sweeping changes happened. 

72% of all surveyed had one or more of these platforms affected by FOSTA/SESTA. 92.3% had been shadowbanned on a platform, 92% had experienced being blocked, with posts canceled or removed or had their account withheld for “Sexual Content” issues. 3.8% where unsure & 3.8% reported no, they had not experienced this. That last 3.8% all identified as Male at the beginning of the survey. 
50% of all surveyed have lost income due to FOSTA/SESTA. Per incident, 64.7% report losing $100-500 of income. 29.4% lost $500-1000 per incident. 5.9% of those surveyed lost up to an estimated $1500 per incident. When asked how much they think they lose per year due to FOSTA/SESTA related issues, 17.6% claim to lose around 10k.
7.7% of those surveyed felt comfortable enough to share if they had ever been arrested for indecent exposure offline in real life. 12% of them had also experienced a raid or an arrest while in a performing situation, whether in a stripclub or other settings. Some commented anonymously they felt the emotional equivalent of the stress of these experiences was comparable to online forms of over restriction.
Those impacted are also mostly minorities, when asked about identities the results were so diverse and showed how marginalized those affected are. 84.6% identified as LGBTQ+, 11.5% POC, 3.8% BIPOC, 7.7% Romani, 38.5% identified as Plus Size of Fat. When asked if they experienced additional prejudice for these identities on this subject, 32% resulted in “Yes.

The week of FOSTAs implementation so many sites had sweeping changes and overnight accounts where frozen, posts where autofalgged by algorithms that recognized femme bodies in images or phrases in captions or innocent hashtags about bodypositivity and womensbodies and removed. Erotic fanfiction writers lost access to their patreon followers, foot models lost a weeks worth of work in paypals frozen limbo for solicitation,  sex educators had activists lost their tumblr pages of years worth of content and thousands of followers, dominatrixes lost entire websites that allow them to vette clients for saftey measures, Cosplayers with poolside selfies of their hand sewn anime bikinis lost their instagram accounts, pinups & entertainers saw reachability decline rapidly to seeing that their own fans had no visibility of any of the posts, workout videos of strippers teaching stretches for their pole videos where blocked from posting in 30 day wait times. All to prevent femme bodies from being seen to those who saught them out consentually. With plus sized bodies  & BIPOC bodies getting hit the hardest due to algorithms making them more marginalized. The steps taken by policies to police femme presenting bodies online is not only harmful but undeniably draconian. The safety and financial security of those affected are put into jeopardy. All over the internet the femme body was on a pedastle but the pedastle was a cage, and elderly white men in suits in the comfort of their senate, held the key in their pens. They had signed away these humans autonomy and flexibility on the internet, with one piece of legislation. And platforms not eager to be held accountable for the law breaking of users, found it easier to punish, oppress and silence. 

That was FOSTA/SESTA...I wrote this chapter for my book before 2020 was in full swing and 
SISEA was even presented as a proposal. Now we have a new threat. One that makes FOSTA feel like a soft opening of a more sweeping legsliation that will hurt all artists and content makers, not just Sex Workers and entertainers. 



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World's Faire Not So Fair, for showgirls arrested

7/22/2020

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In the very early 20th century two things drew spectacle: The New York World's Fair & scandal in the press.  The World's Fair was the height of excitement featuring exhibitions and showcases in the international eye, including vaudeville acts, particularly burlesque. From Sally Rands famous fan dance to the belly dancing of “Little Egypt.” (Sally Rand herself was arrested for her fandance at the Chicago world's fair in 1933 herself, but tonight we are in New York. )
But over zealous censors really had it out for the entertainment area of the New York World's Fair, which resulted in multiple raids. Including Joan Vickers & Fay Krop, two showgirls arrested backstage during their performance at "Congress of Beauty" & the popular "frozen alive" show.  The reason for the raid in the first place? Inspector Mooney was sent by Mayor LaGuardia, upon the requests of religious leaders who had attended past performances and where so offended by entertaining women in both sets of acts that they wrote letters., demanding action.  The Rev. George Drew Egbert (yes, Egbert, even his name sounds like his life is so dull and drab he goes LOOKING for art to silence for sport. One can assume if he didn't have the hobby of censoring women he'd have the DMV for a personality) wrote that he found the burlesque acts "disgustingly revolting" after himself and another Minister went actively looking for nudity on Thursday night and witnessed the frivolity and fun of vaudeville. This resulted in the women being arrested for indecent exposure Monday during a weekday performance. ​

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This resulted in some papers printing the addresses and real names of the showgirls, an unfortunate common practice at the time, placing them in potential danger. Both women where released on bail, so when they returned to performing it resulted in large crowds and continued bookings. 
But the press also resulted in getting License Commissioner Paul Moss involved and aiding for the performances to continue, in which he and a judge attended a show to see if it violated the law. Suggestions for minor changes where made, but the productions where approved to resume with those changes, a brand new license to produce each act for the businessmen in charge and the girls could get back to work.  Joan with her fan dancing act, and Fay could throw back on her g-string and hop back into the ice. Both showgirls had a bail of $500. Today that would be $9,273.27 a total of $18,546.55. 
81 years later, we thank Fay & Joan for their nights in jail, their tolerance of police interference, & their bravery for what we have as showgirls today. One can only hope that ones "released on bail" press photo can be as sassy as theirs.  
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“There is a price that you may pay for your art”

7/18/2020

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Lottie Ellington,
Virginia’s Infamous “Twerking Teacher”
A Contemporary Burlesque Interview

Often we assume the censoring of women's bodies in burlesque is of days gone by, but in my book & research I have  personally interviewed plenty of currently working showgirls & showpersons to display a contemporary glimpse at the current environment we dance in, whether in burlesque or stripclubs, and the stigma and issues we face, and what we pay to be our true selves in the industry. 
Bellow is an excerpt from an interview with Lottie Ellington:
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With big doe eyes, and an even bigger smile, Lottie Ellington has been dancing since she was 4. She has studied jazz, hoop dance, hip hop dance, fan dance, Congolese dance, ballroom dance and belly dance.In her college years She had tried Stripclub work with her classmates & bandmates, but ultimately decided it was not for her, years later Burlesque was the alternative that was a perfect fit instead. She also is a lifelong 5th generation teacher & founder of the Ellington Academy of Burlesque. She is well known for her comedic acts and nerdlesque parodies with fringe & sparkle. But what she is most infamous for is her perseverance when an injustice was committed against her. 
On april 15th of 2011, Lottie entered the (now closed) Richmond Institute of Burlesque. She pursued multiple drop in classes, soaking up as much information as she could for a hobby in her offtime as an educator at a local school. When one had taken enough drop in classes, one could perform in the recital. Lottie flourished with her natural abilities and is quickly coming onto her Decade in Burlesque Anniversary, a milestone many showgirls do not reach before they drop out or leave it behind as a brief hobby. “I really kinda I just figured I would do this once or twice, and that would be it.” Lottie said smiling. It was fun, she could express herself in an art, in her own time, just for her. But how did the Internet come to know her as The Twerking Teacher? It happened five years into her showgirling timeline, in spite of being very vigilant and ever conscious of keeping her “Muggle Life” and her entertaining life very seperate. The stigma against women in the arts having bodily agency as a form of free expression, even in modernity, is heavily watched and instilled, twice fold for educators of the youth, thrice fold for women of colour.  “There was some dust up in my local burlesque community., “ She started to explain about the beginning of the turn of events in Richmond,  “Regarding race, and I kind of spoke up, I'm an older performer & I don't have, like, a thing to lose. I didn't think I had anything to lose….” She did the emotional labour a lot of women of colour in vaudeville are doing recently, when addressing problematic things said in local industries. Modern Burlesque is supposed to be a safe space for female and femme presenting humans to be in an artistic community within the industry. This is not always the case and call ins & call outs do not always have mutually respected results. “so I was like, ‘Hey, this is not OK. Don't do this. We need to find something else to do with yourself in your time other than make racial posts about other people's ethnicity.’ And apparently that hurt someone's feelings.” an admirer of the colleague she was trying to help educate took their energy and instead channeled into an anonymous email sent to the school board a link to a video from the 2014 Michigan Burlesque Festival. It received more than 7,500 views and the town flooded with controversy, ostracising a confident & educated woman who dared to have an expressive artistic side. It did not fit the perfect myth of what a teacher, a woman, was allowed to be. This went viral as parents demanded her to be fired. The press spread so far as to Lottie waking up to see her showgirl persona images on Yahoo homepage as a news article.She was forced to resign.But Lottie took it in stride; “one of the many news articles that was written on it, the headline was "Parents Say Fire Twerking Teacher." And that's kind of how it stuck.'' Usually in vaudeville, burlesque in particular, a performer has a tagline for flyers and when emcees introduce them to follow their stage name. Taglines are often given by peers, mentors, masters of ceremonies, or even well self curated for marketing plans when thinking of oneself as a brand as well as an artist. But in some cases, rarely, one can get it from a press review. But Lottie, got hers from a headline. “well, I didn't get to pick my tag line, and no one that I admire gave me my tag line; legitimately, a newspaper, a journalists gave me my tag line.” Her resilience to move forward another five years in burlesque with this new tagline was admirable. She resigned from her Highschool teaching position unfortunately. “it's set and it definitely sucks. But, you know, things. Everything happens for a reason. And again, it kind of gave me a chance To kind of just step out of my comfort zone and do something else. Because ultimately, it's like all. Well, you still have you're not teaching anymore, but you still have credentials. So put your credentials to use in a different way.” She said, during 2020, the year she announced her new academy that will usher in a new generation of performers. I was honoured to listen before we tackled discussing the Body Policing and legalities of the local burlesque scene. 
Where most cities or counties feature Blue Laws and are generally enforced by regular uniformed police department officers, Richmond has “ABC Agents.” ABC stands for Alcohol Beverage Control. Lottie had already experienced an ABC situation up close and personal. She was working as a door girl at a recital for burlesque school she was learning from. An ABC agent came in and was prepared to shut the production down. “The producers were able to kind of talk them down, ‘Oh no please we are almost done, that, you know, just let us finish. This is a recital. Let them finish’” Lottie recalled, “And they said, ‘we'll let you finish, but this is it.’ And they talk to be owner of the venue and then told them that they know they weren't licensed for this.” The ABC agent threatened that the venue could lose their license over having burlesque performers dance in their venue. Where a thriving burlesque scene had sprung up in various bars, to which Lottie described as the WIld WIld West at the time, suddenly doors were closing to performers and producers. “Then after that, no one was willing to do it. So we were literally just relegated to only the Theatres and art galleries” Lottie remembered, as spaces for performances ran dry, and previous relationships producers and teachers had developed with venue owners quietly became standstills. “So that was that was it. So if there was a theater that would allow you to come in and you could do it, then. And if it was an art gallery, you could do it. But if it was this that you couldn't do any. Couldn't do bars. Couldn't do restaurant. And law didn't specifically say you couldn't. But no one was willing to take that chance at that time.” But both theatres and art galleries are expensive to rent and arrange a performance in, which meant only some could move forward with having their art seen. Which created more potential for imbalance of who got to grow and develop skills as burlesque artists and who did not. But this also showed who could be ingenuitive and who had creativity and drive to research the laws, adjust their performances, and persevere. In some areas of Virginia you couldn’t be seen in some types of venues taking your clothes off, so one asks “How Does One EVEN DO BURLESQUE Without Taking Clothes Off?” Lottie was strategic, and even used a classic burlesque solution from eras gone by, “So then you have to kind of work around the rules and say, ‘OK, well, you can't be seen taking off clothes. So here's a screen. You can go behind the screen. Take off your clothes or you don't wear clothes and you do like a balloon pop. Because those aren't clothing. those aren't clothes” Balloons are not clothes. The Balloon pop act is a classic work around, a legal loophole with purpose. “That was interesting because you kind of see a lot of novelty acts and you think ‘oh god, a balloon pop. So cute.’ But then you find out later, ‘oh, there is not a balloon pop for the sake of balloon pop.’ It's a balloon pop because you can't STRIP. And so that's the way of getting around the whole not being able to strip.” 
  ABC Agents while not police officers, they still carry a badge and they can make arrests, according to Lottie, which incurs an additional stress upon POC performers. Any arrest of a person of colour has high risk. The amount of POC who experience brutality, abuse and even death while in custody or pre custody of police is alarming. “Black bodies are already heavily enforced and policed. So now you put on top of this. You know, again, this black body that is in these degrees of being naked. And this becomes a huge issue. Again, Paris Hilton has a nip slip on the on the red carpet, and no one batted an eye, Janet Jackson had a nip slip at the Super Bowl & it was like, It was career ending for her.” She explained “You have to understand that there is a price that you may pay for your art. And that the the rules may not be, you know, are not always equally. The consequences and the rules, the rules may not be equally applied. And I think for POCs we noticed the harder part is trying to get allies and counterparts to grasp that concept. So instead of "you can you know, we've been doing this burlesque thing at this venue for a long time." Well, have you ever done it with the person of color at the venue? No. OK, well, then you might want to check on that because. You've been getting away with it for all of this time and no one said anything, but if I do it, I might go to jail.” A risk that she’s been taking over and over for almost a decade. Which caused Lottie to be extra vigilant about her art and costuming, filtering a lot of what she does to adjust to the risk, while still pushing the envelope. “Again, this is part of living in America is having to police yourself so that other people don't have the opportunity to police you. Where to minimize how much other people have to feel like they need to, Police you, because you're already trying to be on point. I've got to make sure that my butt doesn't fall out of my shorts, even though my butt falls out of all of my shorts, out of ALL the shorts. Because this is an ABC agent at the venue, then I've got to be extra careful.”
     “So they can arrest you. And they have a badge. And they come again, they come in sort of. Flex their muscles. You know, occasionally.” But Lottie says that she is seeing improvements over the last few years with less interference from this strange body of authority. Even venues have started to edge quietly back to being open to having burlesque return to their spaces. “Things have definitely opened up more.” Lottie said, “more and more venues are willing to take a chance.So that was a wonderful change to see happen in comparison to when I first started, where the ABC agents came in and literally just shut everything down.”
And now she is a leader in a community within an industry still going strong. She will be using her skills as a teacher to be an educator for the Ellington School of Burlesque, The Twerking Teacher still inspiring with a fighting spirit, a scholar of sparkle. 

To read more about Lottie, her contemporary Colleagues, And the living and passed legends who came before us to trail blaze, stay tuned for the release of Policing Muses available at Barnes & Noble this fall!
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The Knees of Gaby Deslys!

5/29/2020

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Gaby Deslys was a  vaudeville performer and actress most popular in the 1910’s. Her French stage name is a contraction of Gabrielle of the Lillies. Her success in Europe lead to her making later $4,000 a week in the United States alone. But how she got to this success was not without scandal and men telling her what she could and could not do with her body and her visibility onstage. Born in France in the 1881, She made her debut onstage 9 October 1902 as a chorus girl in Y a des Surprises. She quickly rose up into celebrity. Gaby left Paris in August of 1906 to fulfill a three-month contract with the Gaiety Theatre, after catching they eyes of George Grossmith, Jr. and, more importantly, his friend George Edwardes, who owned the Gaiety and scooped her up as talent for his venue as well as his own personal interests. Her rise to stardom had her gracing the stages of the Shubert Theatre in America & even back again to Paris for The Moulin Rouge. But imagine doing your job, being a woman in showbusiness, just doing your best in your career in Europe, paying your bills and creating art, and then meet the eras all white male equivalent of  the Westboro protestors picket lining your shows, over the fact they could see your knees onstage. This is what happened to Gaby in 1913. Her life and shows were interrupted by a group of English clergymen protesting her performance at the Palace Theatre. So concerned about her knees, a representative of this group of priests & the Bishop of Kensington stomped into the offices of The Lord Chamberlain about the performance demanding the show close. “A La Carte” was such a scandal it was all the papers could talk about in November & October of 1913 for London. In fact, the same newspaper we read online in news apps today for political and social news, The Guardian, is the same newspaper that broke this story of riled up priests crying INDECENT over a showgirls knees. The production had already passed The Censor, a rigorous system that was in charge of what shows in Londons theatres could go onstage before the public IF they followed morality codes. The Manager of the Palace theatre at the time, Mr Alfred Butt (What a missed opportunity for a burlesque career with that name, sir!) claimed to the press that the production had already been going on for eight weeks straight without complaint. But this group of clergymen where determined to have it taken down and hold Gaby accountable for her visible knees and indecentness of the scene she performed. One reporter even gave us details of the scene in which Gaby powders her knees, as part of a story in a setting; “The vision of Mdile. Gaby Deslys in her dressing room was originally in the third scene”  as “Purely a piece of high spirited tomfoolery.” after weeks of performances the clergymen demanded the Lord chamberlain to remove their licence to operate, essentially shutting down their show, putting Gaby & the hundred or so people involved in the production out of work for the rest of the contracted season. The Lord Chamberlain sent a few representatives of his department to see the show and discuss it with those involved. Both Gaby & a reverend, A.J. Waldron where interviewed towards the end of the debate. Ever the clever girl and skilled actress, Gaby had found a way to appeal to the representative of her oppressors, Rev. Waldron. She met with him on October 23rd and talked to him personally, charming him around the fact that she was a good girl, and he hadn’t even seen her production. Mr. Waldron seemed delight and won over, stating that she even showed him a crucifix she wore around her neck telling him “I’m a good girl, i was brought up in a convent, The last thing I want to do is be inmodest.” and so when the Lord chamberlain declared on October 24th that “The Matter was Closes” Reverand Waldron was not mad about it, and let it be. WHile other clergymen seemed disgruntled to be beaten. But Gaby could resume her show after two months of scandal and dragged out stress of the situation. When Interviewed with the Press during this victory she said “My performance is not in the least suggestive. It is simply an irresponsible gambol- a little roguish romp.” Her parisian knees had a solid leg to stand on in this victory. 
But it wasn’t the last time what she wore got her in the press. In 1919, the famous artist Erté began work with Gaby on her costumes, including the Harem Pants. This eastern inspired look was for her appearance in the production of "Les Rois des Legendes." Women wearing pants was a upraising of eyebrows and scandal within itself, and her gold threaded versions where no exception. Both Gaby & Erté knew that this type of press resulted in ticket sales and fame that was more beneficial than career ending, they rode this out as well to much success. In fact, thanks to his costumer beginnings with the showgirl, Erté would later be called the father of the ‘Art Deco’ movement. He later became a huge feature in Harper's Bazaar & Vogue. Who knew little ruckus for womens agency could be so chic that you could have a career around it?
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For more information on showgirls bodies being scandalized, read Policing Muses, available in hardback and paperback and ebook the fall of 2020!
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Be apart of my last chapter!

5/16/2020

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My Last Chapter will be hitting very close to home for many of us: Modern censorship of our bodies on the internet and IRL in our work fields.
But I want your voice heard. I our want our statistics to be an accurate presentation of our reality.
Are you a Sex worker? Burlesque showgirl? Sex Educator? Erotic Writer, 18+ cosplayer? Stripper? webcammer? draw lewds/n00ds?ect ect
Have you been effected by Shadowbans/FOSTA?
For the very last bit of my research for Policing Muses, I'd like to get statistics and some experiences on the modern Minsky raid for the social media era of bodily artistic censorship: Shadow Banning & FOSTA/SESTA.
I have a survey so your voice is heard and preserved. It can be anonymous or by your stage name/ alias. I'd really appreciate making sure I accurately represent our struggles.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScFpQiq_BmXw7FhU4kpsnB3zUb7oMdXNydvhdcsVwjfsvIMcg/viewform
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