By Peter Gillis
Editor, the Gauntlet,
Having just read the account of “strippergate” in the Calgary Herald, I must write and offer kudos to your paper for standing your ground. As a former editor of a university paper, I appreciate not only the importance of free speech, but the role papers such as yours play in exposing the absurdities of life. And the absurdities as I understand them are?
A philosophy student working her way through school as an exotic dancer (what ever happened to serving at Moxie’s?) loved the campus because “it was the one place where [she] could blend in and make an intelligent contribution and not be known for [her] body.” Naturally, she confirms this mind-first approach by taking her clothes off at a public event sanctioned by the Students’ Union. The Students’ Union newspaper [sic] then photographs her as part of its coverage, prints the picture (a little uncouth) and ruins her campus experience. To exclaim her victimization, she appears in a giant coloured picture holding a book on moral philosophy (she may want to read the chapter where Andrea Dworkin argues stripping objectifies women) with her stage name printed below. Now, if I want to really see what the fuss is about, I can log onto www.whosstrippingtonight.ca and check her out in a public bar where her privacy, while dancing in front of several men with binoculars, is assured. Oh the humanity! Thanks for the laugh, Gauntlet.