The Magical Buttplug and the Phantom Child

What I know about censorship is that the reasons people give for censoring art are not the real reasons art gets censored. Words like “morality” and “community standards” are smokescreens for a deeper cultural pathology, a fear of the self, a fear of the other, a fear of the self reflected in the other. We’re all limited by our own systems of control. History, theory, community, family: these are all hierarchical institutions that have built us from the ground up, then we’ve reconfigured them according to our own actions of personal resistance and change. You have to understand what your own limits are and who has defined them in order to be vigilant about standing your ground no matter how small the platform.

In 2011, my four-channel video Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume was exhibited at Arthouse at The Jones Center after premiering at Participant, Inc., New York City, (2009) and at the MIT List Visual Arts Center (2010). Arthouse, a 100-year-old arts venue in Austin, Texas, had just gone through a $6 million makeover and was on its way to becoming a destination venue with innovative architecture and a cutting-edge curatorial program. Dorian is a queer retelling of an already queered text, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel that met with its own censorship in 1889.My Dorian is set in a phantasmagoric world that crosses three decades of queer club culture featuring renowned theremin player Armen Ra, artist K8 Hardy, and drag legend Flawless Sabrina. And it features a magical butt plug.

In 1889, The Picture of Dorian Gray was censored by homophobic Victorians who accused Wilde of implanting unclean, effeminate, and contaminating thoughts in the minds of young readers who came into contact with the novel. One hundred years later, the novel’s themes continue to be accused of queer contamination.

Two weeks after the opening I received a call from Arthouse saying my piece had been temporarily shut down. Apparently the president of the board of directors didn’t want my piece running while their teen programs were operating and so my piece was being shut down when teen programs were in session on evenings and weekends, arguably the most well-attended times for any institution. Director of Arthouse Sue Graze assured me she would rectify the situation, and a week later called me to say they would keep the piece running, but there would be specific “start and stop” times listed and a guard stationed outside the door to make sure no “teens” were allowed entry.

I did not agree to this decision, yet I decided not to pull my piece with the hope that further discourse would ensue. I wanted to know what exactly it was that the president thought would be so upsetting. The requisite “mature content” signage had already been in place, both at the front desk and outside the gallery so what was it that the president of the Board so worried about? What was “offensive” about my piece? There was no explicit sex, just a whole lot of exquisite queerness no racier than a Lady Gaga video. And then someone finally whispered: It was the butt plug!

It was later leaked that the president said she “feared some teen might see my piece, might complain to their parents, who in turn might complain to the press, which might cause funders to pull support.” So here it was, the real reason, because when institutions talk about “protecting children” they’re really using “children” as a euphemism for “capital investments.” In most cases institutional censorship is done in advance of any actual “complaints from the public,” so one could say the “complainers” are actually the gatekeepers themselves who exploit the artist and the public while protecting their own interests. Institutional censorship is the most insidious of all because the bureaucratic structure is a platform for hierarchal scapegoating. No one takes responsibility for the action or the result.

I immediately called the National Coalition Against Censorship. Newspapers ran the story. Board members at Arthouse quit. The Austin arts community was so...