SuicideGirls founder calls Saskatoon law ‘absurd’ and ‘offensive’ after burlesque show cancelled
May 3, 2016 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
The founder of SuicideGirls says a Saskatoon bylaw that stopped a performance this weekend is too vague and acts “like extortion.”
“If the government wants to tell the girls what they can and can’t do with their body they should be clear … not have these vague laws that intimidate the girls into subservience,” said Selena Mooney (known as Missy Suicide), founder of the poplar SuicideGirls website and travelling burlesque show.
The SuicideGirls Blackheart Burlesque show was abruptly cancelled on Sunday after organizers learned they were not allowed to put the show on without a licence from the city.
Since 2012, the city has required services or performers “appealing to or designed to appeal to erotic or sexual appetites or inclinations” to obtain a business licence. Aside from escort services, the bylaw also governs people modelling lingerie, performing a striptease or “similar dance” and people performing “a body rub.”
Andrew Hildebrandt, the city’s director of community services, said the show’s cancellation happened because the promoter didn’t get the paperwork in on time.
“It’s not a question about do we allow the activity or do we not allow the activity. It’s a question of whether it’s licensed,” he said.
The licences would have required the seven performers in Sunday’s show at O’Brian’s Event Centre to pay $250 each — a steep fee, according to the SuicideGirls founder.
Not only is the cost “absurd,” the law unfairly discriminates against these kinds of female-centric performances, Mooney said.
“It feel like it was the city trying to shake us down and intimidate us.”
She said equating burlesque style performances with escorts and prostitution is offensive.
“It’s kind of like Footloose. Let them dance,” she said.
Mooney said the group performs in places all over the world and very rarely has to cancel shows. Restrictions exist in places like the Southern United States, where the girls have to wear non-translucent bras and panties, for example.
This is the fourth time the show has come to Saskatoon and the first time organizers were informed of the bylaw. It’s also the first time the show has been cancelled.
Not only were they told too late, the law is too vague in its definition of what is and is not an “adult service,” Mooney said, adding it’s unfair that bands or other musical performances don’t have to abide by the same rules.
“Even if Prince or something had performed in Saskatoon? He performed body rubs,” she said.
Hildebrandt said the bylaw is there to ensure adult performances operate legally — that every performer who obtains a licence is over the age of 18, for example.
“Just like any other business license bylaw — we regulate the licences all kinds of business, these included,” he said.
Ticket holders were given a refund and free pizza because of the last minute cancellation. Mooney said it’s unclear whether the show will be back in the future if the bylaw stays the way it is.
cthamilton@postmedia.com
