So out here in BurlyCon there was panel on Ethics and Intellectual Property. There was a question asked about whether we in burlesque community needs a code of ethics. Of course, the idea struck me that someone must of already has one (and, of course, the stupid joke popped in my head that we should steal it *rim shot*). I couple of seconds of googling and I come up with Association of Performing Arts Presenters 2006 Code of Ethics.

http://www.artspresenters.org/about/codeethics.pdf

On a quick read it looks pretty good. Is there anything there that needs to modified for the Burlesque Community? Of course, it’s just a guide, we don’t really have a membership, per se, that can be revoked when someone steps out of bounds. I may not be the best person to throw this out there, but I definitely think it’s worth a little debate.

The Merch Girl Mail - [teaseorama] Digest Number 3089

This was posted on the Teaseorama mailing list and I thought it was an interesting proposition. I have linked to a post about how burlesque can be more ethical in terms of cultural diversity, but a general code of ethics could be useful anyway.

It can be difficult though because the whole nature of burlesque is to shake things up and break boundaries (though the super-prevalence of pretty/glamour burlesque makes it more safe than risky IMHO). So how would a code of ethics work if part of the purpose is to poke at established codes?