CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Things are heating up in Tucson, Arizona as members of the XXX industry hold a festival. Whew! The sex workers say they want to take the shame out of their industry. Reporter Terry Gonzalez with the affiliate station KGUN has the story from Tucson.</s>TERRY GONZALEZ, KGUN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A $12 ticket for opening night will get you more than an eyeful of entertainment -- strippers, porn stars, hookers and whores -- they're all making an appearance in Tucson and are proud of it.</s>JULIANA PICCILLO, SEX WORKER ARTS FESTIVAL: The festival is about a lot of things -- it's about education, it's about activism, it's about women's rights, it's about the oppression of a very marginalized group of people who are sex workers in this country, it's about double standards and it's about coming out of the closet.</s>GONZALEZ: This is the second annual sex worker arts festival but not everyone is excited about promoting adult entertainment. This woman wanted to hide her identity because of the explicit nature of this story.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Flipping through we saw this article -- "Whores on Tour" -- and we thought it was a joke. We read the beginning and laughed a little until we came to the end and saw that this was actually sponsored by the Arts Council.</s>GONZALEZ: Tax payers are paying for a portion of this sexual showcase but only about one-fifth of the total funding -- that came from TPAC. Some people say due to the content of the show that doesn't make a difference.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's different than the strip bars -- places like that because we can choose not to go there. We don't have to fund our money to those places. But this is being funded with our money without my approval.</s>PICCILLO: Sex work has been a reality of women's survival since the dawn of time. You can like it, you can not like it but we certainly need to talk about it.
Adult Film Industry Holds Festival in Tucson