'Sex' ban!

SEREN CATHERALL-JONES celebrates the legendary Mae West, Broadway queen of drag and double entendres

Lewd themes and obscenities

That momentary panic you felt when you saw the headline? 

Multiply it by 100 and you’re probably on par with New York mayor Beau James, in 1926, when the revolutionary play Sex landed on his desk. At that time, any play that was considered detrimental to good manners, decorum, or the public peace was either banned or heavily modified. Like how your high school would have ‘Emo Day’ in their production of Hairspray. So, you can imagine the uproar when a play jam-packed with lewd themes and obscenities was presented to an old straight white man. Theatre was coerced into being safe, sterile, and deeply uninspiring, which is exactly why Mae West thought it was the perfect time to unravel her absolute chaos.

Ma... Ma... Mae West

Before Madonna, before Marilyn, before anyone dared to dance along the lines of taboo on stage, there was Mae West (and no, I don’t mean the life jacket). Known as the Queen of Double Entendres, she aimed to write plays that represented all marginalised communities — whether the audience wanted to see them or not. She didn’t care. Not only did she tease the rules of censorship, she outright broke them. She was one of the few women who refused to shut up when men told her to, and for that we’ll remember her forever. Arrest her? Fine. Shame her? Impossible. West refused to be quiet, refused to be proper, and, above all, refused to be boring.

Short, sweet and groundbreaking..... Sex

Imagine the theatrical climate of the US in the 1920s. The most popular Broadway show of the time was quite aptly named ‘Broadway’ (how creative!). Any sane person would be beyond bored in this dramatic travesty – West included. She decided to write and star in her own play titled Sex. Yep, that’s it. That’s the title. Short, bold, and guaranteed to make the pearl-clutchers hyperventilate. The play follows sex worker Margy LaMont navigating the hypocrisy of high society. Spoiler alert: she wasn’t the tragic figure audiences expected. No, she had thoughts, she made choices: two things men assumed a woman simply couldn’t have or do. And instead of the usual ‘falls in love and dies in shame’ routine that men loved painting onto women, Margy was smart and independent.

In! Your! Face!

Surprisingly, Sex was a hit with the public, but it completely short-circuited the minds of critics. And the New York Police? They figured that instead of catching actual criminals, the real threat to society was women saying “sex” with their whole chest. Raiding the theatre and arresting Mae along with the rest of the cast was a much better use of their time [insert slow clapping here]. She was charged with “corrupting the morals of the youth” - as if teenagers couldn't figure out what sex was before reading it on a theatre programme. Both she and her cast spent a glorious eight days in jail, and although the police persisted that the inmates were treated as such, West claimed she wore silk underwear and dined like a queen. Her official stance? “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it” (Crystal, BBC). Tell us you’re iconic without telling us you’re iconic.

A total Drag

Still, Mae wasn’t done. In 1927, she doubled down and wrote The Drag - a play filled with homosexuality and drag queens. Just your average Broadway fare in a time when people thought ‘gay’ exclusively meant cheerful. Mae, of course, didn’t care. She said it was “a comedy drama of modern life”. The police said, “Oh dear God, shut this down immediately”. A play that shimmies into the world of secret lives, scandals, and sequins – it has everything you could ever need. The story centres on Rolly Kingsbury, a respectable young man with a secret - he’s gay, married to a woman (double gasp), and secretly partying with drag queens at night. Awkward! His father-in-law is a big-time homophobic psychiatrist, which makes dinner conversations tense, to say the least. It was everything Broadway desperately needed but definitely wasn’t ready for. The plot dives headfirst into themes of repression, hypocrisy, and the reality of queer life in a time where simply existing was illegal. It all builds up to a dramatic drag ball scene so fierce I’m shocked the flappers didn’t faint!

The Drag ahead of its time

But, of course, life isn’t a glittery cabaret (yet); it ends in melodrama, as 1920s plays tended to do — with heartbreak, betrayal, and tragedy. West had all the tools to become a global sensation, but she was unfortunately a century too early. Sadly, The Drag never made it to Broadway; the censor team tackled it like a flaming football. But even in its short run, it managed to strike a chord. It was daring — unapologetically so — and represented queer people like actual human beings. For most, this was the first time their lives were depicted onstage without being reduced to punchlines or cautionary tales. Mae didn’t just write characters, she wrote people.

Poking the bear with a feather boa

Mae West never wrote for approval. She wrote to poke the bear with a feather boa and boy, did she. She saw society’s rules, took a long drag (pun intended) from her cigarette, and laughed. She wasn’t just ahead of her time; she was two martinis and a scandal beyond it. When people tried to silence her, she made a career out of being louder. So yes, Sex was banned, The Drag was banned, but Mae West? Untouchable.

Her attitude to life is a book from which we all need to take a page. And quite frankly, while every other straight man was still pretending to not know what “drag” meant, it is hilarious that she had the last laugh.

Written by SEREN CATHERALL-JONES, (BA Creative Writing and Drama student, University of Chester, UK)