# How do we feel about teachers fired for posting homemade porn? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 14, 2023, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614 "2023-12-14T20:21:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/381 "2023-12-19T02:13:08Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Not just her hypocrisy, but also pursuing hateful, bigoted policies that harmed communities and wrecked lives. That’s why she was appointed. This is Florida, remember? ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/382 "2023-12-19T03:07:57Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > For those of you who feel strongly this teacher shpuld have been fired, where is the line? > > Ten years ago, a woman who worked in the same building as me was fired because she’d had a “cheesecake” photo distributed by Playboy some years before. Nothing was showing that wouldn’t have shown in a bathing suit. > > Even at the time, it seemed stupidly Puritanical. I absolutely do not think it was an inevitable outcome, so I don’t think that was something she “should have known” would close a whole career path to her. > > Anyway, are yall cool with that? If not, how is it different? > > ETA: I went and read some old news stories and it looks like she did pose nude, as a “coed of the month”. But it was Playboy, not actual sex work. Suppose she worked for a law firm. Law firms have other competing law firms. One of the competitors is fishing for a big client, and they mention, “well, you could go to Burns and Smith, I think one of their associates posed for Playboy, but I’m sure they do good work.” Reputation matters. Why does an employer have to underwrite an employee’s prior actions? Why is that their obligation? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/383 "2023-12-19T03:32:43Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Reputation matters. …we live in a world where Donald Trump was the President of the United States, the most powerful person in the world. Reputation didn’t matter there. Because reputation means as much as you want it to mean. The senior partners of Burns and Smith are well known racist misogynists who used to party on Epstein Island and have been credibly accused of sexual harassment multiple times, but LORD HAVE MERCY if one of their associates once posed for Playboy. You can’t have the employer underwrite _those_ disgusting prior actions. The line has to be drawn _somewhere_. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/384 "2023-12-19T04:15:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Say there was an atheist teacher - who never brought it up in class (that being wrong for any religion or discussion of religion outside of a comparative religion class) but who posted videos on YouTube. Since I’m betting your district is highly Christian, do you think your school board would either fire the teacher or try to force the teacher out in ways where they wouldn’t get sued automatically? I don’t think atheism was ever a problem. My dad is an atheist (“it’s all bullshit”) who is nominally Catholic. My district wasn’t hyper-religious or hyper-Christian, although most people are some flavor of Christian. Plenty of stores open Sunday. It wasn’t even rural, I would call it suburban. I knew plenty of people who weren’t religious and was never asked, when being introduced to someone, about my faith or what church I attended. I don’t remember any prayers at school. I can only remember knowing the church of two kids, and the reason I knew that had nothing to do with school. That being said I don’t remember any Muslim families and it was well known that I and like two other students were Jewish. I knew some Hindus in grade school but that was private school; if there were any in high school I don’t remember them. Lots of kids were skeptical of religion (and sexual mores) in high school. The stereotypical hyper-religious community would look for an excuse to get rid of an atheist teacher, but in real life, who can say. Good teachers aren’t disposable, they grow roots and impact the community. The stereotypical hyper-religious community is a small town where everyone knows everyone, so I’m not even sure how the teacher would be hired in the first place if she didn’t go to church. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/385 "2023-12-19T04:24:34Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Each of these stories was plainly a case of “it’s OK [to do this skeevy thing] as long as nobody finds out”. That’s not just blatant hypocrisy, it has to be the most morally bankrupt argument I’ve ever heard. Morally bankrupt perhaps, but not hypocritical. Like speeding, nobody else cares if you don’t hurt anybody _and_ don’t get caught. > [@Jasmine](#): > > Businesses, and that especially includes school districts, view controversy as anathema. They avoid it like a plague but, if it arises, will immediately do what is necessary to eradicate it. This situation in a school district, if not dealt with immediately by the school board, ensures a major war that will get a ton of negative publicity and produce absolutely nothing positive from the district’s perspective. We can have an interesting and beneficial philosophical discussion about the matter, but it is irrelevant when it comes to viewing the situation in a practical manner. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/386 "2023-12-19T04:27:40Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > There’s a difference, but that’s not an argument people have been making. > > If you want to make an argument that by being government employees, teachers should have additional rights for protected class status for things like sex work that are not a protected class, and should not be held to a code of conduct that would apply to a private company, feel free, but that’s a different argument. That’s a different argument from the one that I presumed everyone already understood, namely, that the government is more restrained in responding to folks exercising freedom of expression than private employers are. 1. Do you agree that that’s true? 2. Do you agree that courts have generally found that creating porn is protected by the first amendment? Nobody’s made that argument because nobody (before you, IIRC) tried to analogize to a private employer’s actions. That’s fundamentally disanalogous, because a private employer can fire you for expression than a public employer can’t. I AM NOT SAYING THAT THE COURTS WOULD SIDE WITH THE FIRED TEACHERS. Creation of porn does not currently fall under the first amendment protections that adhere to government workers. I am suggesting that, because it does not materially interfere with the government worker’s job, it should. Government work and private work are fundamentally different, for reasons that I believe are outside of this thread. If you’re unclear on that difference, and if you start a new thread to discuss it, I might join you there. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/387 "2023-12-19T04:33:44Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > [@Jay\_Z](#): > > > > So suppose a teacher is efficient and imparting all necessary instruction. They are efficient enough that they have 10 minutes extra in each class period to fill. > > Tell me you’re not a teacher without telling me you’re not a teacher. I don’t know what you mean. For some teachers I had, those ten minutes were for homework-in-class, movie time, etc. We had the sex ed class replace homeroom period, on one day as I remember. Our teacher explained that he waited until marriage and then showed us lots of pictures of patients with visible STDs, then explained how some contraceptives work. It was definitely not hearing sex stories the last ten minutes of math class every day, that’s rediculous. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/388 "2023-12-19T12:26:48Z")
Again, as mentioned by @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness, we are talking about government employees, not in private industry. Private schools can and do enforce all sorts of morality clauses on their teachers. Part of the reason for this, beyond the 1st amendment concerns, is that parents are the “client” in private schools, but not public schools. Public schools don’t have a client at all, really, any more than the IRS does. You can say it’s the “community”, but so many layers of government are stakeholders in a public system that even that isn’t really true: the school board has to follow State Board policy and, if they are receiving Federal money (which they are), various Federal policies. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/389 "2023-12-19T15:42:24Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I don’t know what you mean. For some teachers I had, those ten minutes were for homework-in-class, movie time, etc. That is what YOU were doing. The teacher was likely talking to individual students about makeup or remedial work, submitting attendence, answering questions about the current homework, responding to emails . . . If a teacher cut instruction short before the bell, its not because they’ve run out of things to do. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/390 "2023-12-19T17:54:57Z")
Fundamentally, the school board trustees are accountable to the voters, since they are elected. If the voters disapprove of some school board action, the trustees can be replaced. It’s happened to a small extent in my own local school district. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/391 "2023-12-19T18:52:50Z")
But voters are not just the parents, and its a pretty abstract relationship. Its not at all analogous to a private school, or a law firm. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/392 "2023-12-19T21:50:50Z")
Oh, definitely. My point is simply that it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks, it only matters what the voters in that district think. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2023, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/393 "2023-12-20T15:49:12Z")
Okay. From your description it sounded like you were in a highly religious community, some of which are not that small. There is usually no problem with those in other religions, or even those who claim a religion but who just don’t go to church. When I lived in the Congo I went to a school run by Baptist missionaries for their children and the children of the UN people there. My brother and I were the only Jewish kids there, and while they found us odd we never got hassled, ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2023, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/394 "2023-12-20T20:16:36Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > That is what YOU were doing. The teacher was > **off-topic** > > Depends on the teacher. We had a few who would watch the movie right along with us. I remember my economics teacher would just waste time during the last bit of class. Showing off some pictures of him & wife remodeling their bathroom, talking about the sports teams, gossip, etc. Often on his phone, perhaps work related but knowing him, probably not. Sometimes watching youtube videos about football, etc. > > Now he was worse in that respect than every other full time teacher I can remember. He only taught economics because it was an easy class, it was no secret that his real job was as coach (assistant IIRC). But lots of teachers would gossip w/ students during the last few minutes, after the day’s lesson was done, which is quite different from discussing makeup or remedial work. Many on their phones, maybe doing work-related stuff though. > > ETA: I seem to remember all of our teachers had to submit attendance within 10 minutes of the bell. I had a fair share of tardies and that was my understanding - they would submit attendance during bellringers, and everyone who came in later was marked absent and would need to go to the front office to have it changed to tardy. Probably not the case in every district. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2023, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/395 "2023-12-28T15:47:46Z")
And here is the sad case of a 63 year old University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chancellor: > **[College Chancellor Canned for Secret Life as Vegan Porn Star](https://www.thedailybeast.com/university-of-wisconsin-la-crosse-chancellor-joseph-gow-fired-after-porn-life-exposed)** > > Dr. Joe Gow and his wife Carmen Wilson had a risqué side hustle. Then the brass found out. But maybe the last straw was because he was a vegan… ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/396 "2023-12-28T17:59:52Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > And agreed with @JohnT that until we elect to start paying teachers a living wage AND provide the equivalent of ‘office supplies’ that are freely available in most professional workplaces, there is really no latitude to complain about what side work educators do to male ends meet. Well, unless it is making meth and blowing up retirement homes, but that is more of a health and human safety issue than misplaced moral outrage. So you’re arguning that doing porn is the only option left to them? Are hundreds of thousands of teachers doing porn now because it’s their only option to make ends meet? I suspect - I don’t know because my career in porn was tragically cut short due to lack of fans clamoring to see me having sex - that most of the folks doing porn on “OnlyFans” are doing it as a turn on for them, not for the paycheck. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/397 "2023-12-28T18:59:41Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > But maybe the last straw was because he was a vegan… I’m pretty sure being vegan is illegal in Wisconsin. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2023, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/398 "2023-12-28T23:15:36Z")
I’d like to point out the hypocrisy in this thread. Not a specific poster but Americans as a whole. We expect you to maintain the highest level of professionalism, even in your personal life. You’re a role model. Are you going to pay me on the same level as professionals? Those requiring degrees, ongoing training, certification etc.? Yep. Teachers should be paid more. Are **you** willing to pay more in taxes for us to get paid? Fuck off. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2023, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/399 "2023-12-28T23:27:53Z")
It would have been nice to have lived in a world where behavior could be segregated into different spheres that didn’t interact with each other. But that ship has long sailed. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2023, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614/400 "2023-12-29T01:12:04Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Are **you** willing to pay more in taxes for us to get paid? Many of us vote for every school levy that is put on the ballot. So, yes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-feel-about-teachers-fired-for-posting-homemade-porn/994614.md?page=21)