A school teacher's fantasy

WE SAY A porno does not a bad secretary make.

A school secretary in Lévis, Québec, has been suspended with pay as the school board determines whether to fire her for starring in a pornographic film.

The online video came to the school board’s attention when a 14-year-old student posted it on his Facebook page.

Although the secretary, whose stage name was Samantha Ardente, was not well-known at school and did not interact with students, she quickly became a sensation, forcing her to reveal her second career to school administrators.

The Editorial Board believes no one should be fired for participating in legal activities during their free time if those activities have no effect on their ability to do their work.

During the past several years it has become apparent that many educators share her experiences. To name a few, there was the teacher fired earlier this month from a St. Louis school (she was also fired from a Kentucky school in 2006 when her sex work was revealed). Then there was the New Jersey lunch lady who was forced to quit her job in 2008 when her porno past became known.  

We often hear that employers should be able to fire employees who, on their own time, engage in some activity that is harmful to a business’s image.

The huge demand for pornography in our society indicates the laughability of the idea that porn is widely perceived to be harmful.

Porn is an innocuous, legal and widely consumed commodity.

It’s so desirable, in fact, that the pornographic industry had revenues of approximately $10 billion in 2004.

We throw dollar bills, or heaps of them, as it were, at those willing to produce videos depicting sex. And once we have secured the desired product, we treat them as if they had done something illegal or immoral. This is an immense hypocrisy.

Another argument frequently put forward in favor of tightly regulating the school environment is that children are immature and anything slightly titillating will wreak havoc on the “learning environment.”

If children’s educations are disrupted by their secretary’s sex work, it is only because our society has given them the impression that it’s nothing less than sensational.

We have denied the humanity of people involved in sex work, assuring children that they could not really be their human neighbors, or school secretaries for that matter.

The first step to ending such disturbances in the long run? Retaining Mme. Ardente.