Picking on Porn

Being a porn performer has got to be rough. You have to let cameras into your most intimate moments-and be labeled as misfit, bad for society, sex worker/whore, and some get any attempts at future livelihood squashed. Yet at the same time….our country is just barely crawling out from under mandatory abstinence only education and still far from comprehensive sex education… so porn is a big way kids are learning about sex. Talk about irony.

Recently, a teacher at a public High school in Massachusetts, “highly regarded” and head of the English department was put on paid leave after the local Fox affiliate revealed that he has appeared in a few porno movies (select titles include “Fetish World” and “Just Gone Gay 8,”.) No one alleges he did anything wrong. He was well liked and has students who support him. Apparently the private lives of teachers (past private lives no less) is something that school is using to judge him and deem him unfit to teach. What if he had done porn but not fetish or gay porn? Kinky but not in porn? Who says where the line is? Who’s moral standard are they following here?

Sasha Grey, former porn starlet and most recently featured on HBO’s Entourage, went to an elementary school in Compton, CA on November 2nd to read to 1st and 3rd grade school children for the National Education Association’s Read Across America program. Then the news story broke, parents complained and the school went so far as to say that she was never there. Well now she’s (rightfully) pissed about the controversy. She was quoted as saying “Promoting education is an effort that is close to my heart. Illiteracy contributes to poverty; encouraging children to pick up a book is fundamental. I believe education is a universal right,” Grey added. ” I believe in the future of our children, and I will remain an active supporter and participant in education-focused initiatives.” Why does it matter that she used to do porn? She wasn’t breaking any laws, she was reading to school children! If the people who complained to the school about Grey spent their time volunteering instead of passing judgement on others, we’d all be a hell of a lot better off.