DALLAS – One of the unfortunate facts of life for anyone who has performed in porn is the choice tends to follow the person through the rest of his or her life. It’s neither fair nor reasonable, in my view, but it is what it is: Having “porn performer” on one’s resume is not a plu in the eyes of prospective employers.
In recent years, there has been no shortage of stories about people having their employment suspended or terminated over their porn past, the most recent example being Dallas-area teacher Resa Woodward.
District officials won’t comment on the situation, saying only “the process continues” and no final determination has been made concerning Woodward, who is currently on administrative leave. Still, things aren’t looking good for her challenge to the district’s decision, at least based on what has been published about the situation to date.
In previous instances involving teachers who were terminated over past appearances in porn, typically the performances in question were relatively recent. Woodward, however, said she last took part in a shoot in 2001, although some of the scenes have been re-released in compilations as recently as 2013.
While some aspects of Woodward’s version of events appear to be in question, including the duration of her performing tenure (Woodward said she stopped performing in 2001, but published reports say an “adult film database lists her as being active between 2001 and 2004), what isn’t in question is her suspension’s connection to her performances.
Although a review by the school district conducted last year concluded Woodward’s “past participation in pornography does not in itself constitute a policy violation,” once her past became public knowledge, the district placed her on leave.
As Woodward noted, the district’s decision sends a troubling message to the very students about whom the district is concerned.
“I taught in an all-girls STEAM [science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics] academy that was all about empowerment for women,” Woodward said. “The sad thing is that if these girls find out that I’m being punished for something that I did nearly 20 years ago and had no control of and fought to get out of, well, what does that say about empowerment?”
Speaking of skepticism, my inner cynic is reflexively inclined to find dubious the part of Woodward’s explanation that includes being forced into porn against her will. This is not to say I wouldn’t believe it once provided with more information concerning her circumstances in 2001, just that I’m always doubtful when it comes to claims that sound like convenient excuses rather than forthright explanations.
If I were one of the district officials weighing Woodward’s future, however, I’d say the questions of whether she did porn willfully or not and whether she last performed 13 or 16 years ago are both irrelevant to the question of whether she’s now fit to teach.
Socially conservative hand-wringing about the (evidently permanent) mortal stain of performing in porn aside, what rational reason does anybody have for considering Woodward some manner of threat to her students?
To my knowledge, there have been no complaints about her as a teacher, either from her students or their parents. She certainly hasn’t been showing them her past work, which never would have come to anybody’s attention if not for some busybody bringing it to the school district’s attention. (A busybody who may have had a personal axe to grind with Woodward, no less, if her theory about who tipped off the district is correct.)
To me, the craziest thing in all of this is that forgiveness and the grant of second chances is supposed to be built into our national systems and institutions, absent some extremely serious offense on the part of the person who is being disciplined.
This is a country where voters recently shrugged off audio recordings of a man who was vying for the Oval Office in which he described sexual harassment at best and sexual assault at worst. At the same time, nobody has even alleged Woodward committed a crime, much less a serious crime, but there are those who wouldn’t blink an eye at the idea of permanently banning her from teaching over a handful of pornographic video clips?
None of this is remarkable, I suppose, as it’s largely consistent with a stubborn double-standard that has been around a lot longer than internet porn: When men engage in sexually adventurous behavior, it’s a sign of virility, but when women do so, they’re abject whores worthy of little more than our disdain and contempt.
Whatever may happen to Woodward, I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever see a day when finding out a teacher performed in porn yields little more than a shrug and a yawn. Heck, maybe someday we’ll even see a politician come to the defense of someone embroiled in a porn scandal.
Don’t laugh: Things precisely that strange have happened.
