Let me ask you some potentially painful questions. Think carefully before you answer.
Just suppose you had a bad tooth-ache that required skilful dental surgery. Question 1 - Would you entrust your mouth, your gums, your nerve endings to a dentist who had a reputation for being one of the best in the town, or to one who everybody told you was no good and who frequently botched extractions? You’d go to the best one, right?
Question 2 - Would your answer to Question 1 be influenced by the knowledge that the best dentist also had another private business as a porn star, and the worst dentist was also a nun? Come on, get real. You’d still go to the best dentist, right?
Question 3 - What if it was not you with the agonizing tooth-ache, but one of your children. Which dentist would you want you child to go to? I suspect you would still want them to go to the best dentist. What has sex got to do with it?
Provided that what consenting adults do or believe in private doesn’t frighten the horses or the children, and provided that what they do or believe doesn’t impinge on their ability as dentists, people are free to do or believe what they like and carry on their dentistry. (I note, in passing, that Richard Dawkins would argue that the Church’s practice of seeking to impose irrational fantasy on children is a form of child abuse. No doubt, millions of children could testify to being terrified by nuns’ tales of hell and eternal punishment. But I will leave that for another day.)
I was saddened, but not surprised to learn that an Italian teacher has been suspended from school because of her extra-curricular activities as a porn star. Despite the fact that the teacher concerned, Anna Ciriani, was adamant that she never let her hobby get in the way of her teaching, and that no-one was able to question her professionalism as a teacher, the head of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia education authority said that her pornography career was not compatible with educational activity.
When I worked as a teacher I was involved in several voluntary activities and at least two other commercial ones. If my students had found out about my former political and church work and started to mock me because of it, I hope that the educational authorities would have kept things in perspective and taken the view that how I chose to spend my free time was my business, and supported me continuing in my job. If ever my extra-curricular activities meant that I was abusing my position (seeking to promote my businesses and causes within school time on school premises), or if they meant that I was not fulfilling my professional responsibilities as a good teacher (not preparing lessons or marking work), I would expect to be disciplined or sacked.
Whatever view people have about Anna Ciriani’s extra-curricular activities, the decision to suspend her and stop her from giving evening classes to foreign adults, seems irrational. I would want the best dentist in town, the best car mechanic, the best doctor, the best teacher, regardless of what that person did or believed at home. Her professionalism goes unquestioned. She is not being suspended for being a bad teacher.
This story is terribly sad. It goes to the heart of what is wrong with communitarian/totalitarian forms of social organization. Most mundane social and business relationships are founded on some ground in which the interests of two parties intersect or overlap. Those areas should be the only ones that matter with regard to any particular relationship.
So, to take Anna Ciriani as an example, her life only intersected with those of her pupils, their parents and her employers at one particular juncture. What they did outside of their professional relationship with her should not be any of her business, and vice versa. The only case in which their mutual disinterest in each other’s broader lives would be overturned would be in situations in which those activities affected their particular relationship. As you noted, her pornographic activities did not affect her teaching. She presumably did not display pornographic photos, assign pornographic readings, show pornographic movies or anything similar in her classroom. She should have been accorded enough respect and dignity to be allowed to keep her private life private. It simply was not the business of anybody involved in her school life.
I wonder what the relationship is between strong religiosity and a society’s tendencies toward communitarian social structures? In my experience, most churches are strongly communitarian. Some of them veer dangerously close to cultism or totalitarianism. Even in least extreme of such situations, many congregational members believe it is their right to sit in judgment upon many aspects of peoples’ lives that have nothing to do with their involvement in the church. It can be like the nanny-state in microcosm, the nanny-church.
I’m not surprised that this happened in Italy, nor would I be surprised if it had happened in the USA.
I agree, I am not surprised either that it happened in Italy, and can also imagine it happening in the UK, despite the UK being a less religious society.
It seems that there is an element of “sex being corrupting” and those who concern themselves with sin seeing “sexual ’sin’ as being more important than other ’sins’”.
And there seems to be a refusal on the part of some to acknowledge that pornography is not illegal (whatever you may personally think about it). It is not that she was involved in illegal drug peddling, or illegal money laudering, or illegal people trafficking. And although there are doubtless parts of the ‘adult’ industry that is associated with crime and with female exploitation, there appears to be nothing of that here.
She appears to be a married woman with children who had made her own decision to take her clothes off for cash, and was happy in doing so.
It is interesting how deep the prejudices run. There is almost an unwritten code that respectable people have to publically be seen to be regarding sex as somehow corrupting and ’sinful’. Although, as I have said, the UK is less religious than Italy and parts of the US, I can still see it happening in the UK. It would be a brave person who would be prepared to stand up at a meeting of parents scandalized by revelations of her porn activities, and argue that sexual freedom doesn’t make her a bad teacher. It would an even braver person to point out possible hypocrisy. How many parents or people in the school had ‘benefitted’ from visiting her site?
I have read this blog and pondered upon it before replying as there are indeed a lot of considerations here.
Firstly I would like to agree with the last paragraph of the first reply from The Chapel stating:
“In my experience, most churches are strongly communitarian. Some of them veer dangerously close to cultism or totalitarianism. Even in least extreme of such situations, many congregational members believe it is their right to sit in judgment upon many aspects of peoples’ lives that have nothing to do with their involvement in the church. It can be like the nanny-state in microcosm, the nanny-church”.
In principle,I think this statement is true and well described.
The second point is made by onethinkingman:
There is almost an unwritten code that respectable people have to publically be seen to be regarding sex as somehow corrupting and ’sinful’.
“If we have any christian faith then we believe that sex is a gift from God, and not sinful within a loving relationship”.
However, even with these two points in mind I am uncomfortable with this story and whilst never judging anyone there are some wider issues here that I will briefly talk about.
If I were a porn star and my own professsional body found out, I would be removed from the register. The point being is I have to uphold an image, which is acceptable in people’s eyes and I would be discrediting my profession.
Pornography may not be strictly illegal but there is a very fine line to it.
To onethinking man I would say that you are saying it is ok for this women to be both a teacher and a porn star but you would not allow porn images, of which she represents on another photographic site, a particular group of which you administer. To me there seems a conflict of interest here.
We may not judge the person -No, but what she represents is considered by many to be poisonous and addictive. She may not bring this into her classroom and her teaching may be excellent but where do we draw the line? If she has good moral scruples she would not be a porn star. I could not be a porn star and it is more than taking clothes off for cash.
People are naturists and others sit for nude portarits. The later may be paid. That is totally different. It is not in any way a pornographic pastime, which could easily be corrupted.
So, I have to say that while she may be an excellent teacher and have lots of other positive attributes, I am afraid I agree with her having to stand down as a teacher, as what she represents is dubious to say the least. It is simply not upholding a good public image and people look to that if we are to be respected.
I would also like to add that it is also about having and commanding trust. If we are in postions where we either care for people, or to be responsible for helping shape a young person’s mind then we have to be in a postion where trust is absolute; other wise we discredit ourselves. We don’t need other people to do this for us, our actions already will do so. Our actions speak louder than words.
onethoughtfulwoman, thanks for your comments.
You write: “If I were a porn star and my own professsional body found out, I would be removed from the register. The point being is I have to uphold an image, which is acceptable in people’s eyes and I would be discrediting my profession.” That may be an argument for your profession changing the rules. I’m not sure why it would necessarily be discrediting.
You write: “you are saying it is ok for this women to be both a teacher and a porn star but you would not allow porn images, of which she represents on another photographic site, a particular group of which you administer. To me there seems a conflict of interest here.” There is no conflict of interest as far as I am concerned. The rules on Flickr mean that if the group I were to run had porn on it it would have to be a restricted group. As I don’t wont it to be a restricted group, the rule is no porn. However, if I ran a closed group and someone posted porn, I would have no problem with the person appearing in the picture keeping a job as a teacher or nurse, provided that he or she was a good teacher or nurse.
You write: “whilst never judging anyone”, but a lot of your reply feels as if you are.
You write: “If she has good moral scruples she would not be a porn star.” Perhaps she does have moral scruples - just different to yours and mine.
My main concern is this. If we go down the line of saying you can only be a teacher or nurse etc if you don’t do XYZ, then you are introducing criteria that have nothing to do with your performance as a teacher or nurse. I go back to my first question: Would you entrust your mouth, your gums, your nerve endings to a dentist who had a reputation for being one of the best in the town (even if she was a porn star), or to one who everybody told you was no good and who frequently botched extractions (although she may have been a nun)? What has sex got to do with it?
I see your point about trust.
However, if you had a reputation for being a good dentist, I would rather trust you (even if you were a porn star) than trust someone who was incompetent (even if they were a nun). Again, the key issue is professional competence, and extra-curricular activities, provided they are legal, have nothing to do with professional competence.
Yes, I can see what you are saying about flickr, thanks for the explanation.
I can see what you are saying about the dentist too. I would want a good dentist to look after me, but denistry is all about doing a procedure well that’s all. I think education is more delicate and subjective.
Perhaps, I am being judgemental because of my very dim view of pornography. I accept this. I would still struggle though if one of my daughter’s teachers were a porn star because of what that person represents that’s all.
I see your point about the analogy being slightly different - though I think my point about professional competence may still stand.
I would want to maintain that is at least theoretically possible that some porn stars are human beings too and capable of being sensitive and of drawing appropriate boundaries on delicate matters when required to do so in other contexts.
I wanted to think about this last reply before answering.
You know that I do believe these people, of which this teacher is one example, are human beings, talented, sensitive, creative individuals.
Having thought further I had to ask myself these questions and be honest.
What is the difference between adult content in a screened TV programme and the adult film industry?
Did you watch the 2nd series of Rome? I did and I found the sex rather excting.
So if this lady was an actor in “Rome” would she have been dismissed? Probabaly not.
I think the issue here is what pornography represents. There is a fine line between sex on “normal TV”, including educational sex -The Girl’s guide to C21st Sex comes to mind(incredible series) and what is considered porn. I admit I am not naive to think they are completely the same. It’s very cloudy though isn’t it in some instances?
I can’t say watching sex is wrong because I have done just that on main stream TV and to be honest am thinking lucky them. Let’s have a slice of the action!
I thoroughly enjoyed watching both series of the HBO ‘Rome’ series and am sad that they are not going to make a third. One of the powerful messages for me that came out of that series was the ‘normality’ of sex, or as my daughter would say: “Dad, sex is just sex!”
I think, that for me was the point I was trying to make in my posting. Why make sex something exceptional? If she kept pigeons as a hobby, nobody would bat an eyelid! Because she takes her clothes off, everybody gets their proverbial knickers in a twist! Sadly, I suspect, if she did appear in ‘Rome’ in a sex scene she would equally be hounded out of a job - totally hypocritically because the people doing the hounding were probably watching the series.
I accept that you feel differently and that she went beyond one of your barriers - though I can’t pretend to understand completely why.
See also: http://a-thinking-man.blogspot.com/2007/07/sex-neckties-and-tv-set.html
Your post suggests that Ms Ciriani teaches adults, though earlier you state that she teaches in a school. I think that a greater latitude can be allowed to teachers of adults than to teachers of children because a teacher of children not only is a purveyor of knowledge and skills but also acts - inevitably and whether we want this to be the case or not - as a role model.
Is there a danger that if Ms Ciriani taught children, they might find out she was also a porn actress and conclude from this that being a porn actress is a perfectly reasonable thing to be and thus think about pursuing such a career themselves? And if they did, would this be a bad thing? I can imagine somebody stretching answers to such questions to a whole book, never mind a comment on a blog post.
Personally, I think that one of the things the Web has done is to convince a lot of people that pornography (as long as only adults are involved) isn’t all that bad a thing. It is fast becoming a commodity like so many other products available online. I think in a couple of decades (when today’s school kids are adults) laws against pornography will hardly ever be invoked. I may be wrong, of course, but I hope not.
If Ms Ciriani teaches only adults, then sacking her for her other activities is plainly ridiculous, in my opinion. On the other hand, I think we have to take into consideration the norms of the society in which she operates. It may be that that is such huge opposition to her continuing as a teacher that sacking her is the only viable course of action. Not many years ago, I heard that a teacher in a British school was sacked because he was a Marxist and parents feared he would contaminate their children’s minds with his philosophy.
The good thing here is that if Ms Ciriani loses her academic post, she will not suffer financially. There is far more money to be made as a porn star than as a teacher, no matter how excellent.
The information on Reuters is that Ms Ciriani had a school job but had to leave it when there were complaints. She then started teaching adults, but was suspended from that too.
I am uncomfortable with the “teachers must be good role models” argument because it all depends on what you consider to be a good role model. And again, it gets away from my central argument about professional competence. If she is good in the classroom she is good in the classroom, full stop! You could argue that she is an excellent example of enterprise. Presumably atheists wouldn’t want clergy or Christians as teachers on the bad role-model argument. It would also be an argument that could justify the setting up of more religious schools. If I were a Muslim I might not want my children taught by bad role-models from the infidels. I used to work with teachers who in their former lives had been local politicians, journalists, and lawyers - and I’m sure some could have brought a case against them on the role-model argument.
On a more serious note, if people wanted to take a moral stance on this, would they ban gay teachers? I suspose the answer would be, “Yes”.
I used to work with someone who was a member of an extreme and rare religious cult. Those of us with responsibility for managing him took the view that although we privately thought his particular views on religion were extremely weird and non-conventional, he seemed a nice guy, and provided he didn’t bring his extra-curricular activities into the school or classroom, he was ok. He was a very effective teacher and was subsequently promoted. I confess to still feeling the same arguments should apply to Ms Ciriani.
Just heard on the Jeremy Vine show BBC2 finished 1pm, what sounds like an exact case of a teacher in a British school. I only heard half the debate/report but there is a uproar going on with a teacher called Sarah/Sara Green having featured in a soft-porn movie 3-4 yrs ago. Apparantly, a video is in circulation, which one parent featured on the radio had watched.
Feelings were for and against whether she was right to do this and the conflict between private and professional life.
I don’t know which school, or what action has been taken but all I heard from one viewer, who knew the school was that it is a traditional school.
You may want to try and find out more.
Hope this info may be of some use or interest in this debate.
onethoughtfulwoman: Just discovered that Sarah Green wasn’t in a soft-porn movie, but a risqué advert. You could argue that she wasn’t involved in being a porn star, but just doing her job as an actress. I personally think it is dreadful that a job she did THREE years ago, at least, is now being used to destroy her career.
You can see the advert yourself here:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23066361-5006003,00.html
Thanks for providing us with this link and for the reply.
In view of the circumstances here I think she should be allowed to continue her teaching career with a caution.
The YouTube video needs to come off line, if that’s possible.
Had she declared her modelling/actress career at her interview?if she had then she has a case indeed for herself.
If not then she has made a mistake not declaring it, but that is all.
This is an advert, all be it, a risque one.
We all make mistakes and do things either we regret, or it turns out not to be in our best interest.
It’s a pity the puplis have commented on-line, that does not help; partuclary if this lessens her credibility in class.
I do hope she comes out of this ok. She would have learnt some of her own lessons on this.
onethoughtfulwoman:
I am not sure I understand why she should have a caution?
athinkingman: In answer to the above, because of what has happend and for potentially bringing the teaching profession into disrepute.
[...] in November last year I wrote a post called What Has Sex Got To Do With It? arguing that Anna Ciriani, who was acknowledged to be an excellent teacher, should not have lost [...]
[...] 23, 2009 by athinkingman Some time ago I wrote about the case of Anna Ciriani (What has sex got to do with it?) who lost her job as teacher in Italy because of her extra curricular activities as an internet [...]