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highschoolsecre...
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Uh, can I go to the office? Please?
April 9, 2011 3:36 PM Subscribe

Double suspension action! Teen suspended for outing pornstar office assistant, and a cop wants in on the action too. All links (here at least) SFW.
posted by kneecapped (71 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite

Shoot the messenger, in the face. sorry

In any case, what I gather the student might be suspended for is accessing porn underage (which, imho, is not a school matter unless he did on school computers), but otherwise... makes the school look really bad.

But given what goes on in The States, this is pretty par for the course, retaliation-wise.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 3:44 PM on April 9, 2011

The boy had asked her for an autograph. Ardente wouldn’t give him one and asked him to keep quiet about the matter. The boy then created a Facebook page in her name, complete with a racy photo of her in her undies.

Yeah, suspension justified.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:51 PM on April 9, 2011 [53 favorites]

From the first article:

The boy had asked her for an autograph. Ardente wouldn’t give him one and asked him to keep quiet about the matter. The boy then created a Facebook page in her name, complete with a racy photo of her in her undies.

As word of the Facebook page spread around school, Ardente went to her bosses and told them of the situation.

If that's an accurate summary of the action, the kid sounds like something of a jerk.

The video and the second article claim a police liaison outed the secretary, rather than her doing so voluntarily.

The videos, which included titles such as Serial Abusers 2, were discovered by students. A police liaison officer who overheard students talking about the discovery alerted officials.
posted by jsturgill at 3:52 PM on April 9, 2011

Yeah, he deserves a suspension for harassing a school employee.
posted by ghharr at 3:53 PM on April 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

But given what goes on in The States, this is pretty par for the course, retaliation-wise.

FYI, this is in Canada.
posted by rkent at 3:54 PM on April 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

Yeah, it really is a shitty situation. It makes me wish people were less hung up on sex, especially with a YouTube comment like this:

That's just it! Something every report, every reporter and every educator offering comment seems to have missed: Isn't there something gone wrong when all these teens have such free and easy access to all the porn they could ever watch?

My answer: nope, not really. I hope the kind of attitude that masturbating is dirty and no one should do it dies off as soon as possible (probably too much to hope for so long as there's a significant group of religious people around).
posted by codacorolla at 3:55 PM on April 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

I hope she gets reinstated or a settlement for being fired. The school shouldn't have any say what she does in her time outside of work.

Not sure the teen should be suspended, either.

Stupid situation all around, IMO.

We also live in a world where you might not get your teaching degree if the university you attend discovers a photo of you drinking at the age of 25.
posted by Menthol at 4:01 PM on April 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I guess I've changed my feelings about the student's suspension.
posted by hippybear at 4:06 PM on April 9, 2011

And, jeez, why is Quebec getting all puritan about sex all of a sudden? Walking through downtown Montreal is like 1980s Times Square NYC, except even seedier, somehow.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:16 PM on April 9, 2011

That kid deserves whatever punishment he receives and more. What a nasty little piece of work.
posted by joannemullen at 4:16 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Suspension is the wrong punishment. The teen should be expelled, for a start, and should be sent to a psychologist for trying to blackmail a woman over her private life. He's probably got some serious female issues to work out.

I'd totally agree with you if blackmail wasn't the kind of thing that permeated professional workplaces all over the world.

That being the case, I'd reinstate the secretary with backpay and a little extra for this BS.

Then, I'd tell the student that he has 2 choices:
1. expulsion- He basically blackmailed an employee at the school. Employees should not be subjected to that kind of workplace harassment by anybody.
2. "the secretary has agreed not to have you suspended if you perform this a service for the school for the rest of your time here. yes, you will be pushing around the garbage can at lunch so kids can use your torso as a backboard".

your choice, kiddo. blackmail has consequences.
posted by hal_c_on at 4:25 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Still no links to the video in question? (oops, forgot I am not on Reddit).
posted by MrChowWow at 4:29 PM on April 9, 2011

...the board said her cinematic activities don’t correspond with the values being taught at the school...

Which goes to reinforce the point that the Quebecois are not, in actuality, French.

I don't know if this rotten little kid should be suspended; he shouldn't probably be sentenced to perform in a porn flick and then have the size of his penis publicly mocked.
posted by steambadger at 4:30 PM on April 9, 2011

Also, if I was the secretary, I'd sue the fuck out of this school. Not only for her sake, but for the sake of ALL WORKERS who:

1. should not be subject to blackmail in the workplace.
2. should not be subject to workplace sanctions or termination for that which they do outside of work, outside of their place of employment.

i mean shit, next thing you know, they'll be firing workers for not putting their off-work tongues and dicks in places deemed appropriate by their handbook.
posted by hal_c_on at 4:30 PM on April 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

I can't be the only one who thinks "asked for an autograph" is a polite fiction that everyone involved has agreed to?
posted by Justinian at 4:31 PM on April 9, 2011 [21 favorites]

I can't be the only one who thinks "asked for an autograph" is a polite fiction that everyone involved has agreed to?

Good point. I don't really hang around pornstars, so I'm wondering how people react to them when seeing them in real-life person(not at conventions/strip clubs).

Anybody?
posted by hal_c_on at 4:34 PM on April 9, 2011

A autograph by hand?
posted by orthogonality at 4:35 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I haven't been able to determine if the High School in question is Catholic or not. The name looks to be of distant First Nations origin.

It's also worth noting that "High School" in Québec is different from the rest of North America AFAIK: grades 7-11.
posted by Decimask at 4:46 PM on April 9, 2011

That's just it! Something every report, every reporter and every educator offering comment seems to have missed: Isn't there something gone wrong when all these teens have such free and easy access to all the porn they could ever watch?

My answer: nope, not really. I hope the kind of attitude that masturbating is dirty and no one should do it dies off as soon as possible (probably too much to hope for so long as there's a significant group of religious people around).

We also live in a world where you might not get your teaching degree if the university you attend discovers a photo of you drinking at the age of 25.

From the decision in the case:

Throughout the practicum, Reinking criticized Plaintiff’s competence -- especially her ignorance of basic grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage -- her inadequate classroom management, her poor understanding of the subjects she attempted to teach, and her
inappropriate manner with students. Reinking found that on several occasions Plaintiff would “make up an answer” or “give the wrong answer” to student questions about literature or grammar. Reinking believed that the students were aware of Plaintiff’s errors.

She also said the girl yelled shut up at her students on two occasions. I'm not sure the drinking photo was the main problem.
posted by Huck500 at 4:49 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I've known more than a couple porn stars in my day. I never asked any of them for an autograph. Other activities ensued. I have memories instead of memorabilia.
posted by hippybear at 4:52 PM on April 9, 2011

I do think there's a case to be made that pornography, with its depictions of women as objects, and the way it portrays sex as degrading for women can be harmful to people

You can make a case for a lot of things. People "make the case" that video games cause violence. Being able to make a case is meaningless in the absence of actual data. Secondly, this is a strawman. Pornography isn't intrinsically degrading for women. Some is, sure. But some music is degrading for women and we don't consider music-in-general as harmful.
posted by Justinian at 4:52 PM on April 9, 2011 [17 favorites]

I'm wondering how people react to them when seeing them in real-life person

Most people don't recognize them. This includes the porn "fans", who actually bother with learning names. Often, the difference between a porn-star and an averagely "attractive" person ( based on the conventional cultural standards at that time and place) is mostly a function of makeup, costume, and lighting. In cases where recognition does occur, such as this one, the gamut runs from shocked disappointment, all the way through drooling priapic obnoxiousness, to matter-of-fact acceptance.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 4:54 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I do think there's a case to be made that pornography, with its depictions of women as objects, and the way it portrays sex as degrading for women can be harmful to people.

Especially all that gay porn that completely excludes women entirely.
posted by birdherder at 4:54 PM on April 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

I am shameful of my country :(
posted by Patrick Leo at 4:58 PM on April 9, 2011

I can't be the only one who thinks "asked for an autograph" is a polite fiction that everyone involved has agreed to?

I wondered that, too.
posted by Forktine at 5:05 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The boy had asked her for an autograph.

Oh, is that what we're calling it in Canada now.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:08 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Masturbation != pornography. I do think there's a case to be made that pornography, with its depictions of women as objects, and the way it portrays sex as degrading for women can be harmful to people, particularly to young people who have little experience in real relationship or with sex.

Even if this were true--and I don't think it is--what does it have to do with these events? Should the school have been preemptively checking that the kid didn't have access to porn at home or something? It's a well known fact that any attempt to keep teenage boys and pornography apart is doomed to fail.
posted by nasreddin at 5:33 PM on April 9, 2011

Margaret Atwood invented a machine that allows her to give autographs remotely.

Just sayin'.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:34 PM on April 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Pornography isn't intrinsically degrading for women.

Yeah, I'm kind of on the fence about this. By Sturgeon's Law, ninety percent of porn is crap. Unfortunately, crappy porn seems to be teaching a lot of kids about sex -- a volatile subject in any case, but particularly so for teenagers. Porn has been widely available on the internet for what, about fifteen years now? Of course, it was available to anybody who knew about usenet long before that; but it started to become ubiquitous in the late nineties. Any kid who wants to -- and most of them do want to -- can watch as much porn as he or she can fit on the screen. And, since our society has such weirdly tangled hangups about sex, crappy porn videos are going to supply the extent of what some kids learn about the matter.

Never having had sex with anybody who came of age in that window, I can't give direct evidence -- but my impression, from twenty-somethings I've talked to and from media reports (see disclaimer below) is that there are now a lot of people out there who think that "Yeah, suck that cock, slut" is good pillow talk, and that every sex act should end with somebody ejaculating on somebody else's face. I find this worrisome.

Of course, I recognize my own curmudgeonliness here. Media reports are always exaggerated, and every generation is appalled by the actions of later generations -- usually because they don't understand them. And there's probably not a whole lot to be done about putting the genie back in the bottle in any case. But I do believe it bears thinking about. It's simplistic to claim that internet porn causes disrespect for women, or that video games cause violence, or that MTV-style cutting causes diminished attention spans; but it's also silly to say that the constant media barrage we live with doesn't affect us at all.

tl/dr: "Hey! You damn kids get your bondage gear off my lawn!"
posted by steambadger at 5:57 PM on April 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

I don't really understand the uproar here. She chose to be paid to have sex on camera. She chose to work with children. Surely she must have known that these two activities are not compatible -- in fact, according to the article, she asked that the student not tell anybody about it.
posted by indubitable at 6:03 PM on April 9, 2011

She chose to work with children

She's a secretary not a teacher or something. She worked for the school board for 7 years but was transferred to a high school 2 years ago.
posted by Justinian at 6:12 PM on April 9, 2011

I wouldn't worry that much, steambadger; with the bad there is good, namely sites like Scarleteen that are excellent, respectful, realistic, and compassionate. Never had anything like that when I was a teen. Did have plenty of access to bodice rippers and dirty parts of grownup books that described bizarre and, to me now, physically unlikely sex.
posted by emjaybee at 6:32 PM on April 9, 2011

Point taken, emjaybee. There's certainly a lot more good information on the internet than was available when I was a kid; I learned about sex primarily from stolen copies of Playboy, loud-mouthed half-educated friends, and the skeevy old basketball coach who taught "Health" in my high school.

But the Playboys, which would have shocked and appalled my grandparents, were hidden in my drop ceiling; and it was a big deal to get them down when my parents weren't around. What worries me about porn today isn't that it's available; it's that it's so pervasive. The unrelenting commercial sexualization of everything and the vestigial remnants of our Puritan past strike me as a toxic mix.

Most of the kids I know seem kinder and wiser than my generation was at their age, though. I'm guessing they'll sort things out.
posted by steambadger at 7:20 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hm. I wonder about the "porn makes us do stuff we otherwise wouldn't" theory. I mean, sure it affects people, every experience in the world does. I know I've tried something I saw in a porn flick on occasion. Sometimes I liked it, sometimes not. (Some of the positions, I don't understand the attraction, for example, other than to provide good camera shots.)

Take fetishes for example, though, like BDSM (which I don't know anything about, but I'm going to use it as an example anyway.) BDSM fans must have found out about it some way, maybe through seeing about it in porn. But did porn make them interested, or were they already that way and it was just a matter of time before they discovered it on their own?

Kids that learn what they think sex is like through porn just need to get a partner who knows what they like in real life and isn't shy about saying so instead of conforming to porn scripts. Just like everyone else.
posted by ctmf at 7:33 PM on April 9, 2011

But did porn make them interested, or were they already that way and it was just a matter of time before they discovered it on their own?

Widespread access to reasonably priced BDSM porn is a relatively recent thing. Pre-1960's, it was totally inaccessible to most people. Nevertheless, there's always been people with BDSM fetishes.

That said, some of the rapid and enormous growth of BDSM activity is probably linked to the availability of porn driving experimentation in that direction. So I guess the real answer is a bit of both.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:43 PM on April 9, 2011

in some round-about way, her job deals with children

And that matters how, precisely?
posted by flaterik at 8:17 PM on April 9, 2011

The children found out, didn't they? I'll bet you the parents aren't pleased.

Yes, she has the right to do it. I can't argue that. But I can hold the opinion that porn stars should not be associated with schools.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 8:23 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's in a tough grey area. I know a lot of parents that would not be comfortable with a gay teacher, for example. You have to look past comfort level and see if there is actually any reason a person is unfit for the job.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:42 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

in some round-about way, her job deals with children

And that matters how, precisely?

First off, given the availability of the images of her on the web, half the kids in that school are going to be looking for and finding the stills/videos, sniggering about it every time they've in the office or they have to interact with her. It's disruptive to the educational environment.

Second, you're going to have a whoooooooole lot of parents who are going to freak. Will they be a bunch of damned hypocrites? Probably. But as a school administrator you have precious little control over how your parents act, and something like this, it ain't gonna be one or three parents. Maybe three dozen, if not 300.

Third, dunno about Canada, but in this state teachers (and yes I realize she's not a teacher, but school district employees generally have to abide by the same conduct rules) can be shitcanned for "for engaging in conduct that is viewed as immoral." I'm thinking porn probably falls into that category.
posted by kgasmart at 9:09 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

But I can hold the opinion that porn stars should not be associated with schools.

Is being a porn star illegal? If this woman has no history of interacting inappropriately with children, then why should you be concerned about how she acts with consenting adults? Are you saying anyone who has acted in porn is by definition a danger to any child in their presence, even in a completely unrelated setting?

I hate, so much, this attitude in American life that any deviation from the sexual norm is by definition a danger to children, and therefore something we should all be afraid of and discriminate against...for the children's sake.

She was a secretary in a school. She did not come on to a child or show her movies to a child or tell any child about her other career. A teenager found out who she was and because we all still think of any kind of acknowledgement of sex as a contaminant that's dangerous to children, this woman lost her job.
posted by emjaybee at 9:12 PM on April 9, 2011 [18 favorites]

birdherder writes "Especially all that gay porn that completely excludes women entirely."

See! When women aren't being treated as objects in porn they are being discriminated against. /hamburger

XhaustedProphet writes "Yes, she has the right to do it. I can't argue that. But I can hold the opinion that porn stars should not be associated with schools."

Why? I mean why do you hold that opinion not why you can hold that opinion.
posted by Mitheral at 9:24 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

kgasmart writes "Second, you're going to have a whoooooooole lot of parents who are going to freak. Will they be a bunch of damned hypocrites? Probably. But as a school administrator you have precious little control over how your parents act, and something like this, it ain't gonna be one or three parents. Maybe three dozen, if not 300."

How many squeeky wheel, probably hypocritical, parents is the threshold for shitcanning someone's career?
posted by Mitheral at 9:28 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

How many squeeky wheel, probably hypocritical, parents is the threshold for shitcanning someone's career?

You know what, I tend to think this secretary should have had a few more brains. She's free to do what she likes, but as our friends on the right are so fond of telling us, actions do have consequences - did she not think this would be found out? Did it never occur to her to consider how her employers might react, or more importantly, how her employers' constituents might act?

And if there's some sort of morals clause that she's expected to follow, she made a particularly bad choice.

I don't know if you have kids but I do and I know lots of other parents who would howl like banshees if this happened in our school district. Wading past the hypocritical arguments, they would say that the fact that the evidence of this secretary's alternate "career" is out there - how many of the pics are already circulating on the kids' phones? - not only disrupts the educational environment but, unless the district "does something about it," it is in effect telling/teaching their kids that porn is OK. Now, lots and lots of people think that - maybe even some of the parents! Maybe they're freaks themselves! - but they're already dancing around the issue of sexuality with teenage kids, trying to discourage the notion of promiscuity for emotional and other reasons.
posted by kgasmart at 9:47 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think kgasmart said it well: It's disruptive to the educational environment.

There is a time and place for sexual deviation. I realize she did not bring this into the school herself, but some kid did. And then it becomes a distraction for children.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 9:51 PM on April 9, 2011

One time a kid in my elementary school was suspended for getting a crew cut, because "It was disruptive to the educational environment."

I've never been able to take the phrase seriously ever since. I mean, it's a common male haircut. My education was more disrupted by the realization that school administrators are idiots.

I can see how the porn thing could honestly be disruptive, but so could a lot of things.

A transgender teacher could freak people out damn good. I understand the difference between being born transgender and taking a job in the sex industry. The thing is, I think the transgender thing could be wildly more distracting but kids and parents are gonna have to learn to deal with that, they should be able to deal with the porn thing too.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:04 PM on April 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

How many squeeky wheel, probably hypocritical, parents is the threshold for shitcanning someone's career?

So, because of that one woman did of her own free will (and was paid for, no less), hundreds of parents should be forced to conform to your sexual mores? I think that is completely unreasonable.
posted by indubitable at 10:19 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

conform to your sexual mores?

Not conform to, tolerate and learn to ignore maybe.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:35 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gaaaa. I'm so annoyed when I think about this whole thing, I can't really express myself well.

She should have the right to do what she wants in her off time. Period. The school shouldn't be equating her porn work with anything having to do with children's education, ever, at all. She's not fucking in their building, and so it doesn't concern them. If, as the school board says, "We considered the facts and actions that led to this incident were inappropriate, unacceptable and incompatible not only with our mission but also with our values that we wish to teach our young students", then they need to decide how they're going to address the fact that one of their FOURTEEN YEAR OLD students has spent enough time browsing porn online that he came across this pebble in a giant quarry of porn. Obviously the values they're teaching aren't working, if this is their concern.

And she was offered another position within the school district which she turned down, resulting in her discharge? What did they offer her which was so odious that she'd rather lose her job than be transferred?

And the kid. One article says there may be criminal charges brought against him? What charges? There's no mention of what they might be. Is it illegal for a 14 year old to SEE porn in Canada? Or is the onus on the provider of the porn to be keeping the kid away from material which he is too young to see? Does that mean his parents need to be brought up on charges for not having adequate parental controls installed on their computers? Or the internet porn provider for not having adequate checks in place for age verification?

Ultimately, this is a huge case of mind-your-own-business-you-impertinant-fuck-itude. Maybe she should have lied to the student, but that would probably also be against the mission and values the school is trying to teach. I have to give her props for not being so ashamed of her life that she resorted to lying. That's what gays and lesbians did in educational positions for generations, and it only led to horrible consequences for the individuals doing the lying as they tried to maintain adequate cover for their private lives. And it also held back the development of the children as they grew up in a world where there "weren't any" gays or lesbians, and so they were denied the ability to have contact and learn tolerance for those different from them.

She's not a sexual deviant. That's not even a term which actually has meaning, unless you have a worldview which has very narrow strictures on adult behavior. And if you spend any time at all on the internet, you quickly learn that whatever you think is "normal" actually is just one small color in a vast spectrum of behavior which is widely represented, so there IS no "normal". The kid isn't a pervert or a blackmailer. He's a horny pubescent male who happened to make a one in a zillion connection between something he saw online and the real world.

Ultimately, there has been no justice served, and I still have far too many questions about exactly how everything came down to really feel I can say anything other than "wow, what a mess."
posted by hippybear at 10:50 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

indubitable writes "So, because of that one woman did of her own free will (and was paid for, no less), hundreds of parents should be forced to conform to your sexual mores? I think that is completely unreasonable."

I disagree. Mostly because one could get the same kind of outrage, in varying degrees, if the person was known to be gay or had an abortion or was HIV positive or voted against the Bloc or was merely promiscuous or smoked pot or whatever else tweaked the noses of the public.

The point that her mere presence would be disruptive while probably true isn't compelling in my opinion. Doing a bad thing to quiet the intolerant isn't good policy. Things would have been uncomfortable for a while and there probably would have been a bit of sniggering every September as new students came in but give it a year and this would have blown over with no significant impact on the students or the education they received. Heck the students might have even learned a lesson in tolerance.

It will be interesting to see the conditions the board attempted to get her to agree to to prevent the firing if the union makes them public.

It's also quite telling that the board felt it needed to take the vote on whether to fire her behind closed doors.
posted by Mitheral at 11:09 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

One article says there may be criminal charges brought against him? What charges?

Blackmail. Identity theft. There isn't a crime of being a douchebag, but sometimes I wish there was.

Of course, he's a kid, and no charges should be laid against him. Kids do stupid crap all time time, because they're kids. But neither should the school district be policing what people do outside of work hours.

What a fustercluck.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:09 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

1. Last year's Quebecois blockbuster is about a young boy whose life goes off the rails as a direct result of watching a porno.

2. Quebec is a close second to California in terms of porn-generated GDP.

You do the math.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:51 AM on April 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's also quite telling that the board felt it needed to take the vote on whether to fire her behind closed doors.

They just thought the actions of consenting adults behind closed doors should be private.
posted by ersatz at 3:39 AM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, because of that one woman did of her own free will (and was paid for, no less), hundreds of parents should be forced to conform to your sexual mores? I think that is completely unreasonable.

So, everyone working in a school should be forced to conform to the claimed or assumed sexual mores of the student's parents? How is that reasonable?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:41 AM on April 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Everything old is new again. I remember when those newfangled video recorder thingies plus the back rooms of video rental shops suddenly meant that you could see Deep Throat without wading through the cum in the aisles at some sleazy theatre. And you might get your own copy. And the kids might get ahold of your stash! Kids were watching porn! Nobody could stop them! Bar the door and load the guns, Marcy, the world's a-gonna end!

I remember when just about everyone past puberty could tell you who Marilyn Chambers was, and it wasn't because of her picture on the Ivory Snow box. And people were shocked, shocked I tell you, to think that kids were learning about oral sex from Linda Lovelace. They all had their own copies so they could make sure they knew what bad information their kids were getting, too.

Of course since the invention of photography there have been pamphlets and magazines, legal and otherwise. Before there was Insex there was Irving Klaw and before him there was John Willie. In the 1970's John Norman's sexual fantasies took up a whole shelf in the SF section of B. Dalton's, and were readily sold to minors. Hey, at least Insex let their models go at the end of the live feed; Norman proposed an entire philosophy around the idea that they should be enslaved 24/7. It was as bad as the one with the trains and the one that involves orcs.

And yet, here we are. Fantasies are only very loosely related to the reality that people work to create. People who are inclined to do something bad because they saw it in a porno are going to do something bad anyway. One day our kids will be complaining about porn made with the Brainstorm (or is it Strange Days) device, and it will be the same damn argument the authorities had with John Willie.
posted by localroger at 5:46 AM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's interesting how some of the same people who think there should be zero consequences to the secretary say that the kid should be expelled, forced to take out the garbage, perhaps arrested, etc.
posted by cheburashka at 9:04 AM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Excuse me, but could someone please explain to me why it's assumed by nearly everyone here that she had the "right" to film these videos? Most schools have an employee handbook which explains in detail that this sort of behavior can get you fired, due to the fact that employees there work with children as public servants.

Not all jobs provide equal rights to their employees.
posted by secondhand pho at 9:06 AM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

cheburashka writes "It's interesting how some of the same people who think there should be zero consequences to the secretary say that the kid should be expelled, forced to take out the garbage, perhaps arrested, etc"

I didn't advocate for punishment for the student but it is likely that the student has done something illegal (computer fraud at a minimum) while the secretary has not.

secondhand pho writes "Most schools have an employee handbook which explains in detail that this sort of behavior can get you fired, due to the fact that employees there work with children as public servants."

She worked for the Des Navigateurs school board. I can't find their employee hand book however their press release [google translate link] says she was let go for "Article 6.1 "Without limiting the principle of the right to expression, any member of the public internal duty to show respect and loyalty to the school board and contribute to its development, its reputation, its effectiveness and its influence.". Seems broad enough to allow them to fire anyone for pretty well any reason though maybe the original french is more restrictive or nuanced. Considering she was acting under pseudonym and wasn't publicizing her other job in either direction I think it is at least arguable that she was engaging in free speech that wasn't disrespecting the board.
posted by Mitheral at 11:28 AM on April 10, 2011

BDSM fans must have found out about it some way, maybe through seeing about it in porn. But did porn make them interested, or were they already that way and it was just a matter of time before they discovered it on their own?

I think the wealth of things with people tied up in them (or being exposed to some sort of menace) that we expose children to in their fiction and educational materials make the kink.com or Betty Page style pinups redundant.

Seriously, before puberty got its clutches into me I was recounting the tortures of my imaginary friend Long Arm, re-reading illustrated books on the middle ages for the little depictions of dungeons and obsessively re-watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty for the prince-captivity scenes (and the magic house keeping scenes, I'm not a complete pervert) and reenacting "captives of the troll king!" with my complacent female peers.

BDSM porn, quite frankly, is a disappointment compared to the mainstream non-porn examples.
posted by Phalene at 11:46 AM on April 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

BDSM porn, quite frankly, is a disappointment compared to the mainstream non-porn examples.

This, a thousand times. The final scene of House of Wax is equal to anything current de facto spokesdouchebag for my perversion PD ever created, even though it pulls all kinds of punches with regard to what can be shown on screen. And there are many similar examples.

One thing I'd like to air as a slight derail: This whole idea of "objectification" that the anti-porn people like to trot out is just plain stupid with regard to BDSM. The whole point of S&M is that you are very fully concerned with the other person's feelings; there isn't any point to the fantasy if they are an "object" you're just splooging in. Consider, would it be of any interest to do S&M with a RealDoll? What would be the point? It will sit there and endure whatever you want to do to it even if you don't tie it up.

But to do these things to another person, an actual person who struggles and cries and resists the humiliation and pain, but to do these things just right so that person has an experience they could never have any other way, to do those things so that they will come back and ask or even beg you to do those things again -- that is magic. If I don't see that in porn I don't see much of a point. Nothing is more of a turnoff for me in porn than a look of boredom in the eyes of a model who should be feeling something intense. If that's "objectifying," then I'm a ham sandwich.
posted by localroger at 1:20 PM on April 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think, too, part of the problem is the inherent distancing which takes place during filming of anything, which tends to water down the experience of an intense BDSM session for those watching. Even an intense scene viewed in person without participating can lose its edge when filmed. I suppose with careful planning and using well-crafted and planned editing techniques, one could probably create some sense of the emotional curve of a quality scene. Although at that point you're more making a movie than filming porn (yes, they're two very different things).

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not sure it's really possible to do BDSM porn that really really works, but that a talented filmmaker could recreate the emotion and intensity using cinematic language.
posted by hippybear at 1:31 PM on April 10, 2011

hippybear, I guess having come of age during the golden age of porn I don't see a distinction between "making porn" and "making movies," I only see a distinction between making bad movies and good movies. Certainly there were production values in place in the 1970's for mainstream porn that one can only dream of now, and nowadays BDSM being a niche market commands only a small fraction of the small fraction of those resources that are available to a video distributed fetish film.

But you do sometimes see that spark, and I think this is one of the things that made Insex what it once was. Before Insex you had HOM and Harmony and mostly models just posing, without any passion. PD is definitely an asshole but he is also something of a genius in that it occurred to him to give us real experiences. It can be a reach to find a model who can project horror when she's not feeling it, but all it takes is basic competence to capture the look of horror in the eyes of someone who is actually feeling horror. My main complaint with the result is that the money, and the fact that some of the models needed the money badly, created a result that was more like the real torture of the middle ages than my sex fantasy. I don't want to think the woman comes back to me because she needs tuition or has to pay her drug dealer. I want to believe she came back because I did something for her she can't get any other way.
posted by localroger at 2:00 PM on April 10, 2011

Especially all that gay porn that completely excludes women entirely.

Don't forget films like Lesbian Psychodramas, Lesbian Pickup & Sex Crazed Lesbians, which exclude men entirely.
posted by chavenet at 2:31 PM on April 10, 2011

I'm just not seeing how this is blackmail. Sure, he asked for an autograph, got denied, and then posted the page... is there anyone who thinks if he was given an autograph that he wouldn't have posted the page? Or told every single one of his friends? This is the scoop of the century to that kid.

People are insinuating that "asking for an autograph" is probably revisionist. There are two ways to see it as euphemism: he actually asked her for sexual favors, or he did indeed "ask her for an autograph" in the sense of "I know your secret. What do I get to not tell?"

Either way, the insinuation is that if she had complied with his implied demands (whether it was as innocuous as an autograph or it was actually a demand for sex or cash or a unicorn) he would not have publicized what he knew. "Blackmail" does indeed suggest that there was an implicit "do as I ask or else..." that we don't know for certain was expressed, but it seems likely. Not that a 14-year-old with info that juicy about a school administrator was going to keep it to himself-- I think it's likely that his friends knew via text, IM or social sites before he even approached her. But any way you slice it, the kid's a shit.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:08 PM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

there are now a lot of people out there who think that "Yeah, suck that cock, slut" is good pillow talk

I'm 54, and I think that's good pillow talk when it's directed at me.
posted by layceepee at 5:28 PM on April 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

And, jeez, why is Quebec getting all puritan about sex all of a sudden? Walking through downtown Montreal is like 1980s Times Square NYC, except even seedier, somehow.

This is in Levis, some 260km from downtown Montreal. St-Laurent St. is definitely not representative of Quebec in general.

I haven't been able to determine if the High School in question is Catholic or not. The name looks to be of distant First Nations origin.

Just so you know, a very large numbers of schools in Quebec have Catholic names because of their historical origin, but the actual practising Catholic schools are extremely rare today. Most are laic schools with some optional catholic classes.
posted by ddaavviidd at 5:41 PM on April 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Third, dunno about Canada, but in this state teachers (and yes I realize she's not a teacher, but school district employees generally have to abide by the same conduct rules) can be shitcanned for "for engaging in conduct that is viewed as immoral." I'm thinking porn probably falls into that category.

See, I'd be liable to throw a fit at a school that canned a porn star- I want my (hypothetical) kids to grow up with a healthy respect for sexual freedoms. Your immoral is not my immoral and I don't think it is acceptable to make people conform to an entirely arbitrary standard.
posted by Phalene at 10:12 PM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Your immoral is not my immoral and I don't think it is acceptable to make people conform to an entirely arbitrary standard.

And your moral is their immoral. Stalemate.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 12:29 AM on April 11, 2011

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