Why are we forcing women to stay in sex work?

[SummerFeverVenice]

Primary school teacher was struck off for moonlighting as a sex worker. It all started with an anonymous letter outing her on the website she used to advertise. Selling sex in England and Wales is perfectly legal. This isn’t like she was selling class A drugs.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/primary-school-teacher-struck-off-after-anonymous-letter-exposed-her-as-1-600-a/

This has upset me as she should not have been struck off for something that is technically a legal side hustle. It is putting a scarlet letter on her and causing her to now be forced to do sex work under severe economic duress. She’s lost her entire career.

As a feminist, we should be encouraging women not to do or continue to do sex work if they have a better option to earn money, like teaching in a primary school. We shouldn’t be excluding sex workers from these jobs.

In my opinion, she should have been given a warning to cease and desist sex work or be moved into an admin position. It seems to me that her being struck off was punishing her for being a “whore” by dooming her to have no other option to survive than more sex work. It feels all very Victorian fallen womanish to me. The admin position is more a reluctant concession on my part towards prudish parents who get up in arms at the thought of their child being taught their ABCs by a sex worker because they think immorality is contagious.

Which is strange because we all know that the upper class fathers were having sex with their children’s governesses and nannies and these children all turned out to be pillars of the community, some even went on to be ordained archbishops.

You can debate what you think society’s morals should be, but that doesn’t mean you can change them.

I might be a nudist and think that teaching naked is perfectly reasonable, but that doesn’t mean i won’t get sacked for it. Or I might even wear clothes to teach but have a poorly locked down social media page with naked pics. Again, nothing immoral about nudity per se but if parents and children at school see this, I would have got sacked.

Sexual morality is a weird thing. Theoretically, anything adults do in private should be fine but, in reality, you will get judged for it.

’Hi sir, did you have a good weekend?’

’Yes, went dogging with my wife’

’Oh, what kind of dog do you have’

’No, my wife and I parked up and started having sex in the car; others watched and then joined in. Lots of adults like that sort of thing’

’Oh cool, Sir, have a great day’

It just wouldn’t go down like that. And there is little different between that and having it easily discoverable on the internet.

Prostitution is a choice, yes, but we are bringing in a moral perspective to condemn it. In any ancient religious texts homosexuality and prostitution exist in a the same paragraph as sins. Haven't we moved on?

Ultimately in a liberal society both being gay and a prostitute are legal and to start drawing lines about what we feel is morally right and wrong in sexual behaviour is a slippery slope.

Just because we feel personally something is morally repugnant doesn't mean there has to be sanction against the behaviour of it is legal.

I think the line is that if a teacher commits a crime dismissal is entirely appropriate but if the underlying offensive behaviour was legal then we really have to think should there be devastating professional consequences?

Why are we forcing women to stay in sex work?

I think the title is a joke. She isn't a slave. It all came down to choices.

Prostitution isn't always a choice, some women are trafficked or forced into it through a pimp or abusive boyfriend. Some also feel forced into it through poverty or drug addiction.

Prostitution is legal to a certain extent. It's not legal to work in a brothel, to solicit sex on the street or to advertise sexual services. This teacher was advertising her sexual services on a website.

As others have pointed out, had she kept her activities private, then nothing would have happened. However she posted videos of herself having sex and advertised her sexual services on a website. She therefore violated her teaching code of conduct.

Hopefully she wasn’t forced into prostitution through drug addiction! If she was then that is another reason she isn’t suitable as a teacher. In the end teaching is about standing up in front of a class of kids and having a decent enough reputation so they will respect you and (hopefully) behave. You can’t have them sniggering over your sex pics at the back.

I think it's absolutely fine to consider moral values about prostitution when we are talking about someone who works with children.

It's a choice she made. It's pretty clear you can't be a teacher and a prostitute so she made a choice knowing that it was not morally acceptable to literally anyone apart from her.

Id be equally unbothered if a male teacher who solicited prostitutes or worked as one publicly also lost his job.

Engage in prostitution = can't work with children is a perfectly fine and necessary boundary in my book.

If a teacher enjoyed dogging that is a sexual preference and we all have our private lives.

Key word there: private. Once you’ve shared, or put yourself in a position where it’s easy for others to share, videos of yourself online having sex, you’ve somewhat negated the concept of privacy.

I don’t buy into the view that the professional body are forcing her now into sex work. She made the choice to jeopardise her career by engaging in sex work and making publicly available images/videos of her having sex. She will have know what the consequences would be if it came out - she is in a profession where to be able to practice she has to sign up to the code of conduct. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

So it’s OK for 6 year olds to be taught by someone by a prostitue her puts her stuff online?🤮🤮

No thanks.

End of debate as far as I'm concerned. You have at it. It does no women any good to conflate the general ethics of sex work and prostitution with the regulated ethics of professional conduct in a regulated profession. It's shocking really that you would think sex work and teaching compatible.

No, if a male teacher was seeing a prodtitue and it came to light then they would be sacked too. Yeah l find men who use prostitues pretty grim.

But there’s nothing ‘prudish’ about not wanting someone selling blowjobs to be teaching little children. You are almost as judgemental as a man using the word ‘frigid’

She broke the teaching standards. She lost are job. End of. Are you saying it’s OK?

Ethics 101: false equivalence : where someone takes two totally different things and argues from a false premise that they are the same.

Being gay and being a prostitute are not the same. It is surprising this needs explaining.

@mids2019

You said:

I think the line is that if a teacher commits a crime dismissal is entirely appropriate but if the underlying offensive behaviour was legal then we really have to think should there be devastating professional consequences?

This is however literally how professional regulation works. People are routinely sanctioned for non criminal behaviour that breaches professional standards. It's true in every regulated profession.

I completely agree with you OP, we basically accept that everyone including under 18s is looking at porn and all turn a blind eye but then punish a woman in this situation more than we would an actual convicted criminal. She would have been better off assaulting a child as probably could have got away with that or just accepted additional training.

She was treated exactly as the teaching standards dictate. A man would be treated the same way.

Every single year we had a huge lecture on how to protect ourselves online when we returned to the Autumn term. And the consequences if we didn’t.

Stop making excuses for her. She broke about every rule you can in safeguarding . A male teacher would have been treated the same.

Please explain how she broke every rule in safeguarding given that children were not in away involved? What if she was on a hook up site, would she also deserve to be struck off for that?

I reported to my employee my additional work activities and it was obvious from their reaction that no one really bothers doing it. I know people in my place of work who are privately tutoring students outside school undeclared. I very much doubt they would be struck off for that even though it’s not allowed by their contract and arguably has safeguarding risks.

im not saying what she did was ok, it wasn’t and she deserved a sanction but this was harsh and sexist imo.

Plenty of teachers have side hustles. Most schools are OK with it.

How did she break safeguarding? By putting her activities online in the public domain. Who wants their kids taught by someone who sells sex? How is this a good role model?

A man would have been treated the same.

I think you do have to accept that the selling of sex as a basis of professional misconduct though legitimate still is based on a moral attitude to the selling of sex.

Is the sanction of ending employment due to the teacher not having the integrity to continue to teach a class or is it primarily due to the community moral judgment that the selling of sex is so abhorrent that anyone indulging in this activity no longer deserves a job in a public facing role.

You might not like prostitution but the question is whether a teacher should be permanently excluded from a profession no matter when these activities occured or are ongoing.

It seems that engaging in any activity like Only Fans at any point in your life is going to be used as a de facto ban from a number of orofessiona.

Isn't this stigmatising woman primarily punishing them professionally for morally questionable though legal activities? The men who use the services face no sanction in reality.

I think there is a point about teachers being on tinder for example. Would parents view this dimly? Should a promiscuous teacher be highlighted for not being a role model (though cash is not involved?)

Itgink part of the problem is the permanence of internet videos that may act as a barrier to employment for many young women. This seems a disproportionate punishment for possibly ill judged life choices at a point in life.

I fully agree it was the wrong approach. I can understand the conflict between the two, and you'd hope most would endeavour to do it anonymously, but I guess it came out. But yeah, they should've said, I'm sorry but you'll have to pick one. Even that is harsh, it's not like children should be able to view or have access to the teachers sex work profile.
I remember a rumour going round that a supply teacher in my school was in a porno. A kid brought in a VHS and played it to the class, a guy who looked a bit like the teacher?! You didn't see much as it was like softcore. But the teacher was never seen again. It may not have even been him? Bit different I know.
But at the most they could have fired her from that school, and she could go work at another one. Not ruin her whole career.

I'm sure if a male teacher filmed himself having sex with sex workers and live streamed it, he'd get sacked.

I don't know why you're so keen for sex work to be seen as acceptable. Many sex workers are raped and sexually abused and come from abusive backgrounds. Sex workers are often traumatized by their experiences.

You'll be suggesting next that it's a viable career choice and there should be a stall at careers fairs.

She’s not forced to stay in sex work, she can get a different job. Just not as a teacher where she is in a position of influence over impressionable young people. Professions have certain standards of acceptable behaviour and she would have known this but still decided to carry out sex work on the side anyway which shows a lack of professional judgement and has resulted in her losing her job.

Well unless she posted it everywhere no one would know. And there’s a difference between promiscuity and being a prostitute.

All teachers have to be careful of their private lives. It goes with the job. I dunno know why anyone would think it’s ok for a teacher to be a prostitite.

She must be very short on brain cells to behave this way. The 2 jobs are not compatible.

She didn’t have to show her face
plenty of escorts / sex workers webcamers don’t ever show their faces .

She could have blurred / hid her face with hair
there are plenty of video editing apps that she could have blurred her face with or hid her face with a mask .

you don’t need a degree to understand that while what she was doing was legal but against her contract and if she didn’t understand that then she is pretty thick

just for being that bloody stupid in showing her face she deserves to lose her job

But I do feel sorry for her

lol at this lunatic thread. This woman has appalling judgement but would have known she was breaching the terms of her employment. I want my kids’ teachers to be role models for them. In real life, nobody wants their kids taught by a hooker who posts videos of themself having sex. ‘Sex work’ may be legal but the message to girls & boys is that women they are objects to be bought and sold. And no of course it’s not sexist. Any man doing something similar would also be fired. I’m only shocked that her suspension is for just five years.