Sex & Journalism

Being currently submerged in a world of academia, it only seems natural to address the topic of titillating teachers.  Time and time again we hear about them. On the weekdays, they profess. On the weekends, they pose - for anything from automotive calendars to spreads in Penthouse. The duality of their lives often create controversy at the least, if not a whole new job opening at the school they taught at. The question is: is this a deserved dispute?

One may immediately think that if a woman is modeling her bare… um… class… then she has no place in a wholesome environment. She should be a safe and straight-laced instructor who will commit herself to guiding young and malleable minds to a life of intellectual and social superiority.  To keep these young people on the right path, she must not cause any distraction. Therefore, she must absolutely not possess any identifiable sexuality at all.

One may also consider just how many 8 year olds are flipping through the pages of Hustler or scouring the internet searching with hopeful determination to find their homeroom teacher in a blue movie? Probably not many. When I was 8, I was looking through the pages of my kids encyclopedia (it had pretty pictures of plants and birds and things) and scouring my toy box for my Barbies. Sex? I had heard of it before, and wasn’t really interested in knowing about it. It was just another weird thing that adults did. I could not have cared less about the odd practices of adults. One may also contemplate why it is assumed that because a woman looks good naked she is supposed to be incapable of grooming the brains of babes. Does her choosing to supplement her income or take advantage of her desirable physical assets  somehow nullify her credentials as a teacher? Unless she is showing up to class in her skivvies or having open discussions with her students about the last Playboy mansion party, how should her activities outside of the classroom effect what happens inside? Why would it be assumed that someone less sexual would make a better teacher? Do we honestly believe that just because an instructor doesn’t “get caught” mean that they are somehow a more proficient professor? The person who does not get caught could very well be an alcoholic, a moonlighting stripper, heavily medicated for bi-polar disorder, or a bar-hopping bisexual hoochie mamma with a penchant for unprotected anal sex. Is that not potentially worse than a woman who occasionally poses for men’s magazines (that presumably, young people aren’t getting a hold of)?

If I had young children, I would certainly not want to pick them up from school and learn that in P.E that day, the coach taught pole dancing, or that in show-and-tell, their instructor displayed to them the difference between La Perla and Victoria’s Secret. This would bother me tremendously. But this is hardly what’s happening. So why exactly is this a controversy at all?

I am highly disappointed in the standards for what society refers to as a “scandal” these days. I see nothing scandalous happening here.

That being said, if you’d like to take a read about primary school teacher Rachel Whitell, one of the newest pedagogue-provocateuse to make a buzz, you can find her here:

Hot For Teacher

or here:

Intellectual Stimulation

But to actually see her photos, you’ll have to get your curious hands on an Aussie version of Penthouse.

And now, back to the books!

Raquel~